Many of Utah's current lawmakers and political leaders grew up here in the 1960s, when leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were deciding how to deal with civil rights and other volatile issues that swept the nation.
Because the majority of Utah policymakers are Mormon, how their church dealt with those issues in the past heavily impacts the state today, according to a local historian, who cites the current debate over gun control as a prime example of how the issues may have changed but the "lenses" through which many policymakers view them remain the same.In a speech on, "Conflict, Change and Growth: Utah, the Mormon Church and the 1960s," Utah State Archivist Jeffrey Johnson said it didn't take long for the sweeping social change of the 1960s to hit Utah.
It began with a three-day civil rights protest staged outside the LDS Church Administration Building beginning March 7, 1965. "That was the first time such pressure had been put on the LDS Church." Organized by blacks and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the protest "directly challenged Mormon internal policies which affected local politics," he said.
At the time, the Utah Legislature was considering whether to pass civil rights legislation. "The church was officially silent during the three-day demonstration while protesters offered prayers and gave speeches." Johnson said some church leaders "misunderstood the NAACP's motive" for the protest in support of the proposed legislation, instead believing it was aimed at the church's stance banning black men from holding the priesthood.
"The protest ended the day the Deseret News published an editorial reiterating a civil rights statement that President Hugh B. Brown (a counselor in the church's First Presidency) had made during a 1963 (LDS) general conference." The Legislature subsequently passed a public accommodations measure and a fair employment act, Johnson said.
"You can see the same thing today with the church's support for gun legislation," he said, referring to President Gordon B. Hinckley's statement about the ready availability of guns in the wake of shootings last month at the LDS Family History Library.
As Congress swings toward tighter gun laws, state lawmakers and Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt have moved closer in recent days to calling a special session to deal with the issue, and on Wednesday several proposals were discussed during legislative interim meetings at the state Capitol. Many have speculated that public comments by LDS Church leaders will push lawmakers to pass new legislation.
As for the 1965 protest, Johnson said it had a "chilling trend on the positive publicity that had been growing for the Mormon Church" at the time. "I believe it left the church in the 1970s, and since then, out of touch with mainstream social thought." The church "became increasingly protective of its racial and gender policies as larger American society underwent these rapid social changes. I think these things have been reflected in Utah lawmaking for the past 30 years."
Johnson's speech, to a near capacity crowd gathered at the White Memorial Chapel on Thursday, was reminiscent of the kind of reflection scheduled this weekend in Ogden during the annual Mormon History Association conference. (See story on E8.) In fact, Johnson said the basis for the speech was presented as a paper during the group's 1991 annual meeting.
"For Mormons, the civil rights conflict had moved from their TV screen into their own homes and streets," he said. President Lyndon Johnson had pushed for new legislation and then-Gov. Calvin Rampton had taken up the cause. "I was a student at BYU then, and I recall that rumors that black civil rights workers were going to converge on Salt Lake City to take over the temple."
He recalled how the president of LDS Church-owned Brigham Young University, Ernest Wilkinson, was determined not to allow the types of student protest regarding Vietnam there that had swept other U.S. college campuses.
Much of how church leaders responded to civil rights protests, the Vietnam issue and the counter-culture movement -- both through public speeches and through policies instituted at Brigham Young University -- "acquired the status of theology and doctrine," Johnson said.
Yet societal forces "taught people to be skeptical of authority" and to seek out and examine minority voices.
As a result, "church leaders started calling for greater obedience and asking members to go through these challenges by obeying what their leaders said."
Because many of Utah's current political leaders were maturing during those years, they now "view problems in the 1990s through the lenses developed during that time . . . That helps us understand the struggle we're having today," he said.