Pestered Prop 8 donors file suit

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By Valerie Richardson

After giving $10,000 to California's Proposition 8 campaign last year, Charles LiMandri began receiving some unexpected correspondence.

"I got about two dozen e-mails and hate phone calls," said Mr. LiMandri, who lives in San Diego. "They were calling me Nazi, homophobe, bigot. I tried to engage people once or twice - I said that Proposition 8 had nothing to do with being bigoted, it was about preserving marriage - but people don't want to engage on the issue."

As a lawyer, however, Mr. LiMandri knew what to do with the e-mails.

"I collected them and turned them in to the lawsuit," he said.

Those e-mails are now among hundreds of exhibits in a landmark case challenging California's campaign-finance reporting rules, which require the release of the names, addresses and employers of those who contribute $100 or more to ballot-measure committees.

The lawsuit argues that those who contribute to traditional-marriage initiatives should be exempt from having their names disclosed, citing the widespread harassment and intimidation of donors to the Proposition 8 campaign.

Proposition 8, which stated that California would recognize marriage only between a man and a woman, was approved 52 percent to 48 percent in November. The initiative overturned a California Supreme Court decision in May declaring that the state's marriage definition unconstitutionally discriminated against gays.

Intimidation tactics range from letters and e-mails to death threats, proponents say. A Sacramento theater director was fired after opponents of the initiative publicized his Proposition 8 campaign contributions.

"Anybody who's in California knows that it's very widespread," said Brian Brown, executive director of the National Organization for Marriage, one of the biggest contributors to Proposition 8 and a joint plaintiff in the lawsuit. "Every donor has a story. I talked to a $100 donor the other day who had a note in his mailbox that said, 'I know where you live and you're going to pay.'

"These are just hardworking people who believe marriage is a union of a man and a woman and who never expected to be threatened in their homes," Mr. Brown said.