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Winston Churchill is credited with saying, “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” Observing campaign finance policy today, he could just as easily say, “Current campaign finance law is the worst form of electioneering, except for all the others.”

The Salt Lake Tribune recently ran stories about a fundraiser that Governor Gary Herbert hosted for his reelection campaign. As reported by an unnamed lobbyist, present at the fundraiser, Governor Herbert and his election team were eager, implicitly unethical, to raise money. Doubling down on the story, the Tribune oh-so-surprisingly got a hold of audio from the meeting seemingly confirming concerns.

Like clockwork, Governor Herbert’s libertarian opponent was quick to stir the pot when the audio was released. Jonathan Johnson is reported as saying, “I’m shaking, that tape makes me so mad. That’s what’s wrong with career politicians. They will do anything to stay in office…[it] just disgusts me. It may not be illegal under Utah law, but that’s not the threshold we should hold our governor to. It’s complete pay-for-play and it’s the kind of reason that non-politicians don’t run for office.”

His response to the fundraising story is how I imagine an emotionally naïve, sheltered little rich girl would respond at the sight of a pig being slaughtered. “That’s where sausage comes from? Oh gross!” But Johnson isn’t a naïve little girl.

Fundraising is a harsh political reality and charges of “pay-to-play” are easy to raise but extremely difficult to defend. Who do you think would have more influence with the state’s chief executive? A lobbyist trying her best to build a relationship with a policy maker in behalf of her client or a rich guy running for governor who phones a couple of his wealthy friends to bankroll the whole campaign? What’s a $5,000 donation to the governor from a lobbyist compared to one $250,000 donation from Johnson’s business partner? Well, I’ll tell you. The governor’s $5,000 donation is diluted by a thousand other small donations, while Johnson’s $250,000 donation from his business partner is half of his entire campaign chest.

Is it really a startling revelation that a candidate would say he would “go anywhere” to meet with donors? No serious officeholder would deny the effort. But neither would any honest businessman. Let’s put the shoe on the corporate foot. Would Jonathan Johnson fly to China to meet with investors interested in plowing hundreds of millions of dollars into his company? You bet he would. And how much time do you think he’d schedule for a one-share stockholder?

The processes of raising capital in the private sector are similar to the processes of fundraising for elective office. So is the potential influence. The only thing threatening the integrity of the deal is the integrity of the man. Nobody criticizes Donald Trump for the art of the deal. We criticize him because his character reeks of fraud.

Candidate Donald Trump and candidate Jonathan Johnson have a lot in common – pretentiousness, double standards, divided political loyalties, questionable motives in running for office and, yes, an otherwise very small circle of donors – but neither of them are calling for campaign finance reform. If Johnson wants to trade in his wealth advantage for raising money the old-fashioned way (the poor man’s way), he’s free to do it at any time.

Meanwhile, Utah gets campaign finance right. Keep it transparent and accountable. As long as campaign donations are reported accurately and publicly, Utah voters can decide for themselves who they trust. The Herbert fundraising story is a non-story. If there’s any actual wrongdoing, critics should state it. Otherwise, they should grow a pair.

I’m Paul Mero. Thanks for listening.

LDS Living magazine had an interesting article about overzealous Mormons who basically compete to be more righteous than the other. This phenomenon elevates Mormon culture ahead of actual commandments.

We see it all of the time. Everyone knows someone who is hypersensitive and overzealous about some feature of the Gospel – like food storage or church service or cola drinks. You can see these dysfunctions most clearly in settings where Mormons are clustered and dominate a population. For instance, take a look inside the LDS Church office building. The first thing that stands out is that everybody looks the same – male employees look and dress the same, as do the women. Those familiar styles aren’t the result of commandments; they’re culture.

For over 25 years, earlier in my career, I had a beard. When I was offered the Sutherland job, its founder asked me if I’d shave my beard. I replied, “Is that a deal breaker?” And he said, no. Not being an Utahn, I thought his request was weird. For instance, I’ve never had a donor who gave me $50,000 tell me he would have given me $100,000 if only I’d have been clean shaven. But the founder said, “I think you will come to see that first impressions mean a lot in Utah and most people here aren’t fond of beards.” And, you know, he was right. My beard was gone within a year or so. The broader Utah culture didn’t press me to shave; the heavy Mormon culture inside Sutherland did.

The LDS Living article I mentioned is an excerpt from a new book by Brent Top titled, Finding Inner Peace: Lessons Learned From Trying Too Hard. He writes, “Sometimes, in an attempt to prove our faithfulness to the gospel, Mormons create standards that require even more than what the Lord is asking of us. So before we expend too much energy trying to live these ‘higher’ standards, we should ask ourselves if we are living the cultural gospel or the Lord’s gospel.”

And then it hit me. This idea of Mormons living the cultural gospel explains the politics of self-righteousness so prevalent in Mormon political circles, such as the Utah Republican Party. But, before I share that thought, the book author includes a quote from Brigham Young in his article. It goes like this, “How I regret the ignorance of this people – how it floods my heart with sorrow to see so many Elders of Israel who wish everybody to come to their standard and be measured by their measure…If they see an erring brother or sister, whose course does not comport with their particular ideas of things, they conclude at once that he or she cannot be a Saint, and withdraw their fellowship, concluding that, if they are in the path of truth, others must have precisely their weight and dimensions.” (Journal of Discourses, 8:8-9)

There is a reason why so many of the Republican crazies in Utah come from Utah and Davis counties. Those populations are heavily Mormon. Their politics cannot help but become insular, competitive and backbiting. Just as with the Church in prosperous Mormon populations, the politics in these areas become hyper-competitive. When a population is homogenous there is little separation in difference between people and candidates for public office. One way to separate yourself from your opponent in these heavily Mormon areas is, unfortunately, to sound and behave self-righteous.

Everyone has witnessed this act. Everyone has been exposed to that guy so strident about the Constitution that you just cringe every time he gets up to speak. Utah Republicans quote the founding fathers as if politics is gospel, forgetting that it’s quite possible that even George Washington was wrong about something.

Nowhere is this phenomenon more prevalent than down in Utah County these days. Between the recent libertarian crazy talk and the push for political purity, Utah County has become a hotbed for everything that makes normal people just shake their heads. Just as when the cultural gospel incites apostates and Tribune writers to bash the LDS Church, so too does this pharisaical, self-righteous political posturing inside Utah’s Republican Party incite normal voters to run for the hills or fight back, as with Count My Vote.

Today’s Republican candidates in Utah run on ideological platforms, not policy platforms. We no longer hear about reforms and innovations. All we hear about from these candidates is who is more conservative, who knows the Constitution better, who is the true purist, not who is actually the most qualified or the more intelligent or more reasonable or more inspiring. I’m all in favor of truth. I’m just not in favor of substituting self-righteousness for truth.

I’m Paul Mero. Thanks for listening.

While I have long supported Utah’s caucus and convention system, I’ve made no secret about my concerns. As with freedom itself, our caucus and convention system requires enlightened people. When the people aren’t enlightened, the system breaks down.

We need to be careful in our analysis of the caucus and convention system. We need to be discerning. The biggest mistake we can make is to confuse the honest voice of the people for the politics of marginalization just because we don’t like the winners and losers. Many people think the 2010 Republican senate race, when 18-year incumbent Bob Bennett lost at convention, was stolen by “Tea Party” activists. In truth, Utah Republicans were simply and justifiably concerned about President Obama’s progressive agenda and felt Bob Bennett was the wrong guy to stand up to it. A statewide Republican primary, followed by a general election, propelled Mike Lee to the United States Senate – not just the Republican convention. Senator Lee’s election in 2010 was the honest voice of the people, not a coup d’etat by a small group of unrepresentative crazies.

This was the first mistake by the Count My Vote supporters – they mistook the honest voice of the people for a systemic failure inside the 2010 convention. Actually, that systemic failure occurred after the 2010 convention.

In 2011, the state Legislature passed the immigration law. By that spring’s state convention the crazies raised their ugly heads and began to have sway with the delegates – not that those voices weren’t heard in past conventions, they were. But immigration policy seemed to bring out the worst in them.

It was during those weeks and months that I sat down with a couple of the founders of the Count My Vote strategy. After being involved intimately with the construction of the new immigration policy, and watching how the voice of the people supported the new policy overwhelmingly, I wasn’t about to let it all fall apart just because of a few crazies who had a systemic hold on part of our political process at the state Republican convention. Of course, exercising power where they have it, the crazies used the convention process to oppose the new immigration policy. That’s the right of party delegates. Likewise, it was my right to challenge the crazies. If that challenge meant my support for Count My Vote, so be it.

However, as the challenge to the crazies began to take shape, I realized that the Count My Vote strategy over-shot the mark – it initially sought for ways to minimize the influence of the crazies (to make their voice at the convention more reflective of the voice of the people) but that strategy soon changed to try to nullify the influence of the caucus and convention system entirely. At that point, I was out.

In hindsight, given this most recent state Republican convention, the legislative compromise crafted two sessions ago through SB 54 seems altogether enlightened.

Utah’s caucus and convention system, at its best, should be an environment of studied, rational, prudent and principled debate. Four thousand partisans shouldn’t be able to decide Utah’s political fate for three million people. But four thousand partisans can, if disciplined, establish principles, a sound course of action and reasonable arguments to defend our freedom. For me, that is what’s special about political parties generally and our unique caucus and convention system specifically. But when Republican delegates lose that discipline and begin to resemble the zombie apocalypse they are no longer constructive or helpful to the broader citizenry in Utah politics.

If the central idea of the caucus and convention system is to select good people to promote sound public policy and civil debate – in other words, to select our better selves to set the tone for political discourse in Utah – the system has lost its savor when the crazies take over.

Freedom benefits from civic participation. For decades, Utah has chosen a path for enlightened participation – the caucus and convention system. But over the past decade the system has hardly produced enlightenment. We know that crazy is as crazy does and crazy often responds to a challenging issue exactly opposite to what will fix the problem. Republican crazies have chosen retrenchment, exclusion and purity tests. It only made everything worse. Hence, Count My Vote.

Perhaps in the angry era of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, enlightened civic participation isn’t possible. I don’t see it getting any better. And so, in the face of this civic decline, I lean toward opening things up. For me, in this situation, civic participation is like free speech. The way to combat the crazies isn’t by doubling down on isolation and exclusion, it’s by broad inclusion. Yes, enlightened civic participation will suffer from the dilution of unenlightened masses. But when we haven’t achieved enlightenment inside the very system designed to promote it, perhaps the only way to reclaim it is to cleanse the inner vessel and try again.

So, as much as I don’t like the Count My Vote form of political chemotherapy, there are not a lot of alternatives to remove the cancer of the crazies.

I’m Paul Mero. Thanks for listening.

Several years ago I attended a three-day seminar about writing in general and screenplays in particular. My interest was more about how to tell an interesting story. So much of public policy is dry and boring. I thought I could benefit from some expert storytelling.

The seminar was presented by famed Hollywood screenwriter Robert McKee – if you saw the movie Adaptation you’ve heard of Robert McKee. When his book, titled Story, was published nearly 20 years ago, he then claimed that his students had won 18 Academy Awards, 107 Emmy Awards, 19 Writers Guild of America Awards and 16 Directors Guild of America Awards. For my experience with him, it was the toughest seminar I’ve ever sat through – 12 hours each day with rare breaks.

On the last day of the seminar, I bought his book and asked him if he would sign it for me. He wrote, “Dear Paul, write the truth, Robert McKee.” I’m quite sure that is what he wrote in every book he signed but that admonition – write the truth – struck a deep chord with me. It not only has inspired me in my political writing, it’s helped me to better understand the liberal psyche.

To understand how liberals view the truth you need only understand momentary realities in the human condition. This is why we love movies so much. We relate to or connect with the experiences in the stories. There’s a reason why my two favorite movies are To Kill a Mockingbird and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner – both movies hit a nerve with me. In both cases, the movies touched my heart and mind about justice and human dignity.

It’s no wonder Hollywood actors get so passionate about social and political causes. They live these causes through the roles they play. They become these causes. But most of these actors are liberal for a deeper reason than mere character projection. Their sense of cause and justice is incomplete. They live in a moment of self-awareness and swear they see eternity’s truth.

Hollywood often accurately reflects the human condition only to get the moment right but the journey wrong. Hollywood’s biggest problem, leading to its general liberal psyche, is that it derives the “ought” from the “is.” A movie can accurately portray victims and perpetrators of domestic violence in all of their tragedy and still come to completely erroneous conclusions about domestic violence. For instance, some advocates against domestic violence blame traditional family structures (they call it “patriarchy”). The truth is that most serious domestic violence, such as the kind leading to death, is committed outside of traditional family structures.

We can see the same story patterns in sex-obsessed Hollywood or war-obsessed Hollywood or environment-obsessed Hollywood. In almost every case, Hollywood takes a moment in time – a first date, a new military recruit, an environmental problem – and projects a view of the general human condition on that moment alone. Not only are all first dates disasters filled with promiscuity but those moments become the expectation for the human condition. The “is” becomes the “ought.” The reality that war is hell becomes a utopian expectation of no more wars. A malfunction at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant renders all nuclear power a threat to civilization. The moment described in the movie becomes a point of ideological doctrine for all time.

The reason Hollywood liberals didn’t care for the recent movie American Sniper wasn’t because the moment was inaccurately portrayed. They hated it because the movie didn’t conclude that the moment portrayed was reason alone to disparage the Iraq war.

The conflation of the “is” and the “ought” has plagued Hollywood liberals for years and has, in turn, spread this plague throughout the general culture. Writing and portraying the truth should always separate the two – not that a moment in time can’t define an issue, just that we shouldn’t assume that one moment always does.

I’m Paul Mero. Thanks for listening.

In 1988, Jodie Foster won the Academy Award for Best Actress, for the movie The Accused, portraying a young woman of loose morals who was raped by several men she had befriended in a bar. While the story centered on how three bystanders just watched the rape happen, a sub-theme of the story dealt with her culpability in the rape. There she was, immodestly dressed, late at night, in a bar, drunk, flirting with the men who ultimately raped her. The movie posed an interesting question: Did she somehow encourage her rape through her own misbehavior?

The liberal feminist narrative answers that question no – no woman, no person, deserves to be raped. There is no circumstance in which a woman encourages rape. There is no bad behavior any woman could pursue that justifies rape. Nearly everyone stipulates to that view. I certainly do. But sometimes that view is stretched beyond the bounds of credibility.

Case in point: The female BYU student who recently came forward to tell of her alleged rape only to be “punished,” her word not mine, by the university for Honor Code violations associated with the circumstances of her alleged rape.

This female BYU student claims that after reporting her rape to university officials, explaining the circumstances of the rape, university officials wondered why she would have a young man alone in her apartment. That circumstance is a violation of the school’s Honor Code. The victim argues that her treatment by the school adds insult to injury and she is asking immunity from the school’s Honor Code for all female students reporting a rape. She argues that the Honor Code has a chilling effect on reporting rape.

In characteristic fashion, The Salt Lake Tribune has jumped on her bandwagon. Here is what the Tribune editorial page had to say about this incident:

“Women do not have a responsibility to keep men from assaulting them. There are decisions some women make in the interest of reducing their risk, but women who make different decisions are not inviting rapists to rape. If a man forces a woman to have non-consensual sex, it’s rape, and it is the assailant, not the victim, who is to blame.

“If the woman wore a sleeveless or strapless top, it’s still the rapist’s fault. If she had been drinking, it’s still the rapist’s fault. If they were in her bedroom, it’s still the rapist’s fault. If she previously had sex with him, it’s still the rapist’s fault.

“At Brigham Young University, that is not quite the whole story. If the victim is a BYU student, then any of the above conditions would put her in violation of BYU’s honor code, and she could face punishment up to and including expulsion.”

The Tribune concludes, “Without intending to, BYU has given rapists an advantage. If a woman has crossed any of these lines, she faces a different dynamic with a potential assailant, who can essentially say, ‘I’m doing this, and if you tell anybody, we’re both going down.’”

Again, everyone will stipulate that no person should force themselves sexually on another person, regardless of circumstances. But the Tribune takes this obvious point to the lunatic fringe. It’s saying that not only didn’t the female BYU student encourage rape through her violation of the school’s Honor Code, the Honor Code actually encourages rape. As they say, the Honor Code gives “rapists an advantage.”

Now think about this for a second. Folks, if the young woman in question categorically cannot possibly misbehave in any way to encourage her rape, how in the world can BYU’s Honor Code encourage her rape? If only the rapist is culpable, how can BYU’s Honor Code encourage rape? As an actual matter of encouragement, the Honor Code serves to protect women from rape in this context.

It’s a gross liberal fiction that all laws create criminals out of innocent people. Of course, some laws can. But progressives, like Tribune editorial writers, take particular umbrage at laws and rules that reflect conservative or traditional values. It’s the old complaint about “Victorian morality” – that such morality criminalizes normal human behavior (meaning, in liberal speak, any consensual human behavior). Certainly BYU and other authorities need to investigate the claims of this student. But that’s a far cry from saying BYU ought to dump its Honor Code that, if adhered to, actually helps to protect its students from spiritual and physical harm.

I’m Paul Mero. Thanks for listening. [Note: The Salt Lake Tribune won a 2017 Pulitzer Prize for reporting on the BYU rape scandal.]

In 1988, Jodie Foster won the Academy Award for Best Actress, for the movie The Accused, portraying a young woman of loose morals who was raped by several men she had befriended in a bar. While the story centered on how three bystanders just watched the rape happen, a sub-theme of the story dealt with her culpability in the rape. There she was, immodestly dressed, late at night, in a bar, drunk, flirting with the men who ultimately raped her. The movie posed an interesting question: Did she somehow encourage her rape through her own misbehavior?

The liberal feminist narrative answers that question no – no woman, no person, deserves to be raped. There is no circumstance in which a woman encourages rape. There is no bad behavior any woman could pursue that justifies rape. Nearly everyone stipulates to that view. I certainly do. But sometimes that view is stretched beyond the bounds of credibility.

Case in point: The female BYU student who recently came forward to tell of her alleged rape only to be “punished,” her word not mine, by the university for Honor Code violations associated with the circumstances of her alleged rape.

This female BYU student claims that after reporting her rape to university officials, explaining the circumstances of the rape, university officials wondered why she would have a young man alone in her apartment. That circumstance is a violation of the school’s Honor Code. The victim argues that her treatment by the school adds insult to injury and she is asking immunity from the school’s Honor Code for all female students reporting a rape. She argues that the Honor Code has a chilling effect on reporting rape.

In characteristic fashion, The Salt Lake Tribune has jumped on her bandwagon. Here is what the Tribune editorial page had to say about this incident:

“Women do not have a responsibility to keep men from assaulting them. There are decisions some women make in the interest of reducing their risk, but women who make different decisions are not inviting rapists to rape. If a man forces a woman to have non-consensual sex, it’s rape, and it is the assailant, not the victim, who is to blame.

“If the woman wore a sleeveless or strapless top, it’s still the rapist’s fault. If she had been drinking, it’s still the rapist’s fault. If they were in her bedroom, it’s still the rapist’s fault. If she previously had sex with him, it’s still the rapist’s fault.

“At Brigham Young University, that is not quite the whole story. If the victim is a BYU student, then any of the above conditions would put her in violation of BYU’s honor code, and she could face punishment up to and including expulsion.”

The Tribune concludes, “Without intending to, BYU has given rapists an advantage. If a woman has crossed any of these lines, she faces a different dynamic with a potential assailant, who can essentially say, ‘I’m doing this, and if you tell anybody, we’re both going down.’”

Again, everyone will stipulate that no person should force themselves sexually on another person, regardless of circumstances. But the Tribune takes this obvious point to the lunatic fringe. It’s saying that not only didn’t the female BYU student encourage rape through her violation of the school’s Honor Code, the Honor Code actually encourages rape. As they say, the Honor Code gives “rapists an advantage.”

Now think about this for a second. Folks, if the young woman in question categorically cannot possibly misbehave in any way to encourage her rape, how in the world can BYU’s Honor Code encourage her rape? If only the rapist is culpable, how can BYU’s Honor Code encourage rape? As an actual matter of encouragement, the Honor Code serves to protect women from rape in this context.

It’s a gross liberal fiction that all laws create criminals out of innocent people. Of course, some laws can. But progressives, like Tribune editorial writers, take particular umbrage at laws and rules that reflect conservative or traditional values. It’s the old complaint about “Victorian morality” – that such morality criminalizes normal human behavior (meaning, in liberal speak, any consensual human behavior). Certainly BYU and other authorities need to investigate the claims of this student. But that’s a far cry from saying BYU ought to dump its Honor Code that, if adhered to, actually helps to protect its students from spiritual and physical harm.

I’m Paul Mero. Thanks for listening.

As I’ve reflected on my life and career, like everyone, I have encountered moments that have changed the trajectory of my life. Of course, marrying Sally when I was 18 years old has had the biggest impact on my life. At the time I was a “pot head” working in a warehouse perfectly content in that lifestyle. I changed everything for Sally. If I’ve made anything of myself, she’s the reason.

Wanting to be a better person for her sake led me to religion and, on September 30, 1978, I joined the LDS Church. But you might be surprised to know that the catalyst for my conversion was a political book written by an evangelical Christian. Though politically minded for a 19 year old, my thoughts hadn’t matured. For some reason I picked up a book titled The Anita Bryant Story and had my first significant philosophical epiphany. Anita Bryant was a former Miss America, celebrity and spokesperson for the Florida orange juice industry. She lived in Miami.

In 1977, Miami’s Dade County was considering a gay rights ordinance, the first big one outside of San Francisco or New York City. Anita Bryant opposed the ordinance and all hell rained down on her. She lost her livelihood and, eventually, her marriage due to the political controversies. Her book recounted these events. The impactful part of the book for me was an appendix she included detailing all of the scriptural passages about homosexuality. My epiphany – something I had never really considered – was the role of God’s authority in politics.

I did wonder how Americans were to peaceably settle political disagreements and deep moral issues. For instance, why is slavery immoral…or abortion…or homosexuality…or even high taxation? And how do we settle such contentious issues? Everyone has an opinion about such things, but I wondered if there was a commensurate basis for agreement. In other words, by what authority were we to decide such issues? Was the answer simply that might makes right? Was the answer that the majority wins? And, if so, why were these reasons morally sufficient to dissenters? Anita Bryant answered my question. There has to be a Higher Authority than man. There has to be an Authority upon which society can develop a commensurate basis for agreement. And that epiphany led me down a religious path in my life.

Once I had found my faith, grown my family and had established a political career, another epiphany hit me not long after I started working for Congress. You might recall, if you’re old enough, that in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, Congressman Barney Frank was caught in a scandal that nearly ruined his career. For personal reasons, Congressman Frank began dating a male escort who, in turn, continued to run his escort business out of Congressman Frank’s home. That activity, when made public by the escort, triggered a House investigation to see if it brought disrepute to Congress. If so, Congressman Frank could be expelled.

My boss at the time, Congressman Bill Dannemeyer, thought those actions did bring disrepute on the House and felt Congressman Frank should be expelled. My job was to build the case for expulsion. Congressman Newt Gingrich had a competing resolution to censure Congressman Frank, while the House Ethics Committee only sought a reprimand. The Ethics Committee solution was adopted but in that moment Congressman Frank took to the well of the House to apologize to his colleagues. I watched attentively and, surprisingly, his remarks touched my heart. I even wrote him a personal note wishing him well.

While the moment took time to sink in for me, years later, when I had the chance to lead public policy organizations, I told myself that I would never again approach politics the same way – I would seek to rise above partisanship; I would seek to see people as people, not as objects.

Of course, these two examples from my life explain, in large part, why I know so much about pro-family issues and gay rights politics. But the bigger point is that they help explain who I am personally and professionally.

Everyone has these moments that shape their lives. We would do well to learn of them and understand them before we judge other people and their politics.

I’m Paul Mero. Thanks for listening.

Lying in politics is no different than lying throughout life – nearly everybody does it at one time or another. We have “white lies” designed to prevent embarrassment or simply to be polite. We have functional lies to get annoying callers off the phone or to create other excuses in circumstances we’d rather not face. For the longest time, I can remember going into ecclesiastical interviews where I was asked if I am “honest in all things” and replying “You know I work for Congress, right?” My interviewer inevitably would smile, laugh uncomfortably and move on to the next question.

People lie all of the time, even when they don’t think they are. Consciously omitting important information is a lie – and so is stating facts while giving a false impression of the whole picture. Author Robert Louis Stevenson wrote, “To tell the truth, rightly understood, is not just to state the true facts, but to convey a true impression.” Utah’s honesty guru, Quinn McKay, is fond of an insightful ploy he uses in his professional seminars. He will ask audience members to raise their hands if they’ve ever lied. Of course, all hands go up. He then singles out someone and asks if it would be truthful for him to say that this audience member is an admitted liar? When the person inevitably pauses, Quinn says, “You admitted to me that you’ve lied. Why would it be wrong for me to tell the world that you are an admitted liar?”

I’ll leave you to answer that question. But you get the point.

Integrity is important to me as it is for many people. In my 35 years in politics I have heard many lies, met many liars and have lied myself. If my congressional boss didn’t want to take a phone call, I might tell the person on the phone that the congressman isn’t in – not unlike how we might handle sales calls at home. Maybe I’m too sensitive about such things but even those moments were lies in my mind, though I guess I wasn’t sensitive enough to stop doing it.

I’ll preface what I’m about to admit by saying that memory fades over time but a guilty conscience does not. I’ll tell people, matter of fact, that I’m not a liar. In fact, I’m told that’s what most people like about me. People can trust me. I’m not a liar to get gain or to harm another person. But while I’m sure I would lie to protect innocent people from harm (think hiding Jews from Nazis), there was one time I actually lied to protect the guilty. I once had a colleague who obtained outside political information the colleague wasn’t authorized to have – the colleague didn’t steal the information, it was provided willingly, but the colleague did ask a friend for it knowing sharing the information was against the rules. I knew about it after the fact but I still used that information and lied about it to protect the colleague and the project. That’s the one time in my 35-year career I can remember consciously and willingly lying.

I should add that I’m often accused of lying by people who oppose my politics. They think mere disagreement means that my motives must be sinister too. I won’t forget a few years ago when I ran television ads against antidiscrimination laws and, as it turned out, one of the ads was factually incorrect. I didn’t know it when I ran it, much to my personal embarrassment, but opponents were sure I knew the ad was incorrect when I released it. I just missed the error, as did everyone else on my team. As soon as the error was pointed out to me, I apologized publicly and immediately pulled the ad.

I think what makes lying in politics so unseemly is that lying violates the common good. If we can’t trust the people, elected and unelected, whom we appoint to serve in governing capacities, our free society is in jeopardy. It’s like uncovering a dirty cop or a yellow journalist. It’s the lowest of the low. But it happens in politics, not infrequently. Now, before we assume all politicians are liars, we should take comfort knowing that lying would occur in politics even more often than it does without all of the checks and balances our founding fathers built into democratic processes, including rights of free speech and freedom of the press.

These checks and balances don’t assure honesty in politics but they do ensure that there are processes to uncover lies. Unfortunately, there is nothing besides intuition and experience to reveal liars. The lie is one thing, a liar is quite another. There are some former colleagues I will never work with again because they are liars. There are some politicians in this state I wouldn’t trust with someone else’s money. And currently there is at least one presidential candidate I’ll never vote for because I know he’s a liar.

In my mind, integrity and trustworthiness are two of the most important character traits in politics. Ironically, I don’t care if the story about George Washington and the cherry tree is true or false. But it is a good lesson for all of us to remember.

I’m Paul Mero. Thanks for listening.

 

 

 

 

Hate crimes legislation is at least two decades old. I worked against the first federal bill in 1990. In all these years, nothing has changed about this legislation – it remains unnecessary, unwarranted and undemocratic. Twenty-six years later, Utah is still kicking around the idea. Of course, the Utah Legislature passed a hate crimes law several years ago but what it passed missed the mark for its original supporters.

This year, Senator Steve Urquhart, a Republican from St. George, was the new bill sponsor. And, new or not, the bill died another ignominious death. The LDS Church announced its opposition and Urquhart’s support began to die on the vine. There is a lot to unpackage about hate crimes legislation, so let’s start at the top.

You might wonder why another hate crimes law is needed if Utah already has one. The answer is that the current law does not mention sexual orientation or gender identity. The whole purpose of the hate crimes movement is to push gay rights. Without the inclusion of sexual orientation and gender identity, the idea of a broad law promoting tolerance and respect for everyone remains incomplete, according to the gay community. It’s not enough that Utah’s current law covers everyone – Utah’s gay community insists it must single out its own. Not equal rights; advertised rights.

Unlike some of my conservative friends, I don’t mind the idea of a general hate crimes law. There is something more than criminal about people painting a swastika on a Jewish synagogue. There is something more reprehensible than trespassing when racists burn a cross on the lawn of a black family. In the name of the common good, legislatures are right to criminalize domestic terrorism of these kinds. The question then for the Utah Legislature is this: Is homosexuality the moral equivalent of religion and race? And this is the only question.

America accepts civil rights laws. In fact, over the years we’ve added other categories of people to traditional categories, such as disability and age. It’s not a stretch for the gay community to want to add sexual orientation and gender identity. So why the pushback from the Utah Legislature? The reason is because most Utahns still do not view homosexuality as morally equivalent to human traits such as race or national origin or even a fundamentally chosen trait such as religion.

Hate crimes legislation is all about gay rights, regardless of claims from the new bill sponsors that everyone has a sexual orientation and gender identity. In these bills, sexual orientation is typically defined as “heterosexual, homosexual and bisexual.” While nobody really knows what a bisexual means under the law, certainly violent crimes are not being committed on any significant basis to people who have sex with both males and females. In fact, in our current cultural decay, such people are often glorified.

And how many heterosexuals are assaulted physically or verbally for being heterosexual? None. Hate crimes laws were invented by the gay community to provide one more layer of legal recognition for the members of its community. Period. It’s gay rights legislation and always has been. When Senator Urquhart took to the Senate floor to advocate for his bill he did not have a cluster of heterosexual or bisexual citizens surrounding him as evidence of discrimination. He had a small group of gay activists with him.

Contrary to reassurances by the bill’s supporters, a hate crimes law affects free speech. The vast number of  “assaults” against gays are verbal – simple name-calling. As disrespectful as name-calling can be, it does address rights of free speech and to say it doesn’t is disingenuous on the part of the bill’s advocates. This is exactly the point made by the LDS Church over the new Utah bill. They see where all of this is headed, notwithstanding diplomatic assurances and supposed legal firewalls. The LDS Church knows that the real target of the gay community is the ability of religions to speak freely about moral issues such as homosexuality.

The “delicate balance” raised by the LDS Church in its objections to the new bill, and a term excoriated by Senator Urquhart as irrelevant, perfectly represents the view of so many Utahns who seek peaceable solutions to the redresses of the gay community but who ultimately cannot accept homosexuality as the moral equivalent of their faith.

Including enhanced penalties for crimes, not to mention the chilling effect on free speech, in the name of homosexuality simple does not measure up for Utahns, even in a same-sex marriage culture.  Nobody should want to hurt anyone’s feelings, let alone harm them or their property physically. But real hate crimes are about a society, not just an individual. In the end, we have to decide if name-calling, or even a rare physical assault by some idiot, is the same thing as painting a swastika on a synagogue or burning a cross on the lawn of a black family.

For now, Utah is saying those things are different.

I’m Paul Mero. Thanks for listening.