Thomas D. Elias: Should tax-exempt churches, agencies donate to state props?

The blizzard has begun. It soon will be all but impossible to turn on a television without seeing commercials for and against one or more of the 12 propositions on November's California ballot.

Most money paying for the ads comes from people and organizations with an unquestioned right to provide it. But some originates with sources that enjoy tax exemptions and other privileges.

Two initiatives with millions of dollars from such sources backing either the yes or no campaigns are Proposition 2 and 8, one seeking to upgrade the treatment of egg-laying chickens, veal calves and other food animals, the other to take away from gays their newly-granted right to marry.

The question of whether churches or religious organizations should kick in or "encourage" their members to donate for or against ballot measures also arose eight years ago, the last time voters considered a gay marriage ban.

At that time, both the Mormon Church of Latter Day Saints and the Roman Catholic church strongly backed Proposition 22, the language of which was identical to today's Proposition 8. So it's no surprise they are both again supporting a gay marriage ban, along with many other churches.

But there are some differences this time. For one thing, Roman Catholic funding for the measure now comes not from the church itself, but from its Knights of Columbus fraternal order.

Eight years ago, the LDS church spent exactly $52.47 mailing a letter to all its California congregations instructing leaders to urge member contributions to the campaign. The Mormons have spent about the same this time.

"We're not worried about our ta x status," LDS Elder Douglas Callister, a member of the church's Second Quorum of the Seventy and a California lawyer, said eight years ago. "There is no prohibition on a church becoming involved in an insubstantial way in an issue that is central to the religion."

He was right. Tax laws allow small material and monetary contributions by churches on religiously-related political issues.

Of course, the Mormon urgings can also produce a backlash. One example came in July, when Brian Bastian, a Utah-based co-founder of the WordPerfect software company, wrote a $1 million check to the no-on-8 side.

But "insubstantial" scarcely described this year's $1 million-plus contributions to the Yes-on-8 Protect Marriage committee from the Knights of Columbus, a 1.7 million member Catholic fraternal organization.

Unlike Bastian, who must pay income taxes, the Knights are tax-exempt. Donations to the group, however, only enjoy that status legally if they're used for religious and other charitable purposes. Donations used for political causes might not be tax exempt. One question: How to tell which donations to the Knights went to Proposition 8 and which did not?

No one has yet stepped forward to demand either an answer to that question or that the Internal Revenue Service strip the Knights of part or all of their tax exempt status, but such an effort would logically come after the election, when final donation totals are known.

Meanwhile, another question troubles opponents of Proposition 2. Should the government-linked American Egg Board be allowed to contribute money to the No-on-2 campaign, the campaign committee for which calls itself Californians for Safe Food?

The egg board, a federal commodity program linked to the Department of Agriculture, gets its money via compulsory checkoffs from egg producers. The department last summer approved an egg board ad campaign against the initiative.

How fair is it to proponents of Proposition 2's goal of phasing out battery cages for laying hens and getting rid of veal crates when their opposition gets money from an agency that, in effect, collects taxes as a wing of the government?

Said Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the U.S., a major Proposition 2 backer, "Agribusiness firms are already spending billions to defeat Proposition 2, and they hardly needed an illegal infusion of check-off funds authorized by the USDA..."

The egg board ad campaign was delayed when the Yes-on-2 side filed a lawsuit in protest. That one has yet to be decided.

The upshot is that, as usual ,California initiatives are raising questions far beyond the issues directly involved. By delving into the arcane world of relations between church and state and semi-governmental organizations, these propositions may help determine what's legal - or not - for many years to come.

Thomas D. Elias writes on California politics and other issues. His column appears Tuesdays. E-mail him at tdelias@aol.com.