Discussion Group Report

Last December, The Salt Lake Tribune carried a special feature of several pages with the same title as the present article. It was introduced with the caption, "Intolerance, misinformation, insensitivity exist on both sides of a gap that seems to many to separate Utah Mormons and non-Mormons." The Tribune has received more requests for extra copies of this feature than for any feature it has ever run. It was a year in the making.

Its articles were written by Tribune reporters and prominent business and community leaders and contain quotes from some ordinary people. Here are some salient thoughts expressed by them:

Alex, 11 years old, lost his best friend, because Alex wasn't Mormon. When he went to a sleepover at his friend's house, his friend told him he couldn't come over because his parents said he was a bad influence. Some years later Alex at the high school graduation ceremony was given special recognition for having been selected to attend Harvard. Alex wondered, were his friends looking and thinking, "Oh the bad influence is going to Harvard?"

Such hard feelings haunt every Utah community. "It is a bad flood that flows both ways, and for some it is bitter," says the article by Dan Egan.

When Mormons sit down at dinner and never take a drink, they can be very judgmental of those drinking [alcohol], but sometimes Mormons are also judged for not drinking.

Countless friendships, partnerships and marriages have bridged the Mormon/non-Mormon divide. But every day secret scores are kept on both sides. Classifications are so constant as to be almost unconscious. "He is one of us. She is one of them."

Sometimes non-Mormons use pejorative, ugly words to talk about Mormons, for example "cult," "self-righteous," "narrow-minded" and "Mo." Sometimes that nastiness is unbridled religious bigotry. At times it comes from people rubbed raw from persistent attempts by missionaries and well-meaning Mormon neighbors' attempts to sell them a religion other than their own. Other times it comes from frustration at a religious institution that is a cultural and political powerhouse. One source of such frustration was the conversion of a block of Salt Lake's Main Street into a religious park after the Mormon members of the City council voted to sell it to their church. Other irritants are the ubiquity of the LDS presence in Utah; seminaries adjacent to public high schools; the Salt Lake Temple as the unofficial state icon; the exclusivity non-Mormons believe the Temple represents, including the exclusion of family members, even of some who are Mormons but who don't qualify for a 'recommend,' a pass giving a person the right to participate in Temple rites; stereotyping statements like, " If you don't like it here, leave;" LDS family members shunned by their Salt Lake City neighbors when they are spotted heading for Sunday services with scriptures in hand; and the agnostic office worker being antagonized with such questions as, "What ward do you belong to?"

The LDS church demands a lot of time from its members, and that fact is hard for non-Mormons to fathom. Sometimes high school students are surprised to find a popular student is a non-Mormon, since it is generally assumed that only Mormons are popular. Some of the instances of non-Mormon children being excluded from play by other children in their neighborhoods are heart-rending. Some parents say Utah is probably the only place where kids are defined by religion, not race or social class. Some complain that Mormons have the perception that only Mormons are nice. Some non-Mormons cope by finding their own circle of friends.

Bruce Smith, publisher of the Herald Journal in Logan is often stunned by the insensitivity of fellow Mormons. He says they chat about mission calls and conference talks at football games and dinner parties, as if everyone around is LDS. At the same time, he says, some non-Mormons "get their noses bent out of joint" for no reason.

The Tribune is seen is seen as at least a secondary player in the cultural-religious divide. Bob Fatheringham, a businessman, cites these examples: 1) Efforts to discredit the church's offers of support in staging the 2002 Olympic games by labeling them as self-serving and dishonest, 2) The charges of duplicity regarding the church's role surrounding the legal battle over future ownership of the Tribune, 3) Nominating President Hinckley as a candidate for Man of the Year in 2000 and then listing one of his accomplishments as that of trying to "culturally cleanse" the newspaper, and 4) the Mountain Meadows Massacre series, run just after Hinckley had just offered a historic olive branch to current-generation families of the victims. But Shelley Thomas, former KSL TV news anchor and now a businesswoman, says the Tribunereflects the rift but isn't the cause. "The cultural divide is real, and it would exist if we relied on tribal drums for morning news."

LDS leaders acknowledge that there is a problem. "We must not be clannish," President Gordon B. Hinckley has said. "We must never adopt a holier-than thou attitude." He described Utah as a state of great diversity. He asked his people to make non-Mormons feel welcome, to befriend them and associate with them.

In some places in the state, particularly in rural areas, people have taken steps to bridge the gap between the two cultures. In one case local Mormons helped non-LDS persons to build a church for their own faith, Catholic, then flocked to the consecration of the church buildings. In one case a quilting group, mostly Mormon, meets in a Catholic Church. It is simply a healthy respect for differences.

It is time, says John Huntsman, Alliance for Unity co-founder, philanthropist, and practicing Mormon, to "start healing the wounds of the state."