Michelle Quist: LDS Church lobbyists could build bridges in the Utah Legislature

Hold on to your wallets, store your liquor and close your bedroom door. The Utah Legislature is in session.

I jest. Mostly. Utah legislators, I believe, are genuine men and women trying to do the right thing.

But politics in Utah are unique.

A recent column by The Tribune’s Robert Gehrke listed the top 25 influential power players in Utah politics. None of them was surprising, but I did find one name I didn’t recognize – Marty Stephens.

Stephens is the chief lobbyist of Utah’s predominant church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Gehrke reported, “Ninety percent of the Utah Legislature, the entire congressional delegation and all of the state’s constitutional officers are members of the predominant faith, as are about 60 percent of Utahns.”

Full disclosure: I, also, am a member of the LDS Church.

As a tax-exempt organization, the church is prohibited from endorsing political candidates or parties. It does, however, “reserve the right as an institution to address, in a nonpartisan way, issues that it believes have significant community or moral consequences or that directly affect the interests of the church.”

Democratic Sen. Jim Dabakis said last year that the church has “a lot less [influence] than a lot of people perceive. In 95 percent of the bills, the LDS Church has no stand, no opinion and doesn’t really care.”

But when it wants to have influence, it does. There’s a reason Utah has the strictest alcohol laws in the country.

Looking at the upcoming session, what if the LDS Church used its lobbying power to build bridges?

What if the church supported Sen. Daniel Thatcher’s hate crimes legislation? (Thatcher calls it victim targeting.) The legislation adopts enhanced penalties for crimes that target victims based on race, religion, gender, sexual orientation or gender identity.

Hate crimes are on the rise in Utah, perhaps because we haven’t sent the message that we won’t tolerate that kind of hate directed against entire communities. Isn’t hate the antithesis to the church’s teaching of love?

What about medical marijuana? Medical marijuana has been proven to help alleviate chronic pain. It is legal in other states, which means that when used for medicinal purposes, it is not against the church’s distinctive health code.

It makes little sense for the church to withhold support for something that is already being used by many of its members.

Last week thousands of women across the nation gathered to support more opportunities and more engagement for women. Perhaps the church could join this movement by supporting Sen. Todd Weiler’s resolution to send a statute of Martha Hughes Cannon, an early Mormon pioneer and heroine, to replace the statue of Philo T. Farnsworth in Statuary Hall in Washington. Where each state gets two statues in Statuary Hall, shouldn’t at least one of them be a woman?

Staying on the subject of women, what if the church’s lobbyists supported bills proposed to help working women, like paid maternity leave for state employees or incentives for businesses to offer paid, or unpaid, maternity leave? The church has to know that single women working to support children are among the nation’s poorest demographic.

Paid leave increases the chance that women will return to work, which decreases the chance of that family having to rely on food stamps. Such policies directly mirror practices taught in the church’s new, extensive program on self-reliance.

Utah has the highest birthrate in the nation, and the church supports large families. Isn’t it about time the church supports women laboring under those large families?

If the church used its influence, that bill would pass.

Finally, and at the most basic level, what if LDS Church lobbyists set out specifically to work with and support female lawmakers? What could that look like? What example could that set for others?

Whether you like it or not, the LDS Church has influence in Utah. That influence does a lot of good. It could do more.

As Jesus taught, “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you. That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven. … For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye?”

Michelle Quist is an editorial writer for The Salt Lake Tribune who hopes her church will lean in and lead out on women’s issues.