I Cannot Recommend Them to God

The results are in.  The congratulations cast (which are a carbon copy of the last congratulations cast).  The people of this nation, the people of Utah, and the people of my childhood church, voted for an evil man.

Sixty-one percent of professed Latter-Day Saints voted for a man who bragged about sexually assaulting women, who calls on his supporters to physically assault protesters, who is an admitted serial philanderer, who wants to be "unpredictable" with nuclear weapons, and who unequivocally supports torture.  They voted for a man whose policies on immigration are in direct conflict with those the First Presidency advocates.  Mormons voted for a man who even the Deseret News condemned as evil and upon whom they called to step down from running (though, let's be perfectly clear, the Deseret News emphatically did not consult with church leaders before running that little opinion piece).

Granted, fewer Mormons voted for Trump than voted for Romney or Bush (though, oddly, more Mormons apparently voted for Bush than for Romney).  Some Mormons stood up and denounced him and denounced the Utah Republican Party for supporting Trump.  Still, the fact that a clear majority of Mormons voted for that vile, despicable, filth has sickened me to the point of disavowal.

I've never felt at home with Mormons, politically or socially.  I think I first realized this fact as a child during the Iran Contra scandal when I overheard my Mormon neighbors repeatedly express impassioned, if irrational and dismally uninformed, support for Ronald Reagan.  As I aged and learned about historical (and, too frequently, contemporary) Mormon beliefs about race, about the Mountain Meadows Massacre, about electroshock therapy at BYU, sexual identity and gay marriage, about Mormon opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment, indeed, as I would attend church and seminary and mutual weekly, and interact with my Mormon brothers and sisters daily, it became clear that the members of the church I counted as my home did not share my progressive, or even mainstream, beliefs about civil rights, social justice, or even common human decency regarding the responsibility of children for the practices of their parents.

Yet I took it all in stride.  After all, there were good, progressive Mormons out there with whom I could agree.  James E. Faust.  Hugh B. Brown.  Harry Reid.  Brian King.  The problem is, I've never run into any of those guys in church.  Conversely, I have been a member of a ward that met in the same building as Glenn Beck's ward.

Sure, in most of the wards I've attended, I've found members who were progressive (or could possibly be characterized as such).  Statistically, 19% of Mormons claim to be Democrats.  So, that means that in any group of ten Mormons in which I find myself, there will be exactly one other Democrat (or nearly 90% of one).  Seven others will be Republican while one other will claim political independence (which will mean, most likely, he or she is actually a Libertarian, or, worse, a John Bircher).

In that group of ten Mormons, six will have voted for Donald Trump.


My bishop called my wife and I in to meet with him a few weeks ago.  He seemed very nice, even excited to see us.  He offered to give us temple recommends.  The missionaries who had been trying to get us to go to church for weeks before were ecstatic to have seen us show up in the building.  When the bishop asked my wife to serve as the Relief Society chorister, and asked me to serve as a Cub Scout leader, we considered it.

Yet how could I look my brothers and sisters in the eye now, after they how so many of them voted?

My Mormon brothers and sisters have now voted to support torture twice.  Our own prophet, seer and revelator unequivocally supported Bush's war in Iraq, explicitly repudiating the words of another apostle, who, in the previous General Conference, quoting Jesus in a revelation to Joseph Smith, called on the saints to renounce war and proclaim peace.  Gordon apparently thought that invading a nation which had not attacked us, nor, as it turned out, had anything approaching the means to do so, constituted acceptable bloodshed to defend our wives and children.

I didn't accept the call to serve in the Cub Scouts, marking the first time I've ever refused a calling from a church leader.  The bishop didn't follow up on our meeting.


Last night, I sang with an Episcopalian choir led by my wife.  The man I sat next to commiserated with me about the election and his sadness over the results.  Other members of the choir nodded, equally horrified and devastated.  True, 39% of Episcopalians still consider themselves Republican.  But that means that as I attend services with them and sing with them and take bread from their table, in any group of ten of them, I will have at least four friends who agree (or mostly agree) with my political and social views.  A clear majority of them reject the politics of war, of hate, of discrimination and prejudice.

Could I do better?  Sure.  I could frequent an Orthodox church.  I could join a Reform Jewish synagogue.  I could unite with the Unitarians. But of all the religious groups in the entire United States of America, I couldn't do worse than count myself with the Mormons.

Until I die, I won't deny my testimony of the Book of Mormon.  I believe in the witness I received when I prayed over the words compiled by a man who watched as his nation disintegrated and his brothers and sisters descended into violence and evil.  But I don't believe in my self-professed Mormon brothers and sisters now (as little as I might have agreed with them before).  I can't pray with them in the House of the Lord.  I can't share a sacrament with them.

I don't know if I ever will again.