SALT LAKE CITY (ABC 4 News) -Catholics may be the latest victims of a Prop 8 outlash. For now, Catholic leaders aren't sure if this is payback.
On Thursday, an envelope containing white powder was found in the Knight's of Columbus' mail room at their national headquarters in New Haven Connecticut.
The catholic men's organization donated over a million dollars to help pass Proposition 8 in California.
"The envelope did not have a return address but it did have the California postmark,” said Pat Korten of the Knights of Columbus. "Obviously we received a good deal of critical mail communications of all sorts from California because of our support for Proposition 8 but right now I don't have anything firm that this would say that this was related to that."
It is similar to what happened in Salt Lake City LDS temple. An envelope with white powder forced an evacuation.
And at the Los Angeles LDS temple, another scare involving the white powder but no one was hurt.
The FBI now says the white powder doesn't appear dangerous.
"There is no threat to the public health,” said Timothy Furhman of the FBI. “The individuals that may have come in contact with this mailing did the appropriate thing, limited entirely the exposure and we don't thing there is anything for anyone to be concerned about.”
The FBI believes the mailings sent to the Salt Lake City and Los Angeles temples are connected. As for the catholic mailing in Connecticut, the FBI here isn't sure about if it's the same group targeting Prop 8 supporters.
The FBI won’t say where the letters sent to the temples originated from. But they are also opening an investigation into the recent vandalism cases in Utah.
So far, seven LDS wards have been attacked by vandals.
Meanwhile, in a prepared statement, the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints asked for a stop to all this.
"Attacks on churches and intimidation of people of faith have no place in civil discourse over controversial issues. People of faith have a democratic right to express their views in the public square without fear of reprisal."
And a gay rights group also is on the side of the church on this one.
"We absolutely oppose any type of acts such as this, vandalism, intimidation are not appropriate ways to deal with any sort of frustration that one may be having,” said Mike Thompson of Equality Utah.
