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.

A few thoughts.

I don't know much about the John Birch Society, but I'm skeptical of the tag of "extremism", as it seems to be thrown at anyone who questions the extreme growth of government in every facet of our lives. Most of our country now looks to government as god to provide their every need, and to keep them safe and secure. For some reason we don't see the trillions in debt as extreme! We don't see our meddling around the world, installing dictators, and wasting trillions of dollars and thousands of lives as extreme!

Apparently, as long as our politicians tell us it is a good idea, we accept anything as normal and good. Kind of sounds like church. Don't question our leaders. Just pay and obey!

I don't see politics as Republican and Democrat, because few policies change with party. Supposedly peace loving Democrats continue bombing, and supposedly welfare hating Republicans continue wasting money on that. George Bush doubled the dept of education while in office!

And since there isn't enough money to pay for all the waste, we just have the Federal Reserve print money out of thin air to pay for it all. Which causes prices to rise, so hurts the poor. Neither party questions our out of control monetary system, which is slowly destroying the dollar and robbing the country. Not to mention they suppress interest rates which robs savers such as retirees, and benefits Wall Street.

So it is ironic that proponents of government programs claim to have compassion. First, I'm not sure if you display compassion by spending other people's money. But then that spending hurts the poor, either by causing inflation, or by driving up the cost of food, healthcare and education. Tuition doubled in the 5 years my daughter was at a state university, but the gov't kept increasing their "aid". Heck, I would raise prices like that in my business if I knew gov't would guarantee to pay the increase.

While claiming to help the poor, the biggest beneficiaries are the education, healthcare, housing and agricultural industries.


So essentially, you are either for more government or less government. You believe gov't exists to protect your rights, or you believe it exists to provide your every need. And of course, to provide for your needs, it has to take by force from someone else.

Which was the purpose of the Constitution, to keep the majority from voting to take from the minority. And since the church supposedly believes the Constitution is inspired, it should follow that faithful members would believe in limited government. As with ETB, I have not found that to be true. They worship government just like the rest of the country.

Members I know especially like the wars we've fought, supposedly for freedom, but the biggest winners have been the military industrial complex. Which ironically we were warned about by Republican president Eisenhower.

I ran across a speech by ETB in 1968 in which he espoused a restrained presence across the world, and defended himself against the charges of isolationism. Funny that Rand Paul is now defending himself against the same charges from establishment Republicans. ETB might not be welcome in the Republican party of today. It is for big government all the way.
http://www.latterdayconservative.com/ezra-taft-benson/united-states-foreign-policy/

I liked ETB's essay on the proper role of government, but of course, most today would not agree with it. Despite the massive failures of nearly every government program and war, people continue to cling to the fantasy that government is the solution to all our problems. Poverty programs dramatically increased rates of illegitimacy and crime and poverty. Education programs drive up prices with no improvement in education. The war on drugs drives up crime and costs trillions and makes drug use worse. The war on terror creates more terrorists and wastes trillions of dollars.
Agriculture subsidies create overproduction and promote growing crops used to make junk food, contributing to obesity which requires more government money to pay for healthcare.

I could go on and on, but of course, I won't change any minds.

... Communist Russia to create rock 'n roll music in order to export it to America with the express purpose of using "devil rock" destroy the morals of American society and prepare it for overthrow by the Soviets in their plot to take over the world.

My grandfather bought into this bull pucky--hook. line and sinker. Even having been a Republican member of Dwight Eisenhower's Cabinet (where he served as Secretary of Agriculture though Ike's two terms), he told me that he thought Eisenhower who either a dupe of the Communists or a knowing agent for the Reds.

My uncle Reed Benson (ETB's oldest son)--who was a high-ranking leader in the Birch Society and who had a hand in writing ETB's General Conference political scrreds--told me personally that Communist China and Communist Russia manufactured a pseudo Sino-Soviet dispute mythology invovling supposed border tension between the two countries in order to deceive the West into believing that the Communist bloc was was fatally fracturing when, in reality, it was a ruse by the Russian and Chinese Commies to feign weakness, which would be followed by a surprise attack by these two Communist powers on an America lulled into false sense of complacency.

If this isn't paranoid extremist kookiness out the delusional wazoo, I don't know what is.

I could go on and on, of course, having been raised in the right-wing reactionary world of boundless Mormon mania where the Gospel of GOD was seen as reposing in the anti-government GOP, but I won't change your mind.



Edited 7 time(s). Last edit at 07/20/2014 06:28AM by steve benson.

You are completely wrong exmo59. The argument that academic costs go up because the government provides aid has been thoroughly debunked. It's gone up as Universities have taken on ever more costly building projects with decreasing state funds. It's all well documented. Turn off th fox news once in a while.

Speaking as a committed liberal, yep, you are right. You won't change any minds by spouting the "government doesn't and can't work" nonsense that's been standard Republican talk for a generation. William Kristol said the most important reason to oppose Clinton's health plan was that it would work, the result of which would be increased confidence in government and its ability to do things well -- a concept conservatives were determined to destroy.

Of course, in the recent economic meltdown, reckless conservative capitalists were thrilled to socialize losses and rely completely on government bailouts to save their sorry back ends and thereby the economy for the rest of us. But they will continue to spout that government can't do anything.

And the 1 percent in this country is a huge beneficiary of government and taxpayer money in other ways. Many companies pay exceptionally low wages and rely on taxpayers to pick up the bill with food stamps and housing allowances. Private equity billionaires are more than happy to strip corporate assets including pension funds, throwing millions into the Pension Benefit Guarantee system.

Who benefitted from the last decade of war and the trillions spent? Not the poor dumb sucker from Idaho with no job prospects who ended up a foot soldier in Iraq. No, the beneficiaries were defense contractors and companies like Haliburton receiving no bid contracts. And still these contractors will vote Republican and spout the uselessness of government and decry the handouts to the "takers", including food stamps to moms working minimum wage who need help to feed their hungry children.

Conservative Republicans are huge beneficiaries of government even as they continue to spout the mantra that government is useless.

Okay, don't get me started!

I find it hard to argue with Ezra on this. At the time at least, liberal democrats favoured sexual liberation, anti-government protests, an expansion of federal power, and secularization. Mormonism was against all those things, and I have no idea why any liberal democrat would ever have stayed in the Mormon church back then.

. . . at least if they were Black and "agitating" for equal rights.

Case in point: He couldn't even bring himself to express sadness or regret over the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Reacting to President Lyndon Johnson's declaration of a national day of mourning two days after the murder of Rev. King, ETB had nothing but opprobrium for the slain civil rights leader.

In a letter to Mormon hotelier J. Willard Marriott, he claimed that �Martin Luther King had been affiliated with at least the following officially recognized Communist fronts,� three of which he then went on to list. In the same letter, he coldly warned Marriott that �the Communist" will use Mr. King's death for as much yardage as possible."

A year later, in another letter to Marriott, my grandfather continued his attack on the dead African-American minister, writing that "the kindest thing that could be said about Martin Luther King is that he was an effective Communist tool. Personally, I think he was more than that."

(D. Michael Quinn, "The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power" [Salt Lake City, Utah: Signature Books, 1997], pp. 100, 113, 463, 471)



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 07/20/2014 06:15AM by steve benson.

I find it ironic that bureaucrats like Ezra Taft Benson and J.Edgar Hoover who worked in the Eisenhower regime were calling Martin Luther King a communist. The head of the unconstitutional federal police force calling a private citizen a communist is laughable. And what do I need the Department of Agriculture for anyways? ETB shunned the establishment except for when he was part of it.

"unconstitutional federal police force " ---- huh ?

"what do I need the Department of Agriculture for " ---- huh ?

The copy of "An Enemy Hath Done This" that my Dad gave me still sits on my bookshelf. When I read it, ETB was the prophet and I remember thinking that America was done, because a prophet wrote this. I had no insight to ETB's political career in the Eisenhower administration.
I also had no idea that politics was such a hot button with the brethren either...Thank you Steve for that insight. The more I learn, the more I get pissed off I was ever associated with this cricket-stomping cult.

I remember reading a book is called "The Great and Abominable Church of the Devil" by H. Verlan Anderson. It was all about how Satan's church is prostituted government. There are tons of Ezra Taft Benson references in that book. There is a lot of lip service given to honoring the rights of the individual. What is funny is that ETB was the head of the church/state in Utah which has been responsible for promoting and making laws that support and reflect a Mormon world view rather than looking out for the individual.
ETB and the Birch Society are constantly calling out conspiracy but what about the Mormon church Joseph Smith conspiracies that ETB perpetuated for so many years? None dare call Mormonism a conspiracy?

you don't get to pick your relatives



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/21/2015 12:54AM by Dave the Atheist.

Classical liberalism holds to values irreconcilable with Mormonism.

Mormonism is all about things like authority, tradition, insularity, even antagonism toward outsiders, myths, inequality and distinctions, patriarchy, faith over reason, oligarchy, and the suppression of individual conscience.

So I would say that Ezra has a much clearer view of the religion he belonged to, than Neal Maxwell.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/21/2015 01:58AM by Tal Bachman.

Fascinating stuff.

It's possible to have a conservative left-winger, and a liberal right-winger, because liberalism and conservativism are polar methods of thought i.e. how one gets there.

That being said - the fearful mind seeing everywhere threat, must control: and so to that endeavor creates rigid non-changing non-negotiable structures (dogma is such a structure) in an attempt to stop anything from changing. Free thought even is threatening; because it is not contained.

So of course a rigid structure is going to be most attracted to a like structure espousing rigidity and non-change.

And the fearful can not be generous nor compassionate, because these can never see the same humanity of oneself in The Other. The Other is perceived always as threat.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/19/2018 06:00PM by zenjamin.

Coming from an outside culture it always troubles me what a huge role politics plays in religion generally within the US. I often feel that somehow the Republican Party is the party of Christianity and that the two are synonymous. ETB may not have much role in churches other than the Mormon Church but his phrase could well be changed to "You can't be a Christian and not be a Republican."