After the first meeting with my group I realized I was identifying more with my Mormon heritage and identity than with my current affiliation with the Episcopal Church. Maybe literary scholar Harold Bloom is right when he argues that Mormons function as a race of people not unlike the Jews.
And where there is a racial identity, there is inevitably a stereotype 9 in this case, a "typical Mormon." The religious divide might more accurately be called an ethnic divide. One group is in power. There is a political problem for the other.
What also became clear in the Divide meetings was that whoever the "typical Mormon" is, he or she isn¹t OK. Curiously, it is Latter-day Saints themselves who seem most cognizant of just how unacceptable the "typical Mormon" is -- narrow-minded, self-righteous, the parent of too many kids. And yet, these Mormons are often the first to say, "But I¹m not a typical Mormon." Prejudice against Mormons is real in our state, but what¹s more, it seems to begin with Mormons themselves.
In my experience, non-Mormons don¹t fare any better than the "typical Mormon." On the LDS side there is a persecution complex, a fear of outsiders and, worst of all, a condescending attitude that seems to stem directly from being a part of the Mormon dominance of education, media and -- most worrisome -- politics.
"If others don¹t like it, they can always just leave" (I heard that once).
"Non-members of the church, though they may mean well, are trying to destroy our lifestyle" (I heard that more than once).
"They don¹t understand" (I hear that all the time).
The operative word, of course, is not "understand"; it¹s "they."
Tragically, Utahns lack leaders who can help heal the rift, despite the well-intentioned Divide meetings. The hierarchy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints seems to know that even without overt comment, it can still mobilize the bloc vote through ad hoc moralists like the Eagle Forum¹s Gail Ruzicka and others. Aside from the occasional prescription in the church's general conferences to be inclusive of neighbors, I believe a shameful culture of suspicion, moralization and minority marginalization (even of fellow Mormons) persists in the LDS ward house.
Meanwhile, in the Statehouse, Mormon ideologues such as Sens. LaVar Christensen and Chris Buttars obscure the legitimate discourse of time-honored conservatives and siphon off precious time from the political process with fundamentalist invective.
Among liberals, we have Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson, who can¹t resist referring to "them" as the Taliban. And in Rocky¹s "ward," there is "Saturday¹s Voyeur," the biting satire of Mormon and Utah life that has been running annually since 1978. Once a good-natured parody, the show last year became a liberal screed that dared one to disagree.
No wonder I have heard Mormons referred to by responsible professionals -- privately, of course -- as "neo-Nazis." No wonder there is a prevailing sense among non-Mormons that in Utah the LDS Church hierarchy will always act in self-interest even at the expense of the larger community it claims to support. No wonder we¹ve seen the rise of angry ex-Mormons -- former "insiders" who now spend most of their time recruiting other Utahns to share their disdain for all things Mormon.
Figuratively speaking, there are crosses burning on lawns all over the state, and we are all implicated by it. Temple Square¹s defensive, often punitive stance toward a pluralistic community is engendering a kind of prejudice that will potentially devastate its own people as changing demographics make a minority of active Latter-day Saints.
The divide also implicates the admittedly disenfranchised non-Mormons, many of whom have allowed their hatred to objectify the LDS to the point of lunacy.
You want to wear a halter top Sunday morning in your Sandy neighborhood? Fine. But don¹t boo-hoo because the majority of your neighbors avoid you -- and your kids -- just as you likely avoid your own version of "offensive" people.
Finally, the divide implicates someone like me, the Episco-Mormon, infuriated by criticism of the people I claim, a people from whom I still desperately need to distinguish myself. Like other self-appointed Mormon "insiders" outside, I occasionally still burn crosses, sometimes even on my father¹s lawn.
The external power discrepancies in ethnically divided Utah are real, but the crucible in which any "bridging" will take place is mostly internal. We can start by saying "us" rather than "them." Perhaps then we might see the pattern of our self- and other-hatred, choose leaders who will walk the walk and begin to address the imbalances of power that, in the end, threaten all Utahns.
David G. Pace is promotions co-chair of Democracy for Utah.
