I was a Utahn for many years. The education folks wanted to teach sex ed in the schools. The Church opposed this, saying, “Thank you but we will teach it at home”. And sex ed could not be taught in the public schools.
Apparently they weren’t good teachers at home. In that era (1990’s), the State of Utah had the highest percentage of unwed teenage mothers.
I’ll check out Srtanger’s links later, but this is not a violation of the 1st amendment. There is nothing int he 1st amendment requiring sex education in schools. If the local school boards decide not to teach sex ed, so be it.
Interesting. Is there a cite for that? Right now they seem to have the lowest rate. Strange that they would have gone from the highest to the lowest in just 20 years.
Yeah, and the Joos have destroyed the US government in New York. /snark
OP, care to tone down the query a little?
Ya got me JM. I searched and apparently there are no facts to support my statement.
As per this site (P.10), Utah had a higher than the national average teenage birth rate .
http://www.health.utah.gov/mihp/pdf/1997report.pdf
Thanks for calling me on that one.
Sounds to me like the teenage girls of Utah learned very well about sex.
Not really. You don’t need formal education to have – or to figure out – sex. If all education about sex were prohibited, the human race would not die out from lack of trying. Where education comes in is the wise use of resources with biological and medical knowledge.
A chip on your shoulder? There’s nothing wrong with the tone of the OP and it’s a legitimate question.
Here is a good article on Mormon demographics in Utah. I grew up in southeastern Idaho, which is as Mormon as Utah in most areas. We non-Mormons did feel put-upon by Mormon attitudes, and it was important to find ways to advertise to society at large that you weren’t Mormon.
I’m not quite sure what kind of point you’re trying to make, but the Joos do not form a single coherent organization with specific policies and goals, like the LDS church does. They also don’t constitute a majority or even a significant plurality of the population. (About 7% of New York’s population is Jewish, compared with over 60% of Utah’s population being LDS.)
But there are certainly no shortage of Jewish organizations who work to influence government policy in New York and elsewhere.
I’ve only been here a short time, but based on newspaper headlines there have been several recent situations where the LDS church has stated their position on some issue and the government has immediately back-tracked and gone along with it.
friedo: agree 100%
TokyoBayer: “Chip on my shoulder” is an unfortunate counter-tweak: I am an American.
I, for one, am fine with the tone of the query. And the topic. Hell, "the “Joos” are involved in (lack of) church-State separation in a far greater tangle, legally–I have seen it referenced as the most egregious cases of constitutional malfeasance in the OP topic–in Kiryas Joel, a small village/town in upstate New York. A Supreme Court decision: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/93-517.ZS.html; the Wiki on the village: Kiryas Joel, New York - Wikipedia
So the premise of OP is as appropriate as any other in testing and questioning the Constitution. “Tone down” referred only to the black and white of the query subject line.
It just seemed a little beyond-alarmist to posit literally in the query that somehow one of the 50 states of the Union was in its very makeup as a member of the United States in violation of the charter of those states. Not only has Utah gotten away with it all these years–weird enough-- but because of some inordinate power of the LDS, which otherwise “must” be the only reason, because the seeming flaunting of the rules is so obvious to all.
By counter-example, expanding on the Kiryas Joel case, SCOTUS has just ruled on a case involving Texas abortion laws–indeed, ruling on Constitutional legalities naming names of states is sort of its business.
Texas got zapped; a portion of Texas law.
The qualifications for Texas to be part of the United States, or any other state once admitted, are, like the other 49 pretty good.
That’s all I meant. Not fighting words.
I just brought this to the table:
**Has SCOTUS or the Congress ever entertained the idea of throwing a state out of the Union? **
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=797063
For people unfamiliar with the LDS church in Utah, it’s impossible to understate the influence which “the Church” has. A former state director of ACLU said she was from Boston and was completely unprepared for it.
You have to understand that the LDS church is filthy rich. In this 2012 Bloomberg article, its assets were estimated at $40 billion with annual tithing income of $8 billion, and then if the income from other sources are included, it would be billions more. This would place the church as the wealthiest organization in Utah, and the largest private company, if it were compared to other corporations. Not only are there direct employees, but all of the supporting businesses such as media companies and insurance companies.
The church has a massive media presence, owning one of the local TV stations and a newspaper. It recently lost a bid to purchase the Salt Lake Tribune, which traditionally has been a check on the media monopoly.
As others have alluded to, nothing compares to the LDS church for a uniformity in beliefs of the members with a much, much higher degree of control than any other major religion in the States. Even the Catholic church cannot touch it as there is a much stronger sense of independence from Rome.
With an extensive network of lay leadership, the midlevel church leaders often drift into positions of influence in the state and local governments. My childhood stake president (an organization level of about six to ten congregations and about 3,000 members) ran for state legislature. Not unsurprisingly, he won.
Not only is the legislature and governors offices staffed by Mormons, the judicial branch is dominated as well. You may remember the judge who recently attempted to take a foster child away from a lesbian married couple because he didn’t feel gays should have children. Well, guess where that BYU graduate got that impression? This is an example of the pervasiveness of the LDS culture.
For an example of an inappropriate direct intervention by the church, we go to an entertaining podcast by some former Mormons including one who was a prosecutor in Arizona, specializing in sex offenses against children. In one case where a prominent Mormon was implicated, the LDS Church’s law firm called him to attempt to intervene. Although he was still a Mormon at that point, he refused.
Stranger mentioned you in his post:
[quote]
For people who don’t know me, I am as ex-Mormon as it gets and one of the most – OK, the most – vocal about it on these boards.
And I call bullshit on your story. You may not be making it up, but your friend is.
I know many rotten things “the Church” has done and this ain’t one of them.
The State allowed Hofmann to plead guilty to avoid the death penalty in an extremely controversial decision which allowed the LDS church’s dealing with Hofmann to stay out of the public spotlight for several decades. The church had been quietly purchasing what they believed were embarrassing documents demonstrating that Smith was a fraud, and then burying them in the archives. A public trial would not have looked good for the church.
Not correct any longer. While it won’t publicly acknowledge it, the LDS Church knows that the truth claims of the BoM are not verifiable and most likely wrong. I could go on, but this is a hijack to thread.
I’ll ask for a cite for this because even if it were true, which it’s not, it doesn’t exist because too many of the companies are private.
Mormons, as individuals are heavily involved in Nevada gaming, just as Marriott Corp. makes money hand over fist on porn in their hotels (no pun intended), but not the church itself.
And, even if the LDS church were to own shares in some companies, it simply wouldn’t be the case that they would “own or have significant share in most of the major corporations.”
And here’s another article outlining the influence of the church in Utah politics.
http://www.anamericandreamrevealed.com/2015/03/the-role-of-lds-church-in-utahs-politics.html
I’m neither shocked nor distressed. You, on the other hand, continue to be a one-trick pony.
I’d imagine that anywhere that one religious group is dominant is going to have a certain appearance of intertwining church and state, even if there’s not any actual behind-the-scenes string-pulling going on.
You see this all the time at the local level- counties and cities more or less implementing Baptist church style policies. Not so much because the local Baptist pastor is running the show, but because the local electorate is overwhelmingly Baptist, and the local guy may politicize his sermons a bit more than strictly necessary.
You even see this sort of thing when those religious groups aren’t even predominant, but are numerous, organized and belligerent about their issue at hand. Witness the shit-storms that occur whenever a jurisdiction tries to liberalize post-Prohibition era law regarding alcohol sales and distribution in the South. Even in places like the DFW area, these things are hugely contentious, because of a big religiously-driven component of “Demon rum! Can’t have that! We like our century old laws, thank you very much.”
I very much imagine Utah is that way, except that maybe there’s more top-down control from the LDS church as far as what the local stakes and what-not are supposed to teach/vote for, and that they probably do lobby local LDS politicians and let them know what the church’s positions on things are. I do seriously doubt that the Utah legislature or governor or courts actively solicit the opinions of the LDS church before making decisions though.
And ultimately, that’s why we have the Federal courts- any abuses of this sort would likely be heard in Federal court, not in potentially tainted state court.
Born and raised in Utah, raised a Catholic, not religious at all now. Went to public schools there during my formative years as well as for my bachelor and graduate degree. They have an influence, no doubt. But I don’t buy the assertion they control everything. Now certain cities (Provo and Orem come immediately to mind) there may be more of an influence, as those cities have very large Mormon populations. I lived in Price which is only about 25% Mormon and SLC which is similar.
I imagine it is probably similar to living in say, South Bend for Catholics. I am not overly fond of Mormons, but then I am not fond of most religions, but the one trick pony shows I see here on this issue often irritate me. I mean, come on, you guys are making me defend the fucking Mormons here for hells sake.
Still have several Mormon friends (mainly high school friends) and I do think politically most of them are full of shit as they fall back on the conservative aspects of their religion to make many of their decisions, but no more so then other religious friends of other faiths who do the same thing.
I posited nothing in the subject line, which is just as well as I know nothing about life in Utah. This was a genuine question with no hidden presuppositions, which is why I was rather taken aback by your request that I temper my tone. What tone?
BTW this is the article which prompted my query. And thanks to all for the instructive, if divided, responses.
This is regarding the business climate, not government specifically;
In the 90’s I worked with a non-Mormon professional woman who had moved (briefly, it turns out) to Utah from the Boston area. She found life extremely difficult - a pervasive “stay in the kitchen, have babies” attitude that made finding any appropriate position almost impossible. They moved back to Boston.
Moderator Note
Let’s avoid personal comments in General Questions. No warning issued.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
At this point, since this involves both religion and politics it’s best to move it over to Great Debates.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator