"What's Wrong with the People of Utah?"

Reid asks 'What's wrong with Utahns?
By Thomas Burr
The Salt Lake Tribune

DENVER - Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said in an interview Thursday he takes pride in the inroads Democrats have made in the West, but is confounded by Utah's loyalty to Republicans.
"What is wrong with the people of Utah? They like where this president has taken this country?" asked the Nevada senator, who is LDS. "People in Utah need to wake up."
Reid, meeting with other Western officials noted the gains Democrats have made in Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado and Arizona. But Utah and Idaho remain firmly entrenched in their Republican devotion, which perplexes him.
He said Utahns should be upset about the Bush wiretap program, torture record and government spending.
"I was thinking Idaho and Utah are very much like we were [in Nevada] 10 years ago," he said. "It's hard for me to understand why [Utah is] such a Republican state. Utah should be a state that believes in what we stand for."

Seeking answers to Senator Reid's question is not an easy one. I have asked myself the same questions over the years and have found no simple answers. Maybe the answers can be gleaned from the neighbor's stockpiles of grain and food stuffs while preaching millennialism to all who would hear.

When I saw Michael Moore's "Bowling for Columbine" and bought psychologist's Barry Glassner's, "Culture of Fear," I think I began to understand the motivational power it has. Many Americans looked to anyone non white or with an accent in the aftermath of 911 as persons not to be trusted or even as potential terrorists. In the release interview from serving my mission with my then Stake President Joseph Kjar, the conversation was dominated by the very real fear of the Black Panther Party and its founders Bobby Seale and Hughey Newton coming to Salt Lake, specifically to the temple, and causing mayhem, destruction, and death. Such never happened and as Utahns we moved on to other threats and concerns.

Others have suggested the Equal Rights Amendment was something to be feared in the Mormon cultural fabric. I have heard over the pulpit, perhaps motivated from fear, sermons on godless secularism and materialism. Family and friends have spoken to me about their fears of the gay and lesbian agendas. I am not sure what that agenda is other than some Americans trying to enjoy what the rest of us take for granted. As Senator Obama spoke of last night, something as simple as being able to visit a friend or partner in the hospital is and has been denied here in the country.

I am reading the "Massacre at Mountain Meadows". Anyone familiar with the event has been hard pressed to explain how such a thing could happen. I believe the two are tied together, the massacre of a hundred and fifty one years ago and the face of fear in Utah Mormon culture today. I think fear and distrust, unintentionally, is being propagated and continues today in the monuments honoring our past including the Legacy Theatre of the Joseph Smith Building. As much as our leaders have encouraged us to "move on" and forget the sorry deed of the Mormon militias in Southern Utah, we relive over and over again on the big screen the actions of the Missourians at Haun's Mill and Carthage Jail. It underlines the 'us and them' attitude. This diferentness has and seemingly must always exist between Utah Mormons and the world.

The authors of "Massacre" do their very best to answer this question of how good people can do something as horrible as the atrocities in the meadow near Cedar City. Let me quote a couple lines. First, the authors say there must be, "an atmosphere of authority and obedience, which allows errant leaders to trump the moral instincts of their followers." Further, they explain, "Episodes of violence often begin when one people classify another as "the other," stripping them of any humanity and mentally transforming them into enemies. Once this process of devaluing and demonizing occurs, stereotypes take over, rumors circulate, and pressure builds to conform to group action against the perceived threat. Those classified as the enemy are often seen as transgressors, even as steps are being taken against them." The authors conclude that when these conditions exist a "single incident, small or ordinary in usual circumstances may spark violence..."

Karl Rove and the White House aides of George W. Bush have mastered this understanding of fear and its motivational power in holding power for these past eight years. In Utah they have found a willing and eager audience, aided by fear monger Orrin Hatch and others. So Senator Reid, in Utah we are sadly what you have observed. We do indeed need to wake up. Aptly, we like the elephant are frightened by the mouse of social and cultural change. We opposed civil rights for Blacks because Elder Ezra Taft Benson taught us it was a tool of the Communists to bring down America. We opposed the ERA amendment to protect the virtue of our young women. We support Prop. 8 in California and oppose gay marriage. Do we shrink in fear of the gay and lesbian 'agenda', thinking our Mormon weddings will end?

Maybe we need to retire the Legacy Theatre or change the feature, forget the persecution of the past, and embrace the world as easily as our young men and women learn the languages and cultures of the many places they are sent. The enemies we have created through our demonizing, these "transgressors", might well be our own family and ward members we drive off. Truly it is time for Utah and Mormons to wake up.

Mormons DISmayed By Harsh Spotlight

Nephew H brought me his copy of the Wall Street Journal today and wanted me to read a front page article entitled: "Mormons Dismayed By Harsh Spotlight" A few excerpts are in order.

"Mitt Romney's campaign for the presidency brought more attention to the Mormon Church than it has had in years. What the church discovered was not heartening.

A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll in late January revealed that 50% of Americans said they would have reservations or be "very uncomfortable" about a Mormon as president. That same poll found that 81% would be "enthusiastic" or "comfortable" with an African-American and 76% with a woman.

"I don't think that any of us had any idea how much anti-Mormon stuff was out there," said Armand Mauss, a Mormon sociologist who has written extensively about church culture, in an interview last week. "The Romney campaign has given the church a wake-up call. There is the equivalent of anti-Semitism still out there."

Nevertheless, Mr. Romney's campaign exposed a surprisingly virulent strain of anti-Mormonism that had been largely hidden to the general public. In December, political pundit and actor Lawrence O'Donnell Jr. unleashed a tirade on the "McLaughlin Group" television talk show, tearing into the Mormon Church and Mr. Romney's faith. "Romney comes from a religion founded by a criminal who was anti-American, pro-slavery, and a rapist. And he comes from that lineage and says, 'I respect this religion fully.'...He's got to answer."

Soon, the Mormon Church began posting its videos on YouTube -- 22 so far. One clip, for example, showed Mr. Ballard, the church apostle, answering the question "Are Mormons Christian?" It has drawn 26,000 views. By contrast, a cartoon clip from "The God Makers," a 1980s film that mocks Mormon beliefs, has been viewed 945,000 times.

Although Mr. Romney's withdrawal from the race is likely to quiet the controversy for now, many church members believe the turmoil of the past year will have lasting effects.

"There will be a long-term consequence in the Mormon church," says Mr. Mauss, the Mormon sociologist. "I think there is going to be a wholesale reconsideration with how Mormons should deal with the latent and overt anti-Mormon propaganda. I don't think the Mormons are ever again going to sorrowfully turn away and close the door and just keep out of the fray."

As a few of the bloggers have observed and even KSL's Doug Wright maybe it is time for Mormons to reconsider their party affiliation, maybe find a place under the tent of the Democratic Party, taking their place alongside other persecuted minorities. Think of those agendas...The Gay and Lesbian, the Feminists, the Black and then we would have the Mormon agenda. Think of the impact this coalition would have on the likes of Gov. Huckabee and the evangelical right of the R party.

As a Mormon I could not vote for Mitt...

Aside from his altogether too conservative (current) posturing, I have two fundamental problems with Romney as a member of the faith I practice. First of all, he has taken a less than Christian attitude toward many of my friends who are Brown and undocumented. Doing so puts him at odds I believe with the basic tenets of compassion and charity of the LDS Church. I admit though there are more than a few in the pews who fit into the mold of 'let's send them all back to Mexico, etc', including members of our Utah State Legislature. Secondly, Romney has never disavowed the CIA use of torture including water boarding and other techniques. He follows too closely Cheney and Bush on that subject. Even our FBI has on numerous occasions testified information obtained from torture is of very low quality and refuse to partner with their CIA peers in trying to keep America safe.

Too bad Mitt does not appreciate what POW's went through in Hanoi during the Viet Nam War and know that torture does not yield good intel. John McCain, when tortured, divulged the names of members of the Green Bay Packers football team as his squadron mates. Lucky Larry Chesley, another downed pilot, POW, and member of the LDS Church, gave his captors the names of his Burley Idaho High School graduating class as members of his squadron. Information obtained from torture is junk.

It wasn't hard today at the polls for me today to touch the screen for Senator Barack Obama. It was only hard for my Mormon friends and neighbors to understand why I would not vote for Mitt.

The Burden of the Mormon Curse of Ham

I have ordered, from Amazon, a 2 volume work entitled “The Historical Encyclopedia of World Slavery,” edited by Junius Rodriguez. These two volumes have some relevance and importance to members of the LDS faith and their Black brothers. Specifically, there is an entry titled “The Curse of Ham”, edited by Dr. Albert Wachtel of Claremont College in CA. We should note that Professor Nibley taught at Claremont before coming to BYU.

Mormons should embrace and accept his advice concerning the misinformation about this supposed ‘Curse of Ham’ promulgated by Church leaders for more than one hundred and thirty years following the martyrdom of Joseph Smith. It may be a difficult task for Mormons to accept scripture over the statements of ethnically biased leaders of those times including Orson Hyde, Heber C. Kimball, Brigham Young, James E. Talmage, Joseph Fielding Smith and Bruce R. McConkie among many others. Let me quote from Professor Wachtel in a newspaper article: “No association between sin and skin exists in the (Bible) text. A reasoned analysis demands that race be declared an irrelevancy. But the issue at hand is not rational. Alas, it is a matter of faith, long held claims, compounded by a concern for appearances. The present saints of the Mormon Church are reluctant to contradict beliefs on which their predecessors made pronouncements. Not only did those figures mistakenly think Black people were cursed through Ham, but they also mistakenly associated Black people with fratricidal Cain…The way out of the Mormon dilemma is to profess deeper faith in the advanced morality of the first scripture on which their beliefs rest. That scripture suggests that the family of Cain drowned in the flood, since Noah’s family, the only survivors, were descended from Adam’s third son Seth.”

Further, he suggests nowhere in the Hebrew text does it present any grounds for invoking Cain and no moral value system based on skin color. There simply is no basis for connecting the dots of skin color to sin, neither the fratricide of Cain nor the episode of Noah’s drunken and naked state.

Inasmuch as many of us have friends, family members who are Black and we have a serious candidate with African ancestry for the office of the presidency of the US, perhaps as a New Year’s resolution we can distance ourselves from this racial mythology of an earlier era much in the same way that President Spencer W. Kimball did with lifting the priesthood ban in 1978 and also putting to rest the Adam God theories of Brigham Young.

A personal note here to those who are close and have been, particularly my former business partner, James B. Moore, deceased, and Brother in the Gospel, I say thank you for not holding this against us.

Mitt and Mike -- Different sides of the same coin?

It seems a few of my friends and family members, (siblings, not my children), are exhibiting a religious prejudice or animosity toward Gov. Huckabee. Maybe it is payback for the decades even a century and a half of perceived ill treatment at the hands of the traditional Protestants and now the evangelicals towards Mormondom. I am certain it has something to do with Mitt’s slipping and Mike’s surging in the polls. It seems to me we have given Gov. Mike the same treatment many in Mormondom are unhappy about with the reception Mitt has received from Pat Robertson and many others on the right.

I wonder if Mike knows his Arkansas history very well. Do you suppose he knows about some others from Arkansas who came earlier to our mountain meadows a hundred and fifty years ago? Maybe we could dust off the welcome mat for Mike and see what he is about before we so easily dismiss him -- all the time complaining how the radical right has dissed Mitt.

Unlike Mitt, Mike seems to be a real guy and he is the same today as he was a few years ago when he was running for his state office. Mitt seems to have some credibility issues, i.e. who has talked with God, if any since Moses, and if he 'saw' his dad march with Dr. King among others

Catholics 1 -- Mormons 0

This in the Trib today may have been missed by some but it merits consideration. The Rev. John Wester, Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake, spoke before a business group in St. George recently. He said the real answer to closing chasms in the debate over immigration, is found "in changed policies and changed hearts. Whatever side you're on, pro or con [on immigration]. We need to bring a sense that we are all children of God." He made five points. Those points are:

1. Remember all people are God's children.
2. Show hospitality to family, friends and strangers and treat everyone with dignity.
3. Listen to people and realize each person has a story peculiar to his or her life.
4. Ensure churches are involved in the immigration debate because they are global in scope and vision.
5. Be generous and remember that to whom much is given, much is demanded.

Regrettably, I have not heard anything on this level of charity or compassion toward the undocumented in any LDS General Conference or over any pulpit in Mormondom.

Appropriate words for this Christmas Season and any time of the year.