Although the name Stephenie Meyer does not appear in the public records of Prop 8 donors, the hugely successful Twilight scribe is, “word has it,” “currently being looked into” by the New York Times for allegedly funneling cash to the anti-gay cause. Meyer, whose family is Mormon, is an easy target for anti-gay claims: she makes a shit ton of money and belongs to a religious institution where 10 percent of that income is expected to be donated, according to tithing custom. And after this weekend’s blockbuster take of $140+ million, which is the revenue from which Meyer is paid for her book’s movie rights, the possibility of the scribe endorsing discrimination becomes all the more relevant.
Indeed, Meyer is an Arizona resident, which means any money she may have provided the Mormon Church could have been “laundered” through LDS’s own donation structure. But thus far, we cannot find any report with Meyer on record supporting or disavowing Prop 8. It is understood, however, that she donates money to the Mormon Church, and thus there’s the logical custody chain that her Twilight success benefited Prop 8 supporters.
Which begs the question: How many of you went to see The Twilight Saga: New Moon?
wondermann
Twilight is horrible, an insult to geeks
Mike L.
Never seen either of the films, never baught one of her books. What I’ll do is prolly buy her books at a used books store or yard sale so the money doens’t go directly to her, as well as the movies, pawnshop movies are cheap and I’ve never had one go bad on me.
Lol.
I should prbably start doing the same with other authors/artists and stuff.
Mike L.
LOL Wonderman.
As I said I’ve never had the (dis)pleasure to see for myself so I’ll have to in the future and make a decision myslef. As should others.
William Day
Well, I won’t see it because i consider her to be a God-awful writer, but I’m not sure we should jump down her throat for political reasons just yet. She may be a Mormon, but we have no real idea how devout she is, whether she follows all the laws ect, ect. Lets’ wait and see.
rf
Apparently peddling soft core porn to 12 year old girls is A-OK.
Adrienne
Tithings made to the Mormon church by their members did not, can not, go towards prop 8 or other gay marriage campaigns. The church DID encourage their members to individually donate to the campaign, alas Stephanie Meyer was NOT one of them. Otherwise, as the post states, her name would be in public records of supporting and donating to prop 8. I find it highly dangerous for the gay community to make war with all things Mormon. Common ground will not be found by boycotting every little thing that seems against us, even when it is not.
William Day
(Applauds Adrienne)
FakeName
Adrienne, you’re being rather naive. While the LDS church itself may be barred from donating directly to the anti-marriage groups, individual LDS congregations and employees still used church resources to deliver the message to the faithful. Tithing pays for the buildings and the salaries of the people disseminating the anti-marriage message from the pulpits, it pays for the “say everything except ‘donate to Prop 8′” literature that goes out, it pays for the “encouragement” to individual members to donate that you noted, it pays for the salaries of the lawyers hired to defend Prop 8, etc. “Oh, we don’t know for SURE that Meyer tithes” sounds like an apologist response from people who want to go see the Twilight boys with no shirts on. I’ve seen them on the Internet and have no reason to believe their pale underage selves would be any more interesting if they were actually moving and speaking (and in many cases, probably less so).
Adrienne
I don’t feel I am being naive, FakeName…
I am aware of the fact that Mormon money pays for the “encouragement” to individuals to donate. However, it is up to each and every one of those individuals to choose for themselves what is right to them. The tone of this article comes off as rather discriminating to the LDS church. Yes, there are anti-gay Mormons. But I also sat in a PFLAG meeting with my gay friend and his Mormon family a few months back, who were there to understand his sexuality and accept it. I think promoting members of the gay community to boycott a franchise based on the assumption that a single woman pays her tithings at all is highly ignorant, to be honest. The fact is, few of us work to understand the many differences in each and every lifestyle, and Stephanie Meyers, until proven otherwise, is not a “gay hater”. In fact, She may just be a supporter. I feel we are working against ourselves in promoting agendas such as this on an assumption.
Adrienne
And for your information… I DO boycott businesses, individuals that have made donations to the Prop 8 campaign. This however, strikes me as ignorant and quick to the chase.
BradK
So the LDS church has a major problem with LGBT civil rights, yet has no issue with its members producing hyper-sexualized fiction about the undead aimed at the tweener market? I guess so long as they get their percentage, all is forgiven.
FakeName
Adrienne sez: “I am aware of the fact that Mormon money pays for the “encouragement” to individuals to donate. However, it is up to each and every one of those individuals to choose for themselves what is right to them.”
Um, of course it’s up to individuals to decide to go along with the church’s anti-gay encouragement. That fact has no bearing on my point, which is that it’s church money raised by tithing that pays for that encouragement. It’s good that your Mormon friend’s parents are trying to understand their child’s sexuality. I wonder how much easier that understanding would come had they not been subjected to anti-gay propaganda paid for with tithings? You are right that we don’t know for sure if Mayer tithes, but what do you suppose the chances are that the Mormons don’t have their claws sunk into her revenue streams? Even if she doesn’t tithe, has she spoken up one way or the other on her church’s propaganda campaign? If nothing else, this at least gets people thinking before making decisions about where to spend their gay dollars, maybe gets people thinking about the issues around LGBT issues and the Mormons and maybe gets Mayer thinking about it too.
Dr. Dwight
The Mormon church IS under official investigation by the IRS for donating money to the prop 8 campaign in California, FACT! They merely skirted the rules by making no record of the donations, or filtering them through their parishioners.
But I assure you, they made large contributions. The question is should you hold this woman accountable because of her affiliation to the Church? How many of you still purchase gasoline? The money you pay for it goes to organizations found in countries that consider gay rights to be party jokes. As a homosexual I assure you not seeing her movie wont do much more than maintain brain cells from horrid writing styles geared at preteens and unintellectual individuals.
This issues has become more prevalent over the past several year and a huge outcry is being heard for the reform of IRS guidelines, due to the large amount of 501(c)(3) tax exempt organizations that have falsified their ledgers.
If you suspect any charity of fraud, or of making ANY type of political contributions then the following form http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f5768.pdf
is a request for the IRS to investigate and possibly revoke their tax exemption status
*J_C*
fell asleep when i rented the first movie twice, i gave it 2 chances, its a no go ill stick to my geeky harry potter and the pics of danial radcliff on that play about a horse, you know, the one where he has more hair then you ever though harry potter had lol its not illegal if i was the same age he was when i thought he was cute and all the things i wanted to do to him lol
AlwaysGay
Don’t buy anything from mormon adherents, they are hateful. I never seen anything relating to this person’s work and never will.
Dandy
I have no intrest in this bullshit.
alan brickman
At least 14 million will go to denying your rights..why don’t you tell “her” about it??….
Ali
I feel like this is unfair… I hate the Twilight books/movies but we have no idea what this woman’s position is on gay marriage, gay people, or anything. The Catholic Church donated heavily to defeat marriage in Maine, but Queerty isn’t doing anti-Catholic witch hunts. This smacks of anti-religious prejudice – and two wrongs don’t make a right. There are many Mormons who are genuinely good people who have no bigotry, many more who I’m sure will change their minds in time (like they did with black people) and unfortunately, there is a church hierarchy that is about 100 years behind the times on every social issue. Is this snide targeting of individuals the way to right that? No.
Let’s not make it harder for Mormons to be our friends (or for Mormons to be gay) by making our struggle for equal rights a war with their faith. People usually don’t choose whether they believe in a religion, just as people don’t choose to be gay. And both of those social classifications should be free of discrimination. Please.
damon459
what’s with the site blaming the mormons for prop 8 yes they were part of it but what about every other group the catholics spent more money then the mormons yet I don’t see them being hated on nearly as much. I myself follow my tradition native american religion as does my family on my fathers side, however most of my mothers family is catholic and I even have a brother in law who is mormon though my sister didn’t convert and her children are baptized catholic at yet not one of them is against the idea of me marring the person I love regardless of their sex as to twilight and Stephenie Meyer I have yet to see anyone prove she gives 10% of her earnings and the mormon owned bookstores won’t even carry twilight on the shelves it must be ordered because they don’t want to endorse the story so before we burn someone at the stake lets at least be sure he/she is guilty of being anti-gay. If we boycott everything linked to someone anti-gay we’ll all being living in the woods by ourselves with stone tools and huts.
bruce
Well if you’re going to go after Stephenie, why don’t you also go after Catholics who put money into the donation plate every Sunday? Every Catholic actor or director should be held up to the light, don’t you think? And what about Baptists like Dolly Parton? At least I think she’s a Baptist.
Bottom line is this: I’ve never heard Stephenie oppose gay marriage. Nuff said.
simon
Give Stephenie a break. I’ve not heard anything derogatory from her about gay people. Her family might be Mormon but that doesn’t mean that she is. Even if she were, I’ve not seen one shred of evidence that she is devout or follows their harsh line.
Peter
Oh sweet Buddha of the swamp….I love the big illogical jumps in thought and rationalization that you have made, David. She has made no known public opinion of her stance on gay marriage and yet just because she’s of a certain religion you lump her in with everyone else. Sure…keep telling yourself that this isn’t an activist site and then come back and re-read this…
Francis
I have no qualms stopping support to anyone or anything that helps to promote bigotry, either thru their action or with their money. But, I also do not agree in witch hunts. If you’re going to throw accusations at anyone, you better have some proof, or it’s your credibility that’s on the line.
TommyOC
Steve Young is Mormon and has probably donated to his church at some point or another in his football career.
But he’s staunchly pro-equality.
I’ve given money to churches before, with the idea that they will better the lives of their followers and of the less fortunate. If a fraction of my money went to anti-equality causes, I would never know. I wouldn’t want somebody to organize a boycott against me and my work simply because someone is trying to connect me by proxy to a cause I don’t support.
What you need to do is get the author on record about her position on the matter and whether she would endorse her personal funds to be used in that manner.
In many cases, a large-sum donor can specify how their money would be spent. I’m sure the Mormon’s wouldn’t mind taking a few million from a parishioner… even if they could only spend it on missionary work and infrastructure improvements.
MacH
Eh, I bought all the books and saw New Moon a couple of times already. Tween girls were going to make her $70 million anyway, I might as well go see it.
El Brucio
To the people who seem to be implying it’s hypocritical to just target the Mormons and not other groups like the Catholics – they are really quite different religions with different dynamics.
Mormons are far more organized, and your basic frontline Mormons are more likely to directly follow the urgings of church elders.
Catholics? In general (North America, not sure about other countries) they actively ignore, and even roll their eyes at the proclamations from the Pope. The Catholic church trying to get it’s members to do *anything* is much like herding cats.
Attmay
Catholics and Baptists don’t take 10% of your income off the top.
grant
I’ll watch the movie illegally on icefilms.info when it pops up. I’m never going to give her any of my money. I don’t trust her. Even if she says it isn’t true, I’ll never trust a Mormon.
TomTom
FakeName, for what it’s worth (which may not be much), the Mormon’s don’t pay any of their clergy. It’s a lay ministry.
Tobias
Stephanie Meyer may well be one of the few pro-gay Mormons. However, judging by the contents of her books, it’s highly unlikely. The entire Twilight series is thinly veiled Mormon propaganda, part of the reason it’s on the LDS list of “approved” books even with the highly sexualised aspects.
– “Vegetarian” vampires = abstinence
– “Evil” vampires = Catholic Church
– “Savage” werewolves = unclean Native Americans
And a host of other issues. If Meyer were simply another religious author I’d be willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. Unfortunately, that’s not the case.
Nicole
That was strange… I actually felt a tiny bit of respect to the author of the worst book series I have ever heard of.
Lily
Tobias, have you been reading Stone321? 🙂
http://stoney321.livejournal.com/317176.html
While some of the above in that link may be stretching it, SMeyer is a big Mo (and not in the hoMo sense) and you shouldn’t be fooled to think otherwise.
As for Mormons deciding for themselves whether or not to contribute, again- don’t fool yourself. They are told it is God’s work. Mormons believe their worthiness and their salvation is directly tied to their obedience to the word of the living prophet. While there are liberal mos who probably don’t agree, and don’t support the anti gay measures, they are not the majority.
It is my personal decision to not give my money to the morg in any way I can prevent. I don’t stay at Marriot hotels, I don’t make any purchases from Deseret, I even gave up on Great Harvest Bread Company- which was a big fave of mine. Can I avoid them all together? No, of course not. But when choosing where to give my entertainment $, it is NOT going to go to tripe like this.