The story I heard, from 2 practicing Mormons on different occasions, regarding monetary support for Prop 8 is…interesting.
They claimed that the church itself did not encourage/instruct the faithful to send money to support Prop 8. In fact, they both claimed that the church disapproves of making any sort of political recommendations from the pulpit. Rather, it merely encourages members to take political action that is in accordance with their faith and it is no surprise that many chose to support Prop 8.
They also both claimed that the LDS church gives money to certain Catholic charitable groups that help the poor and what-have-you, in regions where the LDS is not particularly prevalent. In this way, they do the most good, by not duplicating effort, much like Warren Buffet giving money to Bill Gate’s charity. Some of these Catholic groups are in California and they spent money on Prop 8 support, without the explicit approval of the Mormons.
I have no idea of the veracity of these claims, the first seems plausible, the second seems like blame-shifting after they saw just how many people were pissed off.
It’s a reference to the fact that many of the Mormon’s “divinely revealed” temple rituals are pretty much cut and pasted from Masonic rituals. (Smith was a Mason and, as with the Book of Mormon itself, some of his revelations about rituals would have seemed plagiarized if you didn’t just know he was getting them off the divine teletype.)
I’m going to have to second Captain Amazing here. Having been a Mormon my entire life, I have to say that “Defending moral values” trumps “Sucking up to other Christian faiths” by a LARGE margin.