The Utah theocracy must end
The Utah Legislature is all nice and neatly tucked away for another year. The pitter-patter of little feet is pretty much gone from the Capitol hallways. The lobbyists have packed their bags of money and headed home. And the marketing and public relations wing of the church can take a few days off from generating spin and influence.
Such is life in the theocracy of Utah.
Despite the urging of Founding Fathers like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, there still is no separation of church and state in Utah. They don’t even try much to camouflage it anymore.
I knew a southern Utah mayor who was a pretty good political huckster. If he had a difficult decision that needed a solution, he would put together a special committee made up of a couple of council members, a few sterling businessmen, and a couple of prominent residents. These committees were often headed by one of the most powerful businessmen in southern Utah who also happened to be a former legislator and, at the time, bishop for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
“I always appoint him head of the committee if it’s a tough deal,” this mayor once confided. “Kinda tough to look your bishop in the eye and go against him.”
That’s not exactly what the Founding Fathers had in mind.
In fact, Madison once wrote that the “practical distinction between religion and civil government is essential to the purity of both and as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States. The merit will be doubled by the other lesson that religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of government.”
It wasn’t such an earth-shaking stance. A few centuries earlier, Lutheran reformer Philip Melanchthon presented his “two kingdoms” doctrine that the church should not exercise worldly government, and princes should not rule the church or have anything to do with the salvation of souls. Melanchthon collaborated with Martin Luther, who started the Protestant Reformation.
Of course, by then it was sort of a moot point because Catholics bent to the will of Pope Boniface VIII, who proclaimed that it was “absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman pontiff.”
That included kings, queens, and anybody else with political clout.
Using that as a model, when the Mormons came west and settled part of what was then Mexico — an area that encompassed all of Utah and Nevada, about two-thirds of Arizona, and about a third of California — they set up what LDS Church founder Joseph Smith called a “theocratic political system,” which he described as a fusion of traditional republican democratic principles under the U.S. Constitution, in tandem with theocratic rule.
As the Mormons moved west, they had trouble along the way because of their political power.
In Daviess County, Missouri, they tried to vote themselves into power in a legislative action. It turned ugly with a battle that took several lives and resulted in Gov. Lilburn W. Boggs issuing an order that all Mormons must either be driven from the state or executed.
The group packed up and headed east to an Illinois city they took over and renamed Nauvoo. Again, they seized control by voting church members into office to control the city and represent them in the legislature. It didn’t work out there, either, as Smith and his brother Hyrum were killed by a mob of townspeople while incarcerated in a county lockup.
That’s why it took Utah seven tries to attain statehood, with supposed guarantees that the church would not meddle in the affairs of state government and that it would, of course, put an end to the practice of polygamy.
Here we are in 2019, and guess what?
We still have polygamy that goes unfettered in several corners of the state, and the legislature is held on a tight leash, as evidenced by church influence on our liquor laws, the medicinal cannabis ballot issue, the Equal Rights Amendment, the state’s stance on all things LGBTQ-related, and myriad civil rights issues.
It’s not even thinly disguised. Just look at this year’s legislation.
It includes tougher abortion guidelines and shelving a bill that would have allowed transgender people the ability to change their listed gender on their driver licenses. The church took a neutral stance on a bill that would have barred therapists from using conversion therapy as a way to change the sexual orientation of minors. This lack of position was, in itself, a strong enough message to lawmakers. Likewise, the church took a neutral position on a hate crime bill instead of standing up for the rights and protection of all.
To be fair, the LDS Church isn’t the only religious outfit putting pressure on elected officials across the land. But its influence here in Utah is arguably stronger than what any other church has over any other state, and I don’t think that is what the Founding Fathers had in mind.
In fact, in modern-day reference, former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor concurred in a dissent opinion she wrote in the historic 2005 Ten Commandments ruling that allowed display of the Ten Commandments on the grounds of the Texas capitol.
“Why would we trade a system that has served us so well for one that has served others so poorly?” O’Connor wrote.
Indeed, why would we?
“When the government associates one set of religious beliefs with the state and identifies non-adherents as outsiders it encroaches upon the individual’s decision about whether and how to worship,” she continued. “Allowing government to be a potential mouthpiece for competing religious ideas risks the sort of division that might easily spill over into suppression of rival beliefs.”
Don’t we have enough of that already?
Peace.
The viewpoints expressed above are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Independent.
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Ed, my GOTO beer FOR 4 decades is Coors light. I have no issue with the 3.2% version. Thanks to the LDS religious hierarchy I may no longer be able to buy Coors light in Utah. 1st it needs to be refrigerated. So forget govt stores. Next it is 4.2%, and thus over the 4% threshold that the LDS church pushed down our throats. I hate bud. I hate Corona. Let’s hope Molson Coors will continue to produce 3.2% beer on behalf of one state in the Union. One word, UNAMERICAN. If they are soooooooo concerned, maybe they should focus on driving distracted on cellphones. Guess they ignored that legislation on behalf of their church members. Yup 2nd class Utah citizen