Posted by:
steve benson
(
)
Date: July 18, 2014 08:38PM
At least so asserted by grandfather, Ezra Taft Benson:
“In February 1974, Apostle Ezra Taft Benson was asked during an interview if a good Mormon could also be a liberal Democrat. Benson pessimistically replied:
‘'I think it would be very hard if he was living the gospel and understood it.’
"To this extreme position Ralph Harding, a two-term Idaho Democratic congressman and a Mormon, retorted:
"'In fact, it is much easier to be a faithful Latter-day Saint and a liberal Democrat than it is to be a faithful Church member and a member of the John Birch Society. Compassion and tolerance are attributes that are found in faithful Church members and liberal Democrats but seldom in John Birchers and other extreme right wingers.'"
("Mormons? 'Many Liberals,'" in "Salt Lake Tribune," 26 February 1974, p. 24, cited in John Heinerman and Anson Shupe, "The Mormon Corporate Empire," Chapter 4, "Political and Military Power of the Latter-day Saints"[Boston, Massachusetts: Beacon Press, 1985], p. 142)
What my grandfather publicly said as a Mormon Church apostle against the notion of being, at the same time, a good Mormon and a Democrat he confirmed in his private Benson family conversations.
To his dismay, there were certain Mormon Church leaders who thought they could be both. As an adolescent, I overheard him express concern to my father about the appointment of eventual LDS apostle, Neal Maxwell, as Church commissioner of education.
He complained that Maxwell was a "liberal." Ever loyal to the prophet then-LDS Church president David O. McKay), however, ETB resigned himself to accepting on faith the prophet's decision.
First Presidency counselor in the McKay regime, Hugh B. Brown, was another burr under my grandfather's saddle (or, as my mother once angrily told me, "a thorn in the side of your grandfather"). Brown strongly opposed ETB's far-right JOhn Bircher views and his attempts to officially align them with Mormon Church doctrine. Nevertheless, as Brown became increasingly enfeebled with age, my grandfather expressed to me his love and concern for his fellow apostle, and never told me about the earlier political feuding with his colleague.
Nonetheless, as Heinerman and Shupe note, the fact remains that "LDS leadership attitudes [affect] . . . Mormonism's grass roots level . . . [a] lot [according to] state Democratic leaders . . . . The image of Republicans is perceived by many faithful Saints as more closely aligned with Mormon values than that of Democratism.
"Dale Lambert, an active Mormon and former Democratic party state chairman, has seen many well-known Mormons who declared themselves Democrats when they run for office and subsequently lost. He said in an interview:"
"'Our efforts to run a middle course and be true to Democratic constituencies while still appealing to the majority haven't worked. We hear some brave talk but the party is very discouraged. "
"There is a joke in Salt Lake City expressing a feeling that Mormon Democrats say the know well:
"'I thought I saw Brother Williams in the Temple last week. Why that is impossible. He's a Democratic, you know.'
"To Utah Democrats, however, it's no joke. Though many Mormons may not go as far as Ezra Taft Benson in equating membership in the Democratic party with apostasy, Republican philosophy seems to have an edge at election time.
"Ed Firmage, a [now-retired] University of Utah law professor, liberal [but now completely LDS-inactive] Mormon Democrat and former congressional candidate, thinks the LDS Church should take responsibility for perpetuating the idea that good Mormons have to be Republicans and for dismantling the stereotype in the future. Said Firmage:
"'My main concern isn't as a Democrat, but as a Mormon. We need to look at the universality of the gospel message. The basic Church principles are not liberal or conservative or Republican or Democratic.
"Otherwise, Mormon Democrats warn that Republican and Democratic parties would essentially turn into Mormon and Gentile parties, threatening a return to the political polarization of the 1870s in Utah when the Liberal party [founded to represent Utah Gentiles who felt out of power engaged in nasty mud-slinging campaigns against the LDS People's party. . . .
"Mormons are part of a larger hierarchical network, Even if their partisan sympathies are [arguably] moderate and split between the two major political parties, they are still subject to pressures for political action that appeal to the Mormon brand of morality rather than a political [party] ideology."
(pp. 142-44; see related, now-closed RfM thread at:
http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1327584)
Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 07/19/2014 12:50AM by steve benson.