After voters banned same-sex marriage earlier this month, protesters demanded in online chat rooms and e-mails a boycott of Mormon-owned businesses and others who supported the ban.

Protesters have targeted members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints because they contributed about half of the $40 million the campaign raised to ban gay marriage.

Some Mormons, such as Rick Seidner, who owns Rick's Restaurant and Bakery in Palm Springs, find themselves caught in the crossfire between their church's support of the ban and their personal conviction.

“I didn't make a contribution. I'm just so exhausted explaining myself,” said Seidner, who has owned Rick's for 23 years and opposed the proposition.

Proposition 8 was a voter initiative that amended the constitution to recognize marriage only between a man and woman, overturning a state Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage in May.

As reported on mydesert.com, Seidner's name does not come up in a search of The Desert Sun's financial disclosure database, which uses public information filed with the Secretary of State's office.

Seidner, who says he is Mormon although not practicing, said he was targeted for his faith. Despite the threatened boycott, business is good, he said.

“People are finding out that I'm LDS and that I'm a Mormon,” Seidner said. “They're ignorant. That's all it is.

“I'm starting to understand that it isn't the gay community; it's just a couple of (people).”

Mormon officials called the tactics counterproductive and unfortunate.

“When they try to intimidate our people, what this will do sooner or later is actually hurt themselves,” said Keith Atkinson, a spokesman with the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Los Angeles .

“When they attack the Mormon faith in general, they forget that there were some who stood with them on the other side.”

A costly battle

Coachella Valley activists have called for a boycott of businesses that supported Proposition 8.

Same-sex marriage is important to many in the Palm Springs area, which has one of the largest gay populations per capita in the United States.

On Saturday, the Desert Stonewall Democrats organized an ad hoc committee to compile a list of valley donors, which it released Thursday online at www.marriageequalityindex. com.

Bob Thomas, chairman of the committee, said he hopes the index will encourage residents to support gay-friendly businesses.

Many of the blacklists circulating now, however, appear to be forwarded without verifying the information. Rob Hyatt received one of the e-mails this week about Rick's Restaurant.

“I think this shows, though, that the Internet is something that you have to take with a grain of salt,” said Hyatt, a Palm Springs resident who ate lunch at Rick's on Tuesday.

Others say people are just looking for ways to focus their anger and disappointment into action.

“I think people are very angry and they want to do something quickly and they didn't vet the list,” said George Zander, chairman of the Desert Stonewall Democrats. “It's part of the early anger to the loss. They want something to contribute, all of which is good.”

The Stonewall ad hoc committee expects to release a second list next year after the final campaign filing deadline, which is Jan. 31.

Hot-button issue

Proposition 8 was the most costly battle over same-sex marriage with both sides collectively raising more than $73 million. In the Coachella Valley, opponents out-raised supporters 2 to 1, donating more than $85,000 to one of California's most contentious social issues.

Since the election, protesters have picketed at Mormon churches locally and statewide. Officials report some churches have been hit with vandalism and graffiti.

“It is understandable that supporters of No on 8 are disheartened by their loss in this election,” Sonja Eddings Brown, spokeswoman for the Yes on 8 campaign, said in an e-mail to The Desert Sun.

“These efforts are not building trust with the voters of California. Blacklisting and intimidation and punishing voters is beginning to define the character of the opposition, and I know that this is quite different than the true character of the gay community as a whole.”

Online traffic numbers indicate a strong post-election interest in who contributed to the Yes campaign on Web sites with blacklists such as CaliforniansAgainstHate.com. Since the election, the site has averaged about 5,000 visitors a day, up from 500 a day pre-election.

“My goal was to make it socially unacceptable for people to contribute to what I call a campaign of hate,” said Fred Karger, creator of CaliforniansAgainstHate.com. “They shouldn't be proud of it, and the world should know who they are.”

But some argue the boycotts unfairly single out Mormons when other religious organizations also contributed to the campaign. James Dobson's Focus on the Family, for example, contributed more than $500,000 and the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic organization, gave about $1 million.

Campaign finance law requires donations of $100 or more be reported.

“I don't think that those laws were ever intended to be used as a weapon,” said Susan Finch, who attends a Mormon church in the east valley. “I think that it might, unfortunately, make people less willing to get involved.”