Prop. 8 baker claims Chronicle caused hate mail

Making the rounds in the blogosphere is the tale by Maureen Mullarkey, who supported Proposition 8, the measure approved by California voters in November that bans same-sex marriage in the state.

Mullarkey's story, titled "The New Blacklist" and published in the conservative Weekly Standard magazine, starts like this:

"Strange times we live in when it takes a ballot initiative to confirm the definition of marriage as the union of a man and a woman. Stranger still when endorsing that definition through the democratic process brings threats and reprisals.

"In November, the San Francisco Chronicle published the names and home addresses of everyone who donated money in support of California's Proposition 8 marriage initiative. All available information, plus the amount donated, was broadcast. My name is on that list."

Mullarkey said The Chronicle report resulted in vile harassment and threats that came to her home.

"It is one thing to read hate-filled mail on a computer screen. It is something else to have it in hand," she wrote. "At the end of the week, when it started coming to my house, I filed a police report."

But her version of the facts isn't true. The newspaper did not print her home address or the addresses of other donors.

Mullarkey, an artist, contributed $1,000 to the Prop. 8 cause. But her donation to a statewide initiative was public information, available on the Web site of the California secretary of state.

The Prop. 8 donor database, which was provided to newspapers by the Associated Press, didn't include Prop. 8 supporters alone, as Mullarkey strongly suggested.

It was weighted 2-1 in the other direction, including 96,000 records of donors who were against Prop. 8 and 46,000 in favor of it.