A Baptist pastor in Montana assisted in a petition drive for a ballot initiative for traditional marriage in 2004. For what became Constitutional Initiative No. 96 ("CI-96"), Pastor Bethold Stumberg approved placing in his church foyer about 20 copies of the petition to amend the Montana state constitution.

His church is reportedly aligned with the Southern Baptist Convention, which defends traditional marriage. The church's activities for CI-96, which also included making less than 50 copies of the petition on its copying machine, were plainly consistent with its mission.

Pastor Stumberg scheduled a special airing of a pro-traditional marriage movie entitled Battle for Marriage one Sunday evening, in connection with its service. The Church opened attendance to the public, without charge, and used free public service announcements to promote it. The Church photocopied and circulated flyers publicizing the event. Pastor Stumberg also encouraged church members to take the flyer to work and "let people see it." Attendance was consequently strong at the event, where Pastor Stumberg spoke about the threat to marriage in Montana and the need to sign the CI-96 petition.

The Church submitted 98 valid signatures for CI-96, of which 92 were Church members. CI-96 then qualified for the ballot and passed by a margin of 66.5% to 33.5% in the November 2004 election.

The Montana Commissioner of Political Practices received a complaint against the Church's activities from a group called "Montanans for Families and Fairness." The complaint alleged that the Church, by its "expenditures" in support CI-96, had created an "incidental political committee" within the meaning of Montana's campaign finance laws, but the Church had not filed the required disclosure forms.

The Montana Commission held that the "[u]se of the Church's facilities to obtain signatures on CI-96 petitions, along with Pastor Stumberg's encouragement of persons to sign the CI-96 petitions during regularly scheduled Church services," violated the law. These (unregistered) activities improperly added "value to the campaign in support of CI-96" and "Pastor Stumberg was not acting as a volunteer when he engaged in the activities supporting CI-96, since those activities occurred in the Church building and during regularly scheduled Church services."

Unlike the federal campaign law, the Montana law has no exceptions for small independent contributions. Any activity that helps a campaign, no matter how small, triggers application of the Montana law and its reporting requirements.

These registration obligations are substantial. They require becoming an independent political committee registered with the state, and equipped with a campaign treasurer, a depository, and a new name. They require filing a form with the Commissioner of Political Practices and with the county within five days of making a political expenditure, and another form disclosing the contributors. In the context of marriage amendments, this public disclosure exposes people to harassment by supporters of the homosexual agenda, as occurred after the passage of Proposition 8 in California.

The church sued to assert its constitutional rights to free speech and free exercise of religion. The federal district court held completely against the church, and it appealed.

The Ninth Circuit, in a sweeping decision that should help protect the donors to other campaigns for traditional marriage, unanimously held that the Church acted within its rights of free speech, and does not have to disclose its donors and comply with the other burdensome regulations. Canyon Ferry Road Baptist Church v. Unsworth, 2009 U.S. App. LEXIS 3693 (9th Cir. Feb. 25, 2009). The Court found it unconstitutional to regulate this relatively small amount of campaign-related activity.

Judge John Noonan, one of the few conservatives on the Ninth Circuit, went further with a stirring concurrence. He said that the church's right of free exercise of religion should also protect its activities. "An unregulated, unregistered press is important to our democracy. So are unregulated unregistered churches. Churches have played an important - no, an essential - part in the democratic life of the United States. … In a secular age, Freedom of Speech is more talismanic than Freedom of Religion. But the latter is the first freedom in our Bill of Rights. It is in terms of this first freedom that this case should be decided."