What if The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints decided that only temple-recommend-holding adherents would be counted as true members of their church? Wouldn't this constitute the same philosophy that Wayne Overson (Readers' Forum, July 21) and all others extol who want to exclude "non-party members" from voting in the Republican primaries?
The problem is that they want to narrowly define the term "Republican" as only those who are registered as such. This represents a paltry 5 percent to 15 percent of Utah voters. Republicans are not so much disallowing non-party members to vote as they are excluding the majority of their own valuable party members.
As far as Overson's statement that "Jay Evensen's editorial did not make, nor has anyone else made, a good case for allowing non-party voters to help select nominees for a political party," how about this? By becoming so exclusionary, the party could cause its own demise. During the first quarter of the 19th century, the Federalist party, which represented a small group of New England conservatives (a small minority), became extinct, because it became unpopular and was considered to be anti-American — the same as how many people view the Utah Republican Party now.
Colleen Pedersen
Salt Lake City