Church issues Prop 8 rebuttal to news reports

The LDS Church issued a statement Monday that is repeated below in its entirety. The original presentation of the statement is posted on LDS.org/Newsroom.

Today The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints clarified erroneous news

reports following the filing of its final report on donations to the

ProtectMarriage.com coalition.On Friday, 30 January, the Church filed

the final report of its contributions (all of which were non-monetary) to the

ProtectMarriage.com coalition. The report, submitted in advance of the 31

January deadline, details in-kind donations totaling $189,903.58.

The value of the Church's in-kind

(non-monetary) contribution is less than one half of one percent of the total

funds (approximately $40 million) raised for the "Yes on 8" campaign. The Church

did not make any cash contribution.

Because media coverage about this filing

ran without a comment from the Church, the following statements of fact from the

Church add context to this story and should help correct the record:

Fox13 (Utah):

"The documents show the amount spent by the Mormon Church is greater than

what was initially stated."

Fact: The Church, like other

organizations on both sides of the ballot issue, was required to publicly file

these donations by the 31 January deadline. The Church has been filing required

contribution reports throughout the campaign. Those earlier donations "initially

stated" were filed for specific time periods prior to this last reporting

period, as required by law. Other groups are also filing their final

contribution reports to meet the same deadline.

San Francisco Chronicle

: "Mormon church officials, facing an ongoing investigation