Religion Dispatches
…tween the Sierra Nevada and the Wasatch Range, everything between Reno and Salt Lake City—is a wasteland. Next, that Utah history began with the arrival of the Mormons; that Utah history and Mormon history are essentially the same thing; and that Utah history has no relevance outside the American West. Third, that polygamy was the only interesting thing going on in territorial Utah. And last, that only “card-carrying Mormons” (those with the churc…
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…is more than 80% Mormon. Yet in 2009, the Mormon Church publicly supported Salt Lake City’s housing/employment nondiscrimination ordinances, with LDS Apostle Jeffrey Holland suggesting they were a good model for the state. Mormons seem unable to make up their minds about LGBT rights, torn between an understanding that discrimination exists and a reluctance to endorse same-sex intimacy—much less same-sex marriage—which the Church considers a sin. F…
Read More…on, to Washington D.C., New York, Portland, Boise, San Francisco, and Salt Lake City, members of three different Mormon contingents—Mormons Building Bridges, Mormons for Marriage Equality, and Affirmation: Gay and Lesbian Mormons—will walk during the month of June. (Find complete details on LDS pride parade contingents here.) First up is June 3, Salt Lake City. I spoke with Erika Munson, organizer of Salt Lake City’s Mormons Building Bridges group…
Read More…of Latter-day Saints—a Mormon. I spoke to John Mackay, an attorney at the Salt Lake City firm of Ray, Quinney, & Nebeker, who is among the brief’s authors. With this brief, a legal team from Utah is taking lead in articulating the nature of the challenges LGBT people in conservative areas of the country face. Absolutely. That’s one of the things we are most proud of. The Utah Pride Center has partnered with the Campaign for Southern Equality an…
Read More…—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 the most conservative sectors of the Anglo Mormon Utah base, a broad coalition of religious, business and law enforcement officials laid the groundwork for reform when they devised the Utah Compact—a statement that acknowledged the contributions of immigrants and express…
Read More…water’s endorsements by outgoing incumbent Senator Bob Bennett and the big-city Salt Lake Tribune. And they effectively capitalized on Lee’s background as a constitutional scholar, appealing to deeply-held Mormon reverence for the divine origins and latter-day imperilment of the US Constitution. (Someone even made a YouTube video morphing LDS Church founder Joseph Smith’s face into Mike Lee’s.) Lee won in areas strongly hooked into the mainstream…
Read MoreAs James Holmes, the alleged Aurora shooter appears this week for pre-trial hearings, I find myself thinking back to an article that came out right after the shooting. HuffPo’s Jennifer Bendery reported on comments made by Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) in which the congressman demonstrated a clear fixation on guns, an ignorance of Batman lore, and more importantly, any understanding of religion. In a rambling statement, Gohmert made two points. One w…
Read MoreOn August 26, Dane Hall, a 20-year-old man, was assaulted outside a Salt Lake City gay nightclub. His assailants yelled the word “fag,” then hit, kicked, and curb-checked Hall, holding his jaw to the curb while kicking the back of his head. He lost six teeth in the attack. His jaw broke in three places. A shard of bone remains lodged in his brain. On September 7, it was Cameron Nelson, a 32-year-old gay man, attacked late at night while taking th…
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…allen Trumpet On March 18, 2020, at 7:09 in the morning, residents of Salt Lake City and the surrounding counties of northern Utah awoke to a 5.7 magnitude earthquake that struck 10 miles outside the city. Fortunately, there appears to have been no loss of life, although there was some property damage throughout the area. The iconic Salt Lake City Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints faced only minor damage. The 12-foot angel…
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…ng Capitol. The symbolism is not subtle. Big changes in Grand Junction and Colorado Springs Nine candidates who won their races for four-year terms on three large school boards in the Colorado Springs area scored 100% on the Truth and Liberty Coalition’s voter guide. These wins flipped board control from Democratic to Republican. The same candidates were also backed and substantially bankrolled by a mysterious, Republican-oriented entity, the Spri…
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