Utah Valley State College, in the heart of Utah County which is home to Provo, Brigham Young University, and a heavily conservative LDS population, has invited Michael Moore to come speak at the college. And of course, people are freaking out. Instead of just deciding "we don't agree with this guy, we won't go," there are now millions of dollars of funding that are at stake. What makes it even more ridiculous is that parents are getting involved:
Kay Anderson, father of a UVSC student who lives next to Sederburg, called his appearance an insult to the community.Anderson made a $25,000 offer to the college to not have Moore appear. His offer, however, was booed down. Still, UVSC says,
"I should not have to send my children to a private university to get a conservative education when I live in a conservative community and have a state college in my back yard that is paid for by conservative taxpayers and donors," he said. "A balanced education does not require we teach our children to be so open-minded that their brains fall out."
it [the coming Moore appearance] has not helped our fund raising.
This is ridiculous, but sadly all too typical of the current political climate. I hate it. Neither of the two major sides are free from guilt, or anywhere close to it. The situation has ratcheted monstrously out of hand, and political debate is dead (and the upcoming Presidential debates will be, I'm sure, travesties to the very notion of debate). The UVSC situation, however, is particularly saddening. Maybe it's because it's my own state, and I had hoped for better. I'm not saying that everyone should march along blindly to Michael Moore's drum; but they should also not blindly march against it.
I'm surprised that Mormons, at least in this state, run so conservative. Maybe it's because The Right has laid claim to religion and has done so much work to paint The Left as godless miscreants. But the LDS church is a very liberal organization, at least in its execution. It has even been rigidly socialist in its past, and if I recall correctly, church scripture says that socialist days could very well come again. Beyond that, it's very much a culture of "help they neighbor." Wards and Stakes often take great care of their members. When a family is having a hard time, their is often plenty of food and support and even financial aid. Members are taxed through an exceptionally well run tithing system, and once a month members are encouraged to fast for a day and donate the money they would have spent on food to the church. The church has a large and incredibly well run aid network, able to deploy food and supplies worldwide efficiently and effectively, and sits on large piles of supplies for their members and for the needy. The church has plenty of social programs, including employment aid (through their thrift stores, 'welfare square', and more) and youth programs. And they're so well run and generally supportive that they decried Bush's "faith based initiatives" program, stating that they did not need any special consideration or help from the federal government for their programs. The LDS church is its own well run government.
So there are many liberal and progressive underpinnings here, which include helping progress the community by giving aid to those who most deserve it. Yes, their belief structure may seem a little strange to you - but Mormons are on track to becoming a world religion on their own (not lumped under the blanket nom of 'christianity') in the next few decades. And I personally find all religion to be a bit strange. But the church itself is, at its heart, an rather good institution. How its members interpret the churches teachings, however, is another thing entirely. And Mormons do have way too much influence over local laws (it's way too hard to get a good drink here).... I don't know where I'm going with this, really. I think I'm just surprised by the behavior of many of the church's members. I remember being in a sunday school class and during the casual banter before class the topic of Jehovah's Witnesses came up. There had been some Jehovah's Witnesses canvassing the neighborhood recently. Everyone was making fun of them, and telling different stories of how they got rid of them. Some were downright rude. What surprised me greatly was that probably earlier that day I had heard (in the same church, with the same people) Missionary stories. Many young Mormons, particularly men, go on missions to spread the gospel door to door. And they come back and tell of the good times and the bad. So I sat in that class hearing them mock the Jehovah's Witnesses, and I couldn't help but think "wouldn't you be furious if people were talking like this about our missionaries? won't it be rough on you if you go and people treat you like this?" The situation became another nail in the coffin that was my interest in church.
Live and let live. Love one another. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. These are all fairly fundamental gospel tenets for most religions, as far as I remember them. In fact, wasn't that the pure gospel of Jesus? "As I have loved you, love one another." Why is there such a strong swath of the so-called religious right that has such a hard time living these precepts? You can't feel rage over images of parts of the Muslim world celebrating the September 11th attacks, and then get excited over the first images of the Shock and Awe campaign against Baghdad. If you're happing when we bomb someone else, you've got to accept that there are people that are just as happy to bomb us. It's a sad fact. Things balance themselves out this way. The terrible notion of innocent hostages being beheaded should sicken you. But you better not be one of these jackasses that then says the torture at Abu Ghraib was just like a college fraternity prank. Some people see the Abu Ghraib pictures and think just a few poor kids should be punished (lightly) for it, and then will see pictures or news about an American hostage being beheaded and say (I shit you not - I've seen this happen and heard these words): "we've just got to nuke everybody there to sand." It's this attitude that is going to get ALL OF US killed. And it's certainly not going to convert me to your party / belief system / whatever.
I just don't get it.