if you live in utah, how are you affected by the mingling of church and state?

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elfkinthedestroyer

New member
it seems to me that there are alot of things the church controls there, and was hoping to hear from both mormons and non mormons who live there and what they think about the far reach of the church.
EDIT: no, i don't think it's wrong to be involved in politics due to what you believe and vote accordingly, my question was more about how much steering the government gets from the church. for example, the top LDS brass meets with state legislators every year, and for so long the liquor laws were very staunch. what about the people who live there who ARENT mormon? i read a story about a jewish kid in elem school forced to sing religious songs and participate in worship in PUBLIC school, and when her parents intervened, she was met with anti-semetic remarks and abuse from other children. is this the sort of thing mormons in utah support?
 
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tjsgigante

New member
Just about seminary in public schools (having done seminary myself) they call it "release time" for a reason. When you go to seminary, you are no longer at school. It also exists outside of Utah. I've heard of it in Arizona, for example.

The only thing I can think of about the mixing of the two, is how Mormons get involved in politics and vote according to their beliefs. Is that so wrong?

EDIT: To you're comment, I certainly hope not.
 
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MsStevieII

New member
It's less of a problem here than in the Bible belt. The Constitution is a major check on any attempts to create any theocracy. It is conservative though. I like it here better than Idaho or anywhere in the South.
 
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LadyLynx

New member
They're working on the liquor laws. At least now you don't have to sign up to be a member of a club to get into a bar. It's improvement...
Well, they have seminary class at school, an optional class held in the church to learn about bible stuff... I've never taken the class, so I don't know what they learn. And since I've lived here in Utah for most of my school years, I don't know if they have seminary class in other states.
The DI, a thrift store of sorts, will only hire Mormons who have recommendations from their churches. Yet, they'll take anyone's money.
I've lived here for so long, that I don't think I can pinpoint any other examples. Whatever the church is involved in, aside from marriage, you get used to it after a few years.

-I don't remember ever having to sing religious songs in church, except around Christmas time, of course. Though there is the "popcorn popping on the apricot tree" song. From what I've seen when a question about the song was posted here, only those from Utah knew what the person was talking about. But since the song is just nonsense and has no religious base, I guess it doesn't have anything to do with what you are asking... ah, well.
 
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lastworkerbee

New member
Yes, even democrat non LDS elected officials admit they listen to what the LDS church wants in Utah.

I was shocked on my last visit to see they don't have any helmet laws at all. What idiots.

In fact a survey by Parents magazine a couple years ago found Utah to be the least safe place to raise a child. They have inadequate car safety laws, few resources, and a high rates of accidental death for kids.

Every time I hear about another child dead and forgotten in a hot car, it's a Mormon, usually in Utah.

They spend about half per child for education compared to other states.

They have too many kids and can't afford to take good care of them all apparently.
 
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joshsy

New member
In a democratic society if the population is overwhelmingly one religion then the laws will follow!

Of course drinking laws were strict, they were strict because for years the majority could only see them harming the area but individually they would have no benefit from it - so the population didn't want alcohol more readily available because it didn't benefit them.

I worked in a restaurant where once a week I had to say to someone "sorry, we don't serve wine/beer" - that's because we didn't want to lay off the half of our staff that was under the age of 21 and pay to have liquor controls in a restaurant where we would only earn an extra $4 per night from alcohol sales.

So often times it's a matter of economics.

Using this alcohol example, coffee is also prohibited by our religion, yet in virtually every restaurant you can and always could find coffee. If it was religious bias, how come coffee wasn't banned as well?


As for the top LDS brass meeting with legislators each year; I can tell you that aside from government meetings which are common for any religious group to do that's false. So there may be agenda items that need to be discussed, but this conspiracy theory you read about them telling the legislature what to do is utterly false.


I also doubt your story about the Jewish kid forced to sing religious songs. I worked in a juvenile prison teaching a course called Christian ethics; while many of the kids were LDS because it was a prison I couldn't favor any denomination and when we had Jewish kids in there we would focus on Old Testament stories so we wouldn't offend them.

My elementary school was literally 100% mormon and my high school was 99% mormon. We didn't worship in either location.

Perhaps you shouldn't believe everything you read!



EDIT:

Lastwork - Utah has a much higher ration of kids than other states, so they would have more accidents involving kids because there are more kids. However actual studies that aren't motivated by religious bigotry (not that you would read those!) list Utah as a very safe place to raise a family.

And as far as the Utah democrats saying that the church runs the state, look up the records of the recent mayors of Salt Lake City - to claim any of them are controlled by the church is ridiculous!
 
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