Dobson’s Focus on the Family Out-Hates the Mormons

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Guess who is just as bad (and possibly worse) than intolerant, fundamentalist Mormons? Intolerant, fundamentalist Christians. The Colorado Independent has the story:

Colorado Springs-based Focus on the Family gave $727,250 in cash and services to the anti-gay marriage Proposition 8 campaign in California, according to records released by the California secretary of state, including a $100,000 check in late October, just days before the evangelical media empire announced it planned to lay off nearly 20 percent of its employees.

While there has been public scrutiny of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for its attempts to influence the campaign to reverse a California Supreme Court ruling allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry, Focus on the Family and related donors pumped more than six times as much as the Mormon church did into the ProtectMarriage.com campaign, records show.

In sum, the Independent reports, Focus on the Family and its sister groups gave a stunning $1.25 million to the Yes on 8 movement, including $50,000 in seed money a year before the election. It is worth noting that the largest benefactor supporting Proposition 8 was not Focus on the Family. It was the Knights of Columbus, the Connecticut-based political arm of the Catholic Church.

For more on where the Christian Right is taking the country, see our cover package “God and Country.”

Fact:

Mother Jones was founded as a nonprofit in 1976 because we knew corporations and billionaires wouldn't fund the type of hard-hitting journalism we set out to do.

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2024 demands.

payment methods

Fact:

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2024 demands.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate