Hate mail?

I'm an obscure Mormon housewife in Nevada.

And I'm getting hate mail because I expressed my opinion that Mormons shouldn't be targeted (nor should Utahns) for being part of the majority on the Proposition 8 vote in California.

I have no problem with people feeling strongly about it. But I don't think I, personally, should be equated with the KKK or any other like thing.

Some stats for you. According to info I found online, only 2% of California's entire population are LDS (which is, apparently, around 770,000 Mormons there). Assuming that all of them were of voting age, all of them voted, and all of them were in favor of Proposition 8 (none of which are true), that still leaves 4,898,960 people who aren't Mormon who voted in favor of Proposition 8. If you eliminated all the Mormons who are children (and there are usually a lot in any population of Mormons), all who were against Proposition 8 (I have no way to determine what this number would be), all who just didn't vote...the Mormon vote probably didn't even make a difference. The difference between the fors and againsts was less than 500,000 votes--there weren't enough Mormons involved to really tip the scale, now, were there?

So why are we targeting Mormons? Why is the former Mayor of Salt Lake City picketing the Temple in Salt Lake?

Why is an obscure pregnant housewife in Nevada getting hate mail?

Now I have to decide what to do about it--post the comments because I believe in letting people have their say and letting people expose themselves as idiots, or deleting the comments (since this is a moderated blog....) and not opening the door to being flooded with hate mail that I don't want to deal with?

Note, from later:

I have since gotten some nice comments explaining the logic of why they target Mormons and also apologizing for whoever is sending hate mail. I'm still on the fence about posting comments, so that's why the nice ones aren't up yet either. This is my comment about it, though:

Apparently Mormons have been targeted because someone has spread the lie that the Church itself donated $20 million dollars to the Yes on Proposition 8 cause. Members of the church probably did donate that much out of their own resources, but the church as an institution most certainly did not--it would be against the law. Members of the church also donated a significant amount of time in the cause, and the opponents to Proposition 8 believe it would not have passed had the Mormons not invested that much money in the cause.

This is a pacifying explanation for a bunch of angry, hurt people who want someone to blame, but it is not really valid unless you honestly believe that all people vote with the money, not with their beliefs. Now, it may be true that Obama won the election because he had more money to put into it, and the Proposition 8 passed for the same reason. If so, it reflects extremely poorly on all the people who voted because it means they voted purely based on money and propaganda, not on their thoughts and feelings on the issues.

I seriously doubt all the conservative people in California voted not with their beliefs, but because someone either bought them out or manipulated them. Just because someone disagrees with you doesn't mean they're dumb, selfish, intolerant, or manipulated by cash.

Further, if the Mormon people, of their own free will, spent $20 million for Proposition 8, and the total spent on both sides was $75 million--we're still not accounting for the majority of the money spent on the campaign, nor even identifying which side of the issue spent more money, further weakening the argument that the "Mormons did it to us!"

I still think it's bigotry that causes people to figure they can take their pain and anger out on any other group of people.

As for the other argument I keep hearing: "You should have realized this would happen before you spoke against us..." That's just plain bullying. People not only have the right to voice their opinions and vote in this country, it's a duty and obligation, and it should not be met with hate and bullying, even if it hurts to lose.

The funniest thing to me is that I have been targeted purely because I'm Mormon. I'd say that's the height of prejudiced behavior. I don't live in California, so I wasn't part of that vote. I had no money to give, so I personally didn't donate. I have no time, so I didn't donate that way either. I didn't email friends or neighbors, or put signs in my yard, or even speak a word to my own husband about the issue before the vote. Nobody has even bothered to ask where I stand on the issues or which way I would have voted had I the chance. I am being attacked purely for my religion--and that's just the same as being attacked for my race or my sexual orientation, isn't it?

addendum: Some stats (from here: http://www.deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,705262228,00.html?pg=2)

"LDS Church members undertook a perhaps unprecedented mobilization, contributing an estimated 40 percent of the individual donations made to the Yes on 8's $30 million-plus campaign. Yet the Salt Lake-based church, which did not contribute directly to the campaign, sees its involvement in politics as unusual."

So the 'nos' actually had a bigger budget! So much for their accusations that Mormons caused the yesses to win by paying for it.

"Exit polls show that religious views had a profound effect on the result, spanning racial lines: 84 percent of those who attend church weekly voted yes; 81 percent of white evangelicals voted yes; 65 percent of white Protestants voted yes; 64 percent of Catholics voted yes. Catholics accounted for 30 percent of all voters."

Mormon numbers were just too small to make a difference in terms of votes, it looks like, although I realize every vote does count.