Religion Dispatches
…ssing natives, and achieving statehood—could not be more American. Despite Utah’s reputation for weirdness, Utah history is weirdly typical when it comes to the outcome of Indian-settler relations. What inspired you to write the book? I grew up in the shadow of Mount Timpanogos, so naturally there’s a personal backstory. I acknowledge as much in the book, but I don’t dwell on it. Ironically, studying my home forced me to become an expatriate. As a…
Read More…ent non-discrimination statutes to make it out of legislative committee in Utah. Yes, this is something that the Utah Pride Center formulated in an effort to articulate the kind of context gay people in Utah live in and its impacts on their lives. And finally, you use the term “pockets of prejudice” to refer to geographic locales like Utah where the combination of religious, political, and social forces creates “legislative bullying.” What is the…
Read More…s guest worker program, or, he suggested, the Justice Department could sue Utah for enacting a state law on a federal issue. This follows Utah’s passage last month of a package of immigration reform laws—including a guest worker program as well as an enforcement provision—openly supported by LDS Church officials and backed by a bit of muscle on Salt Lake City’s Capitol Hill from LDS Church lobbyists. Resisting strong anti-immigrant sentiment among…
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…to continue to shrink into the insularity and disorganization that caused the Philadelphia Archdiocese to decline so precipitously? It remains to be seen. Meanwhile, faithful Catholics and others who want to see the Pope may be losing heart. 10,000 tickets for the Pope’s Speech at Independence Mall sold out in two minutes on Tuesday, with 394k people trying their best to get a few. Tickets are already being scalped at $100 and up on craigslist. I…
Read More…r hoped but failed to win by holding metropolitan Salt Lake City and rural Utah. So while some may paint this as another Tea Party victory, Lee’s win in fact returns Utah to an old and familiar tradition of preferring Mormon men from historic, multigenerational Mormon families connected to the institutional leadership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Lee, 38, is the son of former US Solicitor General and Brigham Young University…
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…did. Any anger or bitterness I’ve accumulated from living as a gay man in Utah, when we got married yesterday, it disappeared. A weight has been lifted from my heart. RD: But we know there are legal challenges ahead. Monday will be a busy day. MF: Davis and Utah County had been turning down same sex couples on Friday, but there is a civil liability suit that is ready to be filed on Monday to address their refusal to provide access, so county cler…
Read More…tion issue. Last November, the Church publicly declared its support for a “Utah Compact” designed by Utah business and political leaders identifying five principles to guide immigration debate. The Compact pushed for problem-solving at the federal level, discouraged the use of local law enforcement in profiling alleged “illegal immigrants,” opposed the unnecessary separation of families, and urged a simultaneously “humane” and “business-friendly”…
Read More…pe we can do it now. Did you know that the nation’s first senator was from Utah? Martha Hughes Cannon! And in 1870 when we were just a territory, Utah was the first place where women legally voted (we barely beat out Wyoming since our elections were earlier.) Utah women have a tradition of yearning to make a difference. We need to be a factor in this race, and this is the only way we can. For the next week, we want to see if we can get 1,000 Utah…
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…bodied by the 2009 “Common Ground Initiative” (CGI) formulated by Equality Utah. Although the CGI is no longer Equality Utah’s stated mission, the organization still focuses on issues like bullying, youth homelessness, and housing/employment discrimination. In contrast to this optimistic account, it should be emphasized that, legislatively-speaking, the CGI worked within the parameters laid out by the Church’s 2008 post-Prop. 8 statement. Passing…
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…40,000 signatures calling for the veto. At a rally Wednesday night at the Utah state capital, Hilary Brown, a Utah Mormon, carried a picture of the Virgin Mary with the caption: “Abstinence. Not Entirely Effective. Knowledge = Power. Veto.” Meredith Hudson LeSueur, a Utah Mormon and mother of two, converted Brown’s sign into an image that went viral on the internet. Other Mormon mothers blogged and used internet petitions to write candidly about…
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