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.
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