Rules are for somebody else

They keep wanting to change the rules to fit their own needs.

Not content with working to un-marry the 18000 LGBT people who got married in California, supporters of Prop. 8 now want to get rid of campaign finance disclosure laws that make public the names of donors to campaigns.

Proponents of a ballot measure that banned same-sex marriage filed a lawsuit in federal court in Sacramento this week seeking to overturn state campaign finance laws that require that names and personal information of donors to California political campaigns be made public.

They claimed that donors to Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in California after one of the most heated campaigns in recent memory, have been the victims of threats and harassment because their support for the ban was made public.

“This harassment is made possible because of California’s unconstitutional campaign finance disclosure rules as applied to ballot measure committees where even donors of as little as $100 must have their names, home addresses and employers listed on public documents,” Ron Prentice, head of the Protect Marriage Coalition, said in a statement.

L.A. Times, January 8 2009

Yes, the law does require that when people engage in the very public speech that is an election campaign, they have to come clean publicly about who they are. If folks want to go off by themselves and talk about their opinions, fine -- they can be private about who is involved. But when they want to impose their opinions on their fellow citizens, they have to come out into view. Those are the rules.

And yes, that means they will be publicly criticized.

The Prop. 8 folks don't like the rules -- they guess they'll try to change them to suit themselves. Isn't that what they did in November?