PROVO — The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints fired back Thursday at criticism of the choice of Vice President Dick Cheney as Brigham Young University's commencement speaker.
The church and the university also announced Thursday that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, an LDS Democrat from Nevada, will speak at BYU on Nov. 27.
Some BYU students, alumni and faculty have criticized the invitation of Cheney as partisan, but a statement posted on the church's Web site (www.lds.org) Thursday afternoon defended the selection, saying "the invitation is seen by the university's board of trustees as one extended to someone holding the high office of vice president of the United States rather than to a partisan political figure."
Church officials acknowledged the invitation has generated some controversy, enough to spark a campus protest next week.
Administrators at the private university approved the request for a protest on school property and are considering another request for a protest on the day of Cheney's scheduled visit, April 26.
"That request is still under review, and the matter under discussion is the location," BYU spokeswoman Carri Jenkins said. "I don't know what location was proposed, but I know it didn't work out, so we've asked them to come back with other suggestions."
The invitation of Reid appears to answer the call by some critics to balance Cheney's appearance with a nationally prominent Democrat, but it doesn't address others who argue Cheney's visit violates university policy that speakers' personal and political values should not demean the principles of BYU or the church.
"I'm glad Harry's coming," BYU business professor Warner Woodworth said. "It'll be useful for our students to have a Democrat for a role model."
But Woodworth still will work to have Cheney "dis-invited" because he believes Cheney has history of lying and using profanity to describe other political leaders.
Woodworth also said that inviting Cheney sanctions corporate greed, U.S. military aggression in the Middle East and "evil practices" such as torture and secret prisons.
"It clearly stains the (business school), which historically has prized both personal and professional ideals," Woodworth said.
The church statement said the invitation to Reid to speak at a forum assembly was in the works before the White House offered Cheney to BYU. That offer was made in January to make up for President Bush turning down the university's invitation last year because of scheduling conflicts.
The church also directly addressed a column in Thursday's edition of the Salt Lake Tribune titled "Church shows true color — red." The church's statement said Tribune columnist Rebecca Walsh used "intemperate and disrespectful language" to claim that inviting Cheney "shreds the LDS Church's perennial claims of political neutrality."
Tribune executive editor Tom Baden didn't think the column was intemperate, saying Walsh's role as a local news columnist is to have a strong voice on issues of local importance.
"We don't think it was disrespectful," he said. "We think it was robust and vigorous."
The Tribune also published an editorial urging Cheney be allowed to speak. The editorial defended BYU's right to invite him and others' right to protest the invitation.
The invitation was extended by the three members of the First Presidency of the LDS Church, acting in their roles as members of the executive committee of the BYU board of trustees. One of the three men, President James E. Faust, is a noted Democrat who served in the Utah State Legislature from 1949-51 and was appointed by President John F. Kennedy to the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights in 1962.
The church's statement reiterated its policy of political neutrality, which prohibits church leaders from endorsing candidates in the name of the church and the use of church buildings or rolls for political purposes.
The church also avoids telling church members for whom they should vote, the statement said. In addition, according to the statement, the church also avoids telling church members who are elected officials how they should vote.
"The invitation to the vice president of the United States is not a violation of that policy, any more than inviting the majority leader of the Senate would be," the statement said.
The university has invited Democrats to speak in the past. U.S. Rep. Tom Lantos, D-California, spoke at commencement in 2001. Journalist Helen Thomas proudly called herself a liberal when she spoke at a BYU forum assembly in 2003.
Reid also spoke at the law school's graduation in 2004.
BYU extended invitations to the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates in 1992, Jenkins said. President George H.W. Bush accepted while Bill Clinton declined.
Democratic presidents Woodrow Wilson, Harry S. Truman and Lyndon B. Johnson spoke at BYU, as did presidential candidates Robert F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey.
E-mail: twalch@desnews.com