Acceptable Bigotry

Marc over at KVNU's For The People blog has a very thought provoking post up about a column that appeared in last Sunday's Salt Lake Tribune (HT The Senate Site). When I read the initial column last Sunday, I knew that the comments were (in large part) going to prove the author's point and boy was I right. The anti-Mormon rhetoric on the SLTrib's comments were some of the most vile stuff I have read in ages. At least the some of the commenters at FTP tried to engage in thoughtful discussion. One that stuck out to me was a comment left by a gentleman named Craig...

This guy is a professor, and he bases his theory on comments on a newspaper website?!?! I’m sure we could look at the Waterloo Courier website and find quite a few similar comments. Someone should write a response based on that. And then he cites a collegiate sports rivalry as further “evidence?” This is a quintessential case of grasping at straws.

While I fully understand Craig's skepticism here, I would like to offer up a couple of thoughts in answer to his remarks. The "evidence" of an anti-Mormon bias in this valley is not just found on the SLTrib comment section. You need look no further thanlocal news sites like KSL.com or local blogs like this.

Although Utah is a theocracy, it is still playing along with democracy for appearance's sake. They even have a semi-Democratic congressman, Republican-voting Blue Dog Jim Matheson. But the action is always inside the Mormon Cult-approved Republican Party, which has won every Senate race since 1970 and every presidential race since LBJ beat Goldwater in 1964. This morning CQPolitics reports that all the political action in Utah this year revolves around the lunatic fringe far, far right faction going after the lunatic fringe far right faction. Target: far right Senator Robert Bennett...Is a zero good enough for the Mormon radicals? No, of course not. These people are dangerous sociopaths busy poisoning the American political landscape. Utah's radical right maniac Attorney General, Mark Shurtleff, is challenging Bennett in the Republican state party convention/HateFest. The kooks and nuts have attacked Bennett because he supported Bush? Huh? Yes, now that the Bush presidency is widely viewed on the far right fringe as an abject and catastrophic failure they have re-written history to make him-- and his supporters-- moderates! Bennett, once beloved by Mormons for being a brain-dead rubber stamp for Bush (who won 72% of Utah's vote in 2004!), is now being portrayed as someone who supported Bush's Business-friendly immigration policies and catastrophic economic agenda. And the crazy Attorney General goes even further, pointing out that his fellow extremists believe the bailout was “not only fiscally irresponsible but immoral.”
Bennett has brought in the heavy guns: the Mormon cult's undying hope for capturing the American presidency, Willard Romney (AKA, "Mitt") is in Utah raising money for him.

Now to be perfectly clear here - I am not a Mormon, nor am I a valley lifer. I am an evangelical Christian who just moved to this valley just in the past year and one of the very first things I noticed here was a not so underlying hatred for the Mormon Church and it's adherents. To be sure, the battle over Prop. 8 fanned those flames higher, but then again, the church was acting on it's teachings and the Bible clearly states that homosexuality (along with a whole host of other things like lying, cheating and stealing) is a sin. No amount of intolerance from the anti-8 folks is going to change that and they have been nothing LESS than totally intolerant of anyone who dares to disagree with their agenda.

I have my doctrinal issues with the Mormon Church to be sure, but I would never, ever EVER address those differences in the manner that is used on some of these local sites. Calling people that you disagree with "lunatics", "radicals", "sociopaths" or "cultists" is not the way to win friends and influence people. It is however, a great way to marginalize yourself.

Here is a "radical" thought....how about we try talking TO one another instead of yelling AT one another. There is much both sides can learn from and about one another if we tried. However, until that day comes it certainly seems that "oh so tolerants" on the left have a long way to go. If you want us to be "tolerant" of you, how about being just a little "tolerant" of the rest of us.

There is an old saying about treating others the way you wish to be treated...