Prop 8 and Suspended Corporations

What follows below is a rather boring post about the significance of a corporation being in a suspended status. Rather than research the group behind Protectmarriage.com any further, though, I will simply provide a link to Justin McLachlan's blog, which features excellent reporting on the subject.

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As a lawyer who frequently deals with charitable organizations, I thought I would check into the organization collecting donations and otherwise managing the Yes on 8 Campaign. So far, I have been extremely dissapointed with what I have found. For full disclosure, I have donated to the "protectmarriage.com - Yes on 8" organization and have organized precinct walking and other activites in my ward.

First things first - donors to the Yes on 8 campaign are asked to make their checks out to "protectmarriage.com". "Protectmarriage.com" is not a regular kind of legal entity in California, although it may be a registered election committee of some sort (I haven't checked this). I am unfamiliar with election laws and do not know what the legal status of such a committee would be.

A clue to the organization behind protectmarriage.com is in the campaign materials themselves, which state that protectmarriage.com in a project of California Renewal.

California Renewal is a recognized corporation in California, and is a registered with the California Attorney General's Office as a charitable organization. California Renewal is also recognized as a public charity and is listed on IRS publication 78 as a tax-exempt organization. (However, contributions to protectmarriage.com are not tax deductible because that is a political election activity.)

This is OK so far. However, the first warning sign is that California Renewal is currently suspended by the California Secretary of State. This means that it is not allowed to do business as an entity in California. The status can be checked at any time by searching for California Renewal at the Secretary of State's website.

Off the top of my head, I can think of two reasons why a corporation may be suspended in California: 1) failure to pay the annual state franchise tax; or 2) failure to file the biennual Statement of Information listing the current directors of the corporation. The annual franchise tax is $600 and the Statement of Information is only one page long. In other words, there is no excuse for continuing in a suspended status, unless you are truly an inactive organization and don't care about receiving a stream of notices from the Franchise Tax Board and Secretary of State.

I have formed and dissolved many corporations in California, both for profit and non-profit. I know from experience that having a suspended status is a serious hinderance to doing business and that it is technically illegal to hold yourself out as an organization while under suspension (although as a matter of enforcement, the state is understaffed in this area and real harm would have to be shown for there to be any consequence to doing business while under suspension).

I also know from experience that a suspension can be cleared within a matter of days by making the appropriate filing (1 page) or paying the franchise tax to the state. Literally, the Secretary of State's website is updated within days of the reason for suspension being removed. With that in mind, California Renewal has been suspended for at least the last 3 months prior to the date of this post, which is when I first checked its status.

I also know that having a suspended status would be a serious embarrassment to my non-profit clients and I work hard to avoid them being in this position. If any of my clients were to be suspended, I would immediately take steps to remediate the situation.

So why hasn't California Renewal fixed this - especially now that they are collecting millions of dollars, a significant percentage of which come from members of the church?

This is getting a little long, but I wanted to give some background on the legal standing of the organizations behind the Yes on 8 campaign and highlight why the ongoing suspension is so difficult to understand. In subsequent posts, I will discuss more serious problems with the management of the Yes on 8 campaign but, in the meantime, here is a preview:

The Orange County Register reports that the California Family Council, the sister organization with many of the same board members as California Renewal, spent 75% of the donations it received on salaries for its board members, and only 25% on program activities, from 2004-2006.

We Don't Know

I recently attended a funeral at an Episcopalian Church. During the homily, the priest said something like the following:

"We don't know where Bob is now, since that is a mystery to us. We can only have faith that he will enter into the Lord's rest and have repose with all of the saints."

The candid way in which uncertainty about the afterlife was admitted was somehow refreshing. I can't imagine our leaders saying "we don't know..." over the pulpit about much of anything. So I started wondering why this is and can think of a few possible reasons:

1. One of the key points of the Restoration is that truth has been restored in its fullness in the latter days. Admitting any uncertainty in doctrinal matters may be seen as undermining this core premise of the Restoration.

2. The clergy at mainline churches generally have extensive formal training and practice their calling on a full-time basis. Perhaps that makes them more secure in admitting ambiguity in doctrine (i.e since many of the laypersons can't really challenge them theologically). LDS leaders are put into their callings without much formal training, so admitting uncertainty in doctrinal matters may undermine their authority a little too much.

3. It is acceptable in our church (though I don't think in others) for leaders to suggest that personal revelation is the appropriate sphere for more speculative doctrines. It is probably easier for a leader to suggest that members pray about something themselves rather than admitting that they aren't sure about an issue.

Any others?

(Another post might address the interesting reasons why the public face of some mainline churches (let's say Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and some Lutherans and Methodists) seems to offer a message that is extremely light on doctrinal content.)

Marriage Update

I am expecting specific plans to come out sometime soon on how our ward/stake is going to implement formal support for the marriage proposal. So far, I've only heard that Elder Ballard is spearheading the effort and that California Stake Presidents are involved in conference calls.

My opinion on this whole matter lines up very well with Seth's here.

Kaimi (another Calfornia lawyer) has a good write-up here.

15 Minutes

I only caught the last 15 minutes of Gospel Doctrine today, but still made it in time for a couple of interesting discussions. For the record, interesting discussions are the exception rather than the rule in my ward. The text seemed to be Alma 13 or thereabouts.

First, the teacher suddenly asked whether we were supposed to "question" our leaders. I don't think this query was well-framed, but the answer was likely to be more interesting than simply "pray" or "read the scriptures". A sister I've never seen before raised her hand first - we are always supposed to question our leaders because they are just people and can easily lead us astray while holding on to their positions. A bishopric member's hand immediately shot up - our leaders are called for a reason and there is a hierarchy in place that should be consulted when somebody privately doesn't agree with a leader (i.e. ask the Stake President, etc.) Somehow this devolved into a discussion of the old chestnut about how "sustaining" our leaders actually means to actively help them. I suppose that's true enough, but this definition seems to be a convenient workaround to avoid discussing the uncomfortable step where we actually get to choose and publicly manifest whether we will assent to their leadership.

Second, the teacher entertained a long discussion of how we have complete free agency even though God already knows how things will turn out. Well, He has foreordained certain people to enact his plan but, in case they don't step up to the plate, He has back-up people in place. But He has complete foreknowledge of this anyway. At any rate, we can all agree that foreordination is a superior concept to predestination, which we definitely don't believe in. It occurs to me that a whole body of convoluted explanations have sprung up to reconcile some version of free will with the foreknowledge of God.

The good thing is that nobody had to bother with terms like "determinism" or "libertarian free will" to leave Gospel Doctrine feeling that all is right with the universe.

A Sign of Peace

In liturgical traditions, the Rite of Peace or Sign of Peace is performed just before the Eucharist (I have only experienced the Catholic and Episcopalian versions, so don't know how far this reaches into non-liturgical churches). The ostensible purpose is to bring a spirit of fellowship into the meeting before that fellowship is perfected in the Eucharist. In both of the versions I have experienced, after a short exhortation the celebrant asks the congregation to give a Sign of Peace, and basically you go in a circle and shake hands with everyone around you while saying "Peace be with you" or whatever you want.

There is a lot of talk in the bloggernacle about the relative merits of members loudly visiting with each other in the chapel before sacrament meeting begins and after it ends. I tend to come on the side of being for it because of the spirit of fellowship it can bring into the meeting.

But what about the people sitting in front of, behind and on either side who we don't chat with before the meeting? I perceive that we are in a different stage of life or socio-eceonomic class, I have reason to believe we wouldn't get along very well, or I am naturally shy, etc. What if there was a chance to offer a Sign of Peace to everyone around regardless of my own little cliques?

Marriage Amendment

In a few days I, as a member of the church in California, will be officially asked to actively support a ballot initiative to amend the state constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman.

My feelings on this subject are complex. I think there are good arguments on both sides. On balance, though, I think that my idea of good public policy on this issue lines up with my private morals enough to compel me to vote for the marriage amendment. I would really prefer a solution that involves the state disengaging from the concept of marriage, at least while the U.S. birthrate remains relatively high. I don't really want to discuss these arguments directly here.

I do want to highlight a number of concerns about the church taking official action to endorse the amendment. Most of these concerns relate to what I describe as negative externalities, or costs that are not taken into account, in officially asking the members to take action. I can also think of negative externalities of the church not taking official action but, since it is endorsing the amendment, here is a partial list of side-effects. These are generally culled from comments I've heard in GD over the past couple of weeks:

-The state is increasingly seen in church settings as the proper arbiter and enforcer of the morality of private, personal relationships. The problem with this is illustrated by asking why we don't seem to mind that a whole host of immoral behaviors, some which may be more destructive of traditional marriages than same-sex marriage, remain legal;

-The church's endorsement of this amendment is too easily conflated with a blanket endorsement of other conservative or republican-affiliated issues on which the church actually remains neutral (i.e. the smugness level with which certain far right political hotbuttons (i.e. anti-U.N., anti-global warming) are brought up in church increases);

-Since "the brethren have spoken," some members may have less of an interest or motivation in learning about the underlying legal and civic issues going into the proposed amendment, even though we are taught to educate ourselves about important political issues;

-Support for this amendment, and particularly the wording of the letter, is easily confused with the misleading "activist judge" rhetoric that already infects our national discourse;

-Support for this amendment seems to blur the important distinction between private morality and good public policy; and

-Official support for the amendment has already given ill-informed journalists and the like a springboard to publicly rehash the church's own spotty history with the whole concept of marriage.

Certainly I don't think that any or all of these reasons are necessarily sufficient to indicate that the church should not officially endorse the amendment. I trust that there are a great many positive things that could come from the church's involvement in this cause.

But personally, I can't help but feel a little unsettled when the church chooses to cast its pearls into the compromised and decidedly secular political pigpen.

The Great Shrine

Bishop Noda lowered his voice as the dishes were cleared one evening in his modest home - he had something important to tell us.

"Have you both been to the great shrine of Izumo?"

Indeed, we both had. He was referring to Izumo Taisha located in the next town over, reputedly the oldest extant Shinto shrine in Japan and the chief tourist attraction in this forgotten corner of the country. I had previously served in the town hosting the shrine and had been there several times.

"You know that inside the shrine are various secret symbols of the deity that few people have ever seen?"

Did I ever. Discovering the contents of the Holy of Holies of Shinto shrines had become a significant diversion for me as a missionary. Occasionally, I had some success at finding smaller roadside shrines with their doors left open, and one time I made my companion press through a crowd with me at a shrine festival to get the best possible view of the head priest heading into the Holy of Holies. Later, I studied Shinto obsessively and learned that the object standing in for the deity in most Shinto shrines was usually an old bronze mirror or, less often, and old sword or curved jade bead.

And I don't call it the Holy of Holies for nothing - similarities between the layout and function of Shinto shrines and the temple, specifically the ancient Hebrew tabernacle and temple, are striking and had a lot of currency among members and missionaries as a shadow of proof that the Japanese people were literally one of the ten lost tribes. (It only helps that anthropologists and linguists still can't offer much in the way of an explanation for the origin of the Japanese race or language.) A member of the 82nd generation of the Senge family, in an unbroken line, serves as the high priest of Izumo Taisha and only enters the Holy of Holies once or twice a year during certain festivals. And apparently, no one else ever does.

A tantalizing possibility appears in the writings of Lafcadio Hearn, an Irish-Greek-American who lived in this town in the 1880s and wrote extensively of what he saw. His slice-of-life portraits of painted geisha jostling with two-sworded samurai as they clickety-clack over curved wooden bridges, sculpted gardens and temples illuminated by rows of paper lanterns, and ghostly spirits rocking the foundations of the town's medieval castle illustrate the possibility that this was once a fully realized foreign world, before the successive waves of globalization took their toll. Hearn wrote a letter to the then-serving high priest of Izumo Taisha and, in return, received an invitation to visit its Holy of Holies. He described this experience in Chapter 8 of his most famous compilation, "Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan," where he noted that he was the first (and undoubtedly last) foreigner to ever be granted such a privilege. Ultimately, it appears that the image of the main deity was further enclosed in a shrine within the shrine which was not opened for him, but he still came fairly close.

"I once heard that the high priest of that shrine gave a talk and let a secret slip about the contents of the shrine...."

My curiosity was piqued.

"The priest said that one of the objects representing the deity is a stone with a Hebrew character inscribed on it. It was said to have been carried from a distant land where the Japanese race came from and enshrined here in Izumo by the clan that settled here. They researched lots of different writing systems and concluded that the character was definitely Hebrew."

And then it all made sense. It may or may not be the case that one of the oldest and largest shrines in Japan really contains an ancient and secret Hebrew inscription. More likely, it meant that the great shrine tangibly connected Bishop Noda and those he served in his small ward to something greater - the Gathering of Israel, the lost Ten Tribes. Who was I to tell him anything different?