Blog 05

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                One stigma that exists about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is that all Mormons are Republican. While this is a false statement, it is a valid question giving the fact that most LDS members who are verbal about their political views tend to be republican. This creates what seems to be a republican political identity. To evaluate this claim I’ve looked at the political history of the church and current views of Mormon voters.

                Although the church’s standpoint on politics are neutral, and members are not asked to lean a certain way, why then does it seems that the majority of Mormons are republican? Has it always been that way? Taking a look back through history, it turns out that the Mormon population has only recently become mostly republican. As it turns out, “during most of the 19th century, Utah was polarized along local rather than national party lines. Two local parties dominated the political scene: the “Mormon People’s Party” and the “Gentile Liberal Party.”¹ So early on Mormons were neither republicans nor democrats! Then as the country developed even further, and Mormons              sought statehood for their Utah territory, they were forced to “normalize” their political allegiance and effectively take sides. Surprisingly, the majority of all LDS people chose to be democratic, as the republicans were opposed to Utah becoming a state.¹

                Already this discounts any arguments from a primordialist’s point of view. The fact that Mormons have not always been republican discounts the reasoning that they have always been, so they always will be. Also, the 2008 exit survey asked whether or not certain people feel that a ‘good’ Mormon could be a democrat. A startling 89% of all people, Mormon, non-Mormon, republican and democrat stated that ‘good’ Mormons could indeed be democrats.² This further proves that even though church members vote a certain way, they are not doing so because of influences from others, but their own choice. That leaves us with a constructivism argument. Have Mormons chosen to be republican? If so, then why? Another look at history can solve this.

                From the moment Utahans were required to pick a political side, the overwhelming choice was always democratic, that is until the 1980’s. This became the turning point into the political choices we are seeing today. The turning point: the Democratic Party started to adopt some moral positions that conflicted with LDS teachings.¹ With this change in democratic policy, they lose the Mormon vote. All of the sudden, these individuals who were one democratic now find that the basic moral differences are too great to support their former party.

This event in history not only confirms the constructivism argument for political identity, but proves that Mormons do indeed have a political identity. When people speak about this political identity, they seem to do so with a negative connotation. When in fact, it is completely natural! If you had a group of people that did not support gay marriage, you would expect the majority of them to vote the same way. In effect, this is what creates the political identity of the church: a share of common beliefs. Not because the prophet says to vote a certain way, or because of inherent predispositions, but because Mormons choose to vote the way they do as individuals.

As for the bumper sticker, I feel it’s great that a Mormon is expressing their views as a democrat. What I do not agree with is the need to have to distinguish yourself as a democrat AND a Mormon. It should be inherent that you are voting as an individual and not as cog in an empirical machine.

 

 

 

Citations:

1) http://www.allaboutmormons.com/misconceptions_mormons_politics.php

2)  Utah Data Points, Adam Brown: http://utahdatapoints.com/2010/12/can-a-good-mormon-be-a-good-democrat/