As a Utahn, born and raised, I am answering Gov. Spencer Cox’s call to “stay weird’ by creating the Land-O’-Plenty, welcoming all. To help you decide if This is Your Place, here are key elements:
We will encourage reading and open discussion of any and all books, ideals and ideas.
Radical, I know, but we’ll try and see if we can function with freethinking in the air. (We may include a tracker, similar to the Air Quality Index, measuring the effect and providing helpful data.) Trial runs in your homes are encouraged.
We will have restrooms for any human with no pre-post-current-future designation required. When we were old enough to enter a public restroom alone, we learned to check for safety, looking for people there who might cause harm, not people who were different, and to wash our hands. Pretty sure we can keep it going, we’ll try.
We will ensure our society’s gaps, cracks and chasms are recognized, addressed and corrected with three pillars: Diversity, equity and inclusion. Not that there are gaps, cracks or chasms in the Beehive State, but with every Utahn in mind, we’ll check.
We will prioritize assisting people with razor cuts, suffering with exhaustion from 1000 mile treks, children separated from families, and all who have left everything to build a new life here. In the Land-O’-Plenty, these simple words are our foundation: “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
To join, lift your lamp, speak up, get to your state representatives with vigor, vote, and keep being weird!
Thanks, governor!
Mary Cardon, Murray