The frequent issues about the separation of church and state continue to keep civil libertarians busy in Utah.
"No ACLU office anywhere has so many issues going on," Carol Gnade, director of the Utah Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said Friday at a session of the annual Sunstone Symposium at the Sheraton City Center.
Gnade, who moved to Utah from Wisconsin 11 years ago, will retire from her ACLU position at the end of the year.
During her presentation, Gnade said she saw her job more as "problem solving, building relationships" than court battles.
"It's understanding that no one agrees with you all the time," she said.
A look back at her many challenges involving church and state includes equal access for East High's Gay-Straight Alliance; the case of lesbian Spanish Fork High school teacher Wendy Weaver; the William Andrews execution; and the unresolved Main Street Plaza issue.
"People in Utah are really afraid to speak up," she noted as perhaps the most consistent factor in the state.
She's also found it strange that anytime she has challenged Bible weeks or public prayer, she has always received death threats.
Gnade also predicted that capital punishment will never be abolished in Utah because of doctrines in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that consider it a part of a personal atonement for committing murder.
Linda Sillitoe, public outreach coordinator at Weber State University's Steward Library and author of "Friendly Fire: The ACLU in Utah," was a respondent to Gnade's presentation.
She said there was no ACLU to help persecuted Mormons in Nauvoo, nor was the group in existence to assist on polygamy issues after they settled in Utah.
"When the Mormon pioneers came here, their rights of religious freedom were trampled," she said.
Sillitoe also said that when Brigham Young and other church leaders climbed to the top of Ensign Peak overlooking Salt Lake shortly after arriving there, they eventually raised two flags there — the American flag and the church's own standard of liberty.
"These two flags are likely to stay aloft," she concluded.
The annual Sunstone Symposium continues through Saturday afternoon at the Sheraton.
E-MAIL: lynn@desnews.com