this post was submitted on 15 Sep 2023
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I live in Utah too and the thing you conveniently didn't mention of how the Mormon church literally runs this state. How numerous things the church doesn't like are outlawed or crazy restricted. Look at the alcohol laws, gambling laws, look at how a worship center is built next to ever school and they get free time every day to go worship during school hours, look at how the church has paid to overturn propositions that get a majority vote through lobbying. Look at the massive homeless problem that exists in a city that is quite literally built around a multi billion dollar religions main place of worship.
You complained about unfinished projects and stuff, I'll take that in a heartbeat.
Literally is a strong word. But they do have a lot of influence, and that's certainly a bad thing.
However, similar things happen elsewhere, but not to the same extent because usually power is split across multiple large organizations. The closest I can think of is Disney in Florida, which has gotten a lot of autonomy and sway that other organizations just don't have just because they're a huge employer and tourist destination.
But I do agree, I dislike how much power the church has, and I think a lot of our stupid policies get killed because of that interference, such as:
Are you talking about seminary buildings? I had one where I grew up outside of Utah (and no, I didn't grow up in AZ or ID where there's a huge LDS population). It's a practical matter so students can take their optional religious instruction during the day instead of before or after school. If it's not near schools, parents would need to take them to/from the seminary building, which means they'd basically be stuck with early morning religious classes.
My high school growing up was directly across from a Lutheran Church, which held a morning prayer circle and I think youth activities after school (or maybe during, I didn't ask). One of my friends and many of the students attended that church, and I remember getting mini New Testaments from someone from that church once/year.
I don't see any problem with students optionally taking religious instruction classes during the day, provided they're still able to meet the requirements for secular education. I didn't get any slack on graduation requirements (and my religious instruction didn't count for credits), so I had to take zero hour classes at the high school to make up for it (other students also took those to graduate early). That's how it should work. Imo, we should encourage this, and encourage more options for breaks in the day for other types of instruction, like apprenticeships, volunteer work, or anything else that's not appropriate for classroom instruction.
Utah generally has pretty reasonable laws, and we don't get most of the nonsense other red states have. However, we certainly have some glaring exceptions:
Yes, but Disney is just a company. Like the examples you gave, the church can just use it's money and people to kill anything.
Yes I am. I grew up on the east coast and never saw these. They are a huge problem, because they promote Mormonism by leveraging schools. I never see a seminary building for any other religion, just LDS. Which shows its not a public service to allow kids to worship, it's a tool to push that specific religion and normalize it as THE religion.
I agree on allowing breaks for many activities, but when you have worship centers for a specific religion slapped next to every school, that's a problem.
On the laws I agree. You mention a lot of really good ones. You forgot to mention a few that I think are silly as well. Such as the "This is a restaurant not a bar" nonsense and all the laws around that. The fact that the state decides what alcohol comes into the state. If they don't have something you want, too bad, you can't order it. The fact that Utah is joining the book banning wave but somehow thinks the Bible is appropriate for children. It's not.
Anyways, my point is, it's clear that Mormon values strongly steer, if not control, policies and the abilty for people to be heard when they vote. Again, I'll take failed civic/social projects over that any day.
At the start you said literally run is a strong term. Based on the things both you and I have shown, I stand behind my statement. If a group can overturn the will of the people, they run that state.
And that's essentially how religions work as well. The difference is that companies tend to be more involved in politics than religions. If you'll notice, the church in Utah doesn't get involved all that often in local politics, only when something it really cares about is contentious.
I'm not saying it's right, I'm saying that Utah isn't as special as many detractors like to claim. Look at any state dominated by one industry and you'll find a lot of the same issues.
Then perhaps that should be more common.
The LDS seminary is much like a Bible study that many of my classmates would go to after school. It's much more than a worship session, there are tests, homework, and other aspects of a formal education, but the subject matter is religious texts, not secular texts. But the same goals apply: teaching students how to learn for themselves.
In college, I took a class on The Divine Comedy where we went in depth into a single volume. That's the secular equivalent of what we did in seminary, just with different subject matter.
I would love it if there were Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist centers near secular schools where kids could choose to take a class as a break from secular education (without compromising their secular education). I think it's really valuable to thoroughly understand the religion you profess to follow, and most people don't seem to get that far.
Yeah, that's part of the stupid alcohol laws. Add the Zion curtain to that list, which was fortunately repealed IIRC.
But I thought you could order whatever you wanted? Maybe it's just a request, and they'll only order it if enough people request it, but I've heard the state liquor stores here have a pretty good selection, aside from the glaring fact that you don't have any options outside of them (and they're not open on Sundays or holidays).
I don't drink, but if I could snap my fingers and change some laws, the alcohol laws would be near the top of that list. For a state with a large tourism industry, we do a bad job of actually catering to tourists.
Yeah, it's pretty dumb. However, I have heard that some of the LGBT books have gotten a pass where a heterosexual book wouldn't have been allowed for being too graphic, so maybe there's an argument here. However, they've likely gone too far (I haven't been keeping track of what the rules actually are).
I agree that religious texts probably shouldn't be in elementary school libraries. Kids just aren't mature enough to really understand that many of them are not historical stories, but allegories, and many stories are incredibly graphic. My 9yo is pretty bright (reads at a 6th grade level or so) and still has some issues distinguishing fiction and real life (even in obviously fictional stories like Harry Potter), and adding religion and history into the mix is a recipe for failure.
So either we should just let school libraries make the call, or we heavily curate what is available based on objective standards. I lean toward the former, but as long as there's consistency, I don't mind too much, provided the restrictions only apply to school libraries (i.e. my local city library is free to have whatever books patrons want). But upper grade levels should have no such limits.
The same thing happens elsewhere though. As long as there's a simple majority for a given party, minority interests won't get much attention. I think the whole notion of geographical voting systems screws everything up because whatever party that's in power gets to rig the system.
I'm interested in exploring proportional representation, especially in smaller states like Utah where it's really easy to completely lock out minority parties. That would also help even out state legislatures so things like ballot initiatives would be less likely to be corrupted.
But AFAIK, no state has implemented proportional representation, and few have effective controls against gerrymandering.
The thing that bothers me more than most of this though is the stupid legislation that age gates porn and social media, which is a huge privacy violation that's just going to end in breaches. I think it's incredibly short-sighted, and it might be enough to get me to run for office. I'm incredibly lazy though (and I have young kids, so time is limited too), but if that doesn't get overturned in the courts, I'll probably run against my state house rep (who had been unopposed since I moved to this district).