For months, internal campaign documents from Proposition 8 backers were subjected to discovery battles and magistrate time, but they remained hidden from public view.

That changed Wednesday. Lawyers representing same-sex couples persuaded Chief Judge Vaughn Walker to allow a handful of those documents into the record, over repeated objections from Yes on 8 general counsel Andrew Pugno. The e-mails and other memos detail the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints’ involvement in Proposition 8 — for instance, that there was at least one LDS volunteer working in every California ZIP code.

“This campaign is entirely under the priesthood’s direction,” said one memo written by an LDS official and turned over by official Prop 8 proponent Mark Jansson.

The documents came into evidence via Stanford University professor Gary Segura, who testified about the political power of gays and lesbians. Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher partner Theodore Boutrous Jr. would introduce a document, and then have Segura cast it as evidence that gays face powerful institutional opponents.

Read the rest of Dan Levine’s The Recorder article here.