New campaign filings released Monday revealed that supporters and opponents of California's same-sex marriage ban funneled more than $28 million into the battle during its final weeks, according to the Associated Press.The final numbers show that the campaign to defeat Proposition 8 and keep same-sex marriage legal amassed about $43.3 million, while those who successfully pushed to strip same-sex couples of the right to marry raised $39.9 million.
The antigay measure, by far the priciest social-issue campaign in the nation's history, ultimately passed with 52% of the vote last November.
According to records, the Democratic State Central Committee spent more than $350,000 to defeat the ballot measure. San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi each directed $20,000 from their personal campaign committees to the No on 8 campaign.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints put about $190,000 worth of in-kind donations toward passing the measure by providing paid staffers and other resources to Yes on 8 as well as subsidizing travel costs of church officials. The Mormon Church initially said that it had only spent $2,000 on the campaign.
The church said it did not make direct donations to the Yes on 8 campaign, although its membership is believed to have contributed an estimated $23 million in total donations to the campaign.
The new report also details previously unreleased contributions of about 530 minor and late donors to the same-sex marriage ban. The initiative's sponsors had tried to block disclosure of the final records, arguing in court that other donors had been harassed and even threatened after their identities became publicly known. But last week a federal judge ruled that all donations must be made open to the public.
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