God and Country, Part 2

[Intro | Part 1] This is Part 2 of my comments on God and Country: Politics in Utah, a new collection of essays considering theoretical and practical issues of church and state in Utah, just published by Signature. I have generally shied away from Utah politics, but the new emphasis on politics in Mormondom, plus the emergence of Utah as a one-party state, makes the subject now a Mormon issue, not just a regional one. Taken as a whole, the essays give cause for both hope and concern. The essays I'll note in the second half of the book treat the practical effects of Mormon dominance on Utah's public institutions.

There are several essays bemoaning the potential ill effects of a dominant religion per se, but they seem to skirt around the fact that their real concern is with a dominant religion when it happens to be Mormonism. They won't come out and attack the Mormon kingdom mentality directly, yet they won't condemn religion directly either because the authors are themselves Protestant ministers or sympathizers and support religion. So they end up muddling around generalizing about how dominant religions should behave, which (no surprise) amounts to being very, very considerate of smaller denominations and playing as small a role as possible in the public sector.

I found the essays considering the cases of specific public institutions more enlightening. L. Jackson Newell writes on education in Utah, highlighting the role of schools and universities in promoting free expression and creating an educated public as a counterweight to authoritarianism (whether political or religious). "Utah offers the instructive example of two large universities with sharply contrasting philosophies," he notes, with BYU working "primarily to educate its students in the service of their faith" while the U "embraces free inquiry and encourages each student to arrive at his or her own conclusion." Right. And of course the U's faculty is not above using coercion to "encourage" its drama students learn the fine art of profanity. BYU has its share of problems, but if you want any credibility puhlease don't tell me the U embodies some higher moral approach to education when faculty use their position to coercively foist their own questionable values on captive students. UVSC is looking better and better. Still, the academic freedom issue deserves the attention it receives in this chapter.

John G. Gallivan, Sr., recounts the tumultuous history of the Salt Lake Tribune, the morning paper for coffee drinkers. Especially interesting is the breakdown, in 1997, of the joint production agreement with the Deseret News, which allowed the two papers to share presses, both thereby lowering overall costs and remaining financially viable. As a result, ownership of the Trib has been "in play," passing first to media conglomerate TCI, which then merged with AT&T, which then sold the Trib to the Media News Group, . The Kearns family, the historic owners of the Trib, were still fighting in court to regain control of the paper and keep it nominally independent as of December 2004. See here for a Will Bagley commentary on recent events; this BYU NewsNet piece is also helpful.

Finally, I rather unexpectedly enjoyed the chapter on the ACLU in Utah, which went out of its way to explain that the ACLU sometimes represents LDS plaintiffs but, in Utah, ends up opposing LDS action most of the time. What makes the chapter useful is the detailed review of the whole Main Street sale and the associated public easement issue. Having read press accounts and some of the court opinions, it was nice to read a summarized account by one who was involved and knew the details. As a non-Utahn, it seems obvious that it is in the best interests of the city and downtown merchants to make the number one attraction (Temple Square) as friendly a place as possible, so tourists and locals will come there and spend their money. Almost everyone recognizes the mall is an improvement over Main Street, which inexplicably bisected two pedestrian plazas. But politics is always local, which in Utah means local religion, so it became a Big Issue.

Comments

[J. Stapley]

So they end up muddling around generalizing about how dominant religions should behave, which (no surprise) amounts to being very, very considerate of smaller denominations and playing as small a role as possible in the public sector.

I wonder if they would remain consistent in Georgia where the rolls are reversed.

[Dave]

That's a good question, JS. Some denominations or religions have a geographical center place: SLC for LDS, Rome for Catholicism, Mecca for Islam, Jerusalem for Judaism. But most Protestant sects don't have such a place; there isn't anywhere where they are "the dominant religion."

Thus it is easy for Protestants to criticize the whole "dominant religion" situation as somehow inherently wrong. To Protestants, the ideal is a free market in religion with no dominant denomination, although the reality up until recently was de facto establishment of Protestantism as a whole: only mainstream Protestant sects were accorded equal status, whereas outsiders (the earlier list: Catholics, Jews, Mormons, and anyone else) were marginalized or even attacked.

It is terribly difficult for Protestants to own up to their history. Remind them that the KKK was essentially a Protestant organization and see what kind of response you get!

[John C.]

I originate in Jacksonville, Fl, where they boast Nathan Bedford Forrest High School (predominant attending race: black) and, as of the early 90's, the 8th largest Baptist church in the country (Hi First Baptist!). The incongruity of things like that (or lack thereof) do not cease to amuse me.

[J. Stapley]

To Protestants, the ideal is a free market in religion with no dominant denomination,

I can see how this would be the case with mainline Protestants. However, the evangelization of the South yields a different dynamic (at least from my exposure). Whether it is the Assemblies of God in Southern Missouri or the Baptists in Georgia, there is an extraordinary push to have religiously wielded political leverage. The whole stickers on science text books seems to be a great example and like you said the KKK is another (albeit less than contemporary) example.

[Nate Oman]

Dave: Bagley's account of the sale of the Trib is silly and needlessly conspiratorial. There was no Mormon master plot, as much as he wishes that there was. The bottom line is the the Kearns family got greedy and tried to avoid a whole bunch of tax liability in a way that their own lawyers told them was risky. (Not in the sense of being illegal, but in the sense of losing control of the paper.) They rolled the dice and lost. As a result, AT&T ended up with a newspaper that it did not want. (Why does AT&T want to be in the newspaper business?!) The Church could have baught the paper but decided not to. Indeed, the Deseret News's beef with the Trib was ultimately not about content but about the refusal to let the News publish in the mornings. The anti-Mormon faction of the Kearns family went beserk convinced that their was a Mormon conspiracy afoot and ended up making some really dumb litigation decisions. (Asking a judge to recuse himself on the basis of religion?! Not going to happen and simply going to piss off the judge. If my lawyer did that I would sue him for malpractice. If my client asked me to do that I would tell them that they were being collussally dumb.) If they had wanted to keep the paper, they should have simply paid their taxes when they sold their cable business to AT&T.

[Dave]

and that's ... the rest of the story. Thanks for the info, Nate.