The LDS Church and Immigration (podcast)

Greg Matsen and Paul Mero discuss immigration policy from an LDS perspective.

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You Cannot Make Up This Stuff

You cannot make up this stuff. While competing factions inside any organization can create confusion, a master class in confusion is playing out inside my church and my faith — The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — over the strange bedfellows of homosexuality, peacemaking, and the U.S. Constitution.

At the center of this current confusion is the Wheatley Institute at Brigham Young University. Taking its cue from a decade of accommodation policies promoted by a powerful faction inside the church celebrating homosexuality, Wheatley has been handed the mantle to continue the promotion of gay rights under the guise of family, religion, and constitutional government… read more

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FLASHBACK 2007: The relentless fight for laissez-faire education in Utah.

In commemoration of City Weekly’s 40th anniversary, we are digging into our archives to celebrate. Each week, we FLASHBACK to a story or column from our past in honor of four decades of local alt-journalism. Whether the names and issues are familiar or new, we are grateful to have this unique newspaper to contain them all.

Title: Children as Cookies?
Author: Louis Godfrey
Date: Nov. 1, 2007

When Utah House Speaker Greg Curtis, R-Sandy, recognized Rep. Brad Last during one tense moment in the 2007 Legislature, the typically bustling chamber fell dead silent. All eyes were fixed squarely on the St. George Republican. “I have great affection for public schools,” Last began, “and I have been struggling with this issue for years … but I have come to the conclusion that this is the right way to implement school choice.” read more

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Cox’s support for Trump’s immigration policies is imprudent

Earlier this month, Gov. Spencer Cox stated that he “remained committed” to the Utah Compact on Immigration, a document first released in 2010 and reaffirmed by state leaders in 2019. Cox said, “The principles of the Compact, I think, are still very important.” That is good news for Utah. The bad news is Cox’s support for President-elect Donald Trump’s plans for mass deportation.

Cox was not elected to the Utah House of Representatives until 2012, two legislative sessions after the Utah Compact was released followed by unprecedented support by former Gov. Gary Herbert and the conservative state Legislature for comprehensive state-based immigration reform. And despite his welcome support recently for the Utah Compact, I cannot seem to locate a moment when Cox actually signed the document — though I will happily stand corrected if wrong… read more

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Why this former ‘professional culture warrior’ believes the LDS Church should give up the fight

For decades, Latter-day Saint Paul Mero fought the good fight, as he sees it, as a “professional culture warrior,” first in Washington as a congressional aide in the 1980s and 1990s and later in Utah as the president of the conservative Sutherland Institute think tank from 2000 to 2014.

Immigration, education, liquor laws — Mero waged war in all these arenas but none for as long and as hard as the issue of LGBTQ rights and acceptance.

And he’ll be the first to tell you: His team lost.

Salt Lake Tribune read more

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My New Book

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Last Rights in Utah

In his wisdom and sincerity, Governor Spencer Cox has worked hard to set a political tone of understanding, listening, cooperation, and collaboration. Cox has managed to move a tone to a mantra to gospel to a point where everyone in Utah politics these days seems to be singing from the same hymn book. But not everyone. Unfortunately, some people are faking it. Some political players are lip-syncing their parts.

Apropos, we can trace the music and lyrics within that book back to 2015 a much-lauded-lauded “Utah Compromise” that brought together the state legislature, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and LGBTQ+ advocates Equality Utah. They had so much fun in 2015, they are at it again. Each partner still lip-syncing the same tune. read more

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Faith Matters damages faith by forgetting our sacrificial unity

I was baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Sept. 30, 1978, 45 years ago, the day at which members during General Conference sustained the earlier revelation that year about the priesthood being open to all worthy males.

My wife, Sally, and I joined the church when we were married teenagers. We now have six children and 23 grandchildren. Though we originally are from just outside of Washington, D.C. — married, baptized, and sealed while living there — my work at Sutherland Institute brought us to Utah for 20 years. read more

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Faith Matters damages faith by forgetting our sacrificial unity

I was baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Sept. 30, 1978, 45 years ago, the day at which members during General Conference sustained the earlier revelation that year about the priesthood being open to all worthy males.

My wife, Sally, and I joined the church when we were married teenagers. We now have six children and 23 grandchildren. Though we originally are from just outside of Washington, D.C. — married, baptized and sealed while living there — my work at Sutherland Institute brought us to Utah for 20 years. read more

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Can I Get a Hug?

I know I am behind the curve on discovering The Chosen. One of our daughters gave us the DVD for Season 1 two Christmases ago but we never dug out a video player to watch it. Thank you for the thoughtful gift, sweetheart. And sorry for ignoring your love. But I just found it on Prime and we have been binge-watching it for the past week.

If you don’t know the show, it’s about the life and ministry of Jesus — but unlike any other I have ever seen. It feels real, human. Somehow, I can relate to it. And I am not sure how I relate to it. I just feel it. It moves me in the right way — I feel better for having watched it. It almost feels tangibly good, like going to church and partaking in the sacrament (no sacrilege intended). read more

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