LETTER TO THE EDITOR: You Cannot Be a Mormon: By Aaron J. Prisbrey, P.C.

By Aaron J. Prisbrey

I’m a member of The Church of Jesus of Latter-day Saints, and recently I had a spirited conversation with a non-Mormon acquaintance over what he called a systematic government “deprivation of civil liberties,” which has brought this country to the verge of tyranny and despotism. Our discussion invariably turned to my organization, named the CAITS Institute. CAITS calls for the repeal of the liberty and property-destroying St. George City beautification ordinances and the ouster of the ordinance-enforcing Mayor McArthur, who happens to be LDS, and his “bully squad.”

I explained that the nonsense going on with federal government regulation and tyranny is going on locally, but on a smaller scale. How can we locally, as “conservatives,” decry a federal mandate to pay for socialized healthcare as being unconstitutional when we adopt city ordinances mandating, “At least one-half (50%) of the required landscaped area shall be covered with foliage of shrubs, grass and live vegetative ground cover”?

It’s hypocritical to lament that our liberties are being destroyed by the requirement to pay for healthcare we don’t want while we sit on our hands as Daniel D and his bully squad enter our property illegally to determine if we have planted and maintained the required 50 percent foliage to the liking of the aesthetic police. Both laws require us to pay for and maintain something which we may or may not want.

Upon identifying a half-dozen equally ill-advised ordinances that destroy liberty, my new friend, apparently recognizing our kindred spirits when it comes to the systematic destruction of liberties by government, announced “YOU CANNOT BE MORMON.”

The inference was apparent: “You cannot be a Mormon and a thinker.” I was taken aback by the comment. I felt my blood boil just as it had from two decades spent in the courtroom cross-examining witnesses who were perjuring themselves as every word effortlessly flowed from their lying lips. As I had done many times before, I gathered myself, making sure my outward appearance did not reveal the disgust burning inside from the repugnancy thrown my way.

I thought of Joseph F. Smith who, when faced with a pistol in the hands of an intruder hell-bent on killing Mormons, was asked, “Are you a Mormon?” Joseph F. responded, “Yes siree; dyed in the wool; true blue, through and through.” At that moment, I decided that I would let this new acquaintance know that I, too, was a “dyed in the wool; true blue, through and through” Mormon who would take the fight to anyone who wanted to challenge me, my religion, or my God.

In that brief instance, I pondered the origins of the freedoms embedded deeply in me, passed from my deceased father down to me, which are inseparable from my belief in God and my religion. I was encouraged as a young boy to follow my dreams, to be my own person and not follow the crowd by a father who skipped an entire grade at age 6 because he did not like being told what to do. His father dropped him off at school every morning and watched him walk in the front of the school, not knowing he walked right out the back. Adults be damned, a 6-year-old boy inherently understood the loss of freedom that comes in the collective mass of public education and decided at a tender age he would not surrender his liberty to anyone.

My father, in his rebellious way, brought me up in a religion where free agency is at the core; a religion that invites personal revelation to determine the validity of all things; a religion where we believe the battle between good and evil is really a battle between freedom and bondage.

I tempered my emotions and explained to my new friend how my father and my religion forged my beliefs on liberty and why I believe these city ordinances are completely irrational. These ordinances being shoved down our throats don’t abolish “civil liberties” or “constitutional rights.” They abolish God-given rights. Our freedom comes from a Supreme Being. To infer that government has a hand in granting us liberty is wrong. If liberty is derived from government, government can take it away. The founding fathers, for the first time in history, recognized those God-given rights and set up a government to protect them.

I explained that there is no difference between the liberty identified in the founding documents and the free agency which is at the heart of Mormonism; the battle against a government that would steal our liberties is simply a continuation of the battle identified in Revelation 12:7. In short, I told my friend that there are no stronger defenders of liberty than Mormons, as liberty is at our core.

These ordinances that steal our liberties under the guise of community aesthetics are a perversion of law. The purpose of law and government was declared some 237 years ago: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men.”

When we declared our independence from England, we put the world on notice: The purpose of government is to secure our individual liberties, not dictate to us what to do. A government that does not secure these liberties is tyrannical. A government that destroys them is our foe. When I took the oath of office to become an attorney, I swore to uphold the Constitution of the United States and the State of Utah. To the extent our officials pervert our Constitution or hijack my religion, they have a sworn opponent in me.

The author is a member of the Utah State Bar and one of the founders of the CAITS Institute. For more information about the organization or to contact him, visit www.caits.org or e-mail [email protected]