Utah GOP is, isn't part of religious right

By Travis Reed
Asociated Press
Published: Saturday, Aug. 28, 2004 7:25 p.m. MDT
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In Utah politics, there is a different kind of religious right.

Like their counterparts in other states, the ideology of Utah's overwhelmingly conservative population can be traced directly to the door of its church. But because this is Utah, and behind that door is the LDS Church, religious conservatives here aren't like those in "Bible belt" states.

Here, despite agreeing with virtually everything the national movement stands for — a strong faith in God and a belief by many that faith should influence social policy — most people here don't consider themselves a part of the "religious right," an Associated Press survey has revealed.

Evangelical Christians and Mormons can agree on a broad spectrum of policy positions, like abortion and gay marriage, but the common ground crumbles when it comes to that most central of beliefs — God.

"I am very, very conservative and very religious, but I don't consider myself part of their movement," said Candace Daly, one of Utah's 36 Republican National Convention delegates who will be in New York City starting Monday.

In some ways, Daly and other Utah Republicans represent a political oddity: The same religious machinery that has produced one of the nation's most nonsecular and conservative delegations also alienates it from like-minded Republicans.

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In an AP survey of Utah Republican convention delegates, a nearly two-thirds majority said they didn't claim membership in the movement. Many added that they agreed with religious right policy positions but that they felt excluded because the religious right generally doesn't consider them Christians. The AP interviewed 26 of Utah's 36 Republican delegates, with all but one of the respondents being a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The question was, "Do you consider yourself part of the conservative Christian movement, sometimes referred to as the religious right?"

Even some delegates who responded "yes" to the question wavered in their affiliation.

Utah's highest-profile politician, Sen. Orrin Hatch, said: "They don't consider me part of it. I'm certainly in agreement with most of what they feel. They don't think Mormons are Christians, some of them."

The divisions are deeply rooted but continue to this day. Mormon pioneers were chased out of at least two states in the 1800s by angry Christian mobs who considered the faith blasphemous. Christians routinely show up to the twice-yearly LDS conference in Salt Lake City to picket and protest the event as the celebration of a false religion.

The two collide over the evangelical belief in the "Holy Trinity," or the idea that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are all one being. LDS Church members believe the three figures are distinct.

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