Newsgroup: it.comp.console.playstation
Titolo: Hatch & Hume

 jay stevens
It isn't surprising that Utah has changed its election laws to premit
Hatch to run for two offices simultaneously.  It wouldn't be the first
time that the Utah legislature has changed, or has attempted to change,
the election process to enable the Church to maintain its stranglehold
on state politics.
I was in Salt Lake over the weekend and saw an article in the Tribune
describing a nearly successful attempt by the legislature in the 1950's
to enact a bill that would have ensured Church control over the state
senate.  (Unfortunately, I neglected to save the article, so I'm
recounting the gist from memory.)  It would have allocated one senate
seat to each Utah county, irrespective of population, so that the least
populated, rural counties would have had the same political clout as
Salt Lake County where, not coincidentally, most of the non-Mormon
populace is locared.  The bill was widely discussed and advocated in LDS
wards throughout the State - shades of DOMA! - and had the explicit
support of at least two Church Apostles.  The attempt short-circuited,
however, when a letter outlining the Church's strategy was published in
major state newspapers, causing a voter backlash.  Oops!
The saddest part for me was reading of the tacit involvement of Pres.
David O. McKay, the man who most physucally resembles and usually acted
the way I would imagine God to be.  He initially proclaimed Church
neutrality in the matter, but later began referring inquiries from
members seeking guidance on the issue to the two Apostles who were
advocating the legislation.
Is it really possible that the Church leadership would try to subvert
the democratic process to promote its own agenda?
-Arjay in Long Beach
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-Arjay in Long Beach
Is this part of a blonde joke? (No offense to the many intelligent blondes 
who do not fit the stereotype <g>).
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 the democratic process to promote its own agenda?
A lot of people think it does this all the time.  But those are the
people who refuse to believe that anyone could have a different
political belief than their own.
By the way, the change to allow an incumbent to run for their current
state office at the same time as making a run for president was based on
the idea that it is stupid to kick out someone who has a great deal of
popular support just because he made a run for president that was ended
way before the state election came around anyway.  It has nothing to do
with the church maintaining their stranglehold on politics.  Surely you
are not unaware enough to believe that Orrin Hatch is the only mormon
who would run for senate in 2000.
Jon
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Darren


 political belief than their own.
    Does that mean that in your opinion the church exercises no political
power or influence in Utah?  Or that the church never tries to influence state
politics?
    jay stevens


 
Sorry, but this never happened.  Many states (if not all) originally had
the state senate allocated by counties without regard to population as a
 mirror of the way the US Senate is allocated (2 per state without
regard to population.)
As a result of a supreme court decision some time ago, all states were
forced to abandon this system and allocate both houses by population
only.  Of course, you could always claim that the US Senate was set up
this way as part of a plot to keep mormons in power, I guess.  It
doesn't take much of a stretch to believe that if you believe the other
one.
 
I don't know who told you this, but there isn't a word of truth in it.
 
Jon
Oh golly gosh, I must have hallucinated reading the feature article on
the subject in question in the June 21st edition of the Salt Lake
Tribune.  I tend to lose touch with reality each time I enter the
rarified air of Zion, overcome as I invariably am by a euphoric feeling
that "all is swell, all is swell" just as the hymn assures us.  In my
delirium, I envisioned the article on page 1, in the far left-hand
column.  That's what I get for reading (or imagining I read)the Trib
instead of the Deserted News which, alas, was not available at my hotel,
a non-Marriott property.  (Moral: Never rely on Gentiles for religiously
correct reading material.)
Now that I have returned to the sodden air of Long Beach, my head, if
not my sinuses, has cleared.  It was all a delusion.  The Church leaders
would never engage in so nefarious a tactic as gerrymandering to
preserve their political(?!) power over not only its members, but the
non-LDS population of Utah.  They would never violate the separation of
church and state and risk being at odds with the Constitution that our
Elders may one day save when it is hanging by a thread.  Hmmmm,come to
think of it, I wonder from/for whom they will be saving it. 
Lucid again,
Arjay in Long Beach
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 > populace is locared.
Ah yes.  And in other places, like Idaho and California, the point was
to keep rural interests from being completely overriden by urban
interests.  Somehow, however, in Utah there aren't any rural or urban
interests.  Everything that happens is a nefarious church plot.  This is
called the voice of reason.


 called the voice of reason.
There are all sorts of political plots and plotters, including those who
are primarily motivated by religious interests.  I would find it just as
alarming if I learned that the Roman Catholic Church, the Jehovah's
Witnesses (fortunately, they don't vote) or the Girl Scouts, for that
matter, were trying to gerrymander the voting precincts of California so
that their interests unfairly prevailed, especially if they were
inimical to mine.
The major difference between the hypothetical scenario described above
and the real one ('real' in this instance apparently being subject to
dispute) published in the Tribune is this: As far as I know, the
organizations listed above do not claim that the U.S. Constitution is
divinely inspired or that a basic tenet of their organizational ethos is
"...honoring, obeying and sustaining the law," presumably including the
laws of the land.  Is it really in the spirit of honoring, obeying and
sustaining the law for the Church leaders to be complicit in trying to
deprive the sizeable non-LDS minorities in Salt Lake County, heathens
though they might be, of their right to representation in the
legislature proportionate to their numbers?  Perhaps, it is naīve of me
to expect better behavior from the Lord's servants.
Finally, for me anyway, lest I be accused of flaggelating a moribund
equine: It is one thing for the Church to "render unto Caesar that which
is Caesar's" as Christ counseled.  It is quite another matter for the
Church to attempt to become Caesar.
Pax,
Arjay in Long Beach
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