OPINION

“Mike Lee’s Baggage,” Oct. 13 Private Eye

You stupid a—, John Saltas. The only thing you and your type have ever done politically is to undermine the Constitution in general, and the Bill of Rights in particular. Mike Lee is one of the very few Senators who have stood by the Constitution when the rest of the Senate was undermining it as much as possible.

You don’t deserve to be a U.S. citizen. Your citizenship should be revoked.

BRIAN LEROHL Fairview, South Dakota

“The Battle for Ballpark,” Oct. 13 Cover Story

I left Ballpark due to crime and many of my neighbors have left for the same reason. I am so happy I am gone.

No more shootings, no more constant drug dealing, no more strangers frequenting your property. I can now sit on my front porch and not see constant crime being committed.

I don’t say I moved away. I say I got out, because it was an escape.

BELINDA MASON FROST Via Facebook

Ballpark is consistently ignored despite the non-stop crimes and shootings. I moved out after five months.

More of our politicians should live in the area—maybe then something would actually get done.

LEEZEETZPIE Via Instagram

Dam Mike Lee

We all know that The Great Salt Lake is in serious trouble—a persistent drought, climate change and excessive abstractions threaten its very survival. But when serious people gather to discuss what can possibly be done, Utah Sen. Mike Lee says we just need to build more dams.

Every water engineer is taught that “dams do not create water,” and that was what John Wesley Powell told Congress back in 1890, to their chagrin (there’s a good article about Powell breaking the bad news at https://bit.ly/2TfssCo).

That comment alone suggests that Mike Lee hasn’t a clue about what to do about solving Utah’s water problems. But of course, Lee has never really been concerned with Utah. He’s too busy toadying for a position in the next Trump administration—now there’s a vision to frighten you this Halloween!

RICHARD MIDDLETON Salt Lake City

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How do you choose which books to read?

Mike Ptaschinski

Book choice is affected by my friends’ recommendations, usually involving biographies and history. I continue to be fascinated by World War II. Occasionally, I’ll watch a documentary that moves me to probe the backstory.

Sofia Cifuentes

It depends on the emotional state I’m in, the type of information I’m looking for, the name of the book and, sometimes, the cover design.

Katharine Biele

I have stopped reading dystopian novels and pretty much anything deep since COVID. I have been enjoying an advance copy of Profiles in Ignorance by Andy Borowitz. That’s my kind of book!

Bryan Bale

Sometimes, I look to my favorite authors or genres. Sometimes, I’m curious about the source material behind a movie or TV adaptation. I’ll occasionally be swayed by a friend’s enthusiastic recommendation. Sometimes, I’m given the gift of literature, which was how I first encountered Good Omens and A Confederacy of Dunces. Literate friends are the best.

Scott Renshaw

For quite a while, it was heavily slanted towards “soon to be a major motion picture” homework reading. Then recently I started using year-end best-of lists from Time, NPR and other outlets, which has led me to so many great discoveries that I’m bummed I didn’t start sooner.

Benjamin Wood

I don’t read a lot of contemporary fiction and when I do, I’d love to say it’s through some mature, discerning process. In reality, I just get swept up in the internet hype (things like Gone Girl) or I read the book a good movie was based on (things like Dune).

OPINION World vs. Church

In the Sunday morning session of October’s General Conference, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints President Russell M. Nelson gave a sermon about “overcoming the world” and finding peace through Jesus Christ. While aspects of the speech were moving and inspiring, much of it was devoted to contrasting “the world” with the Latter-day Saint faith, a familiar narrative that has been invoked by LDS leaders for decades.

Nelson began by assuring listeners that they could “overcome this sin-saturated, self-centered and often exhausting world.” Shortly afterward, he provided a lengthy list of worldly “plagues,” including arrogance, anger, immorality and greed. Throughout the address, he continued to contrast the peace and stability of LDS teachings with the “distractions and distortions” of the world and urged the faithful to “trust the doctrines of Christ more than the philosophies of men.”

Although leaders since the church’s inception have contrasted LDS teachings with “the ways of the world,” this narrative especially gained momentum in the decades following World War II, with the rise of the sexual revolution, pro-communist ideologies and civil rights struggles. In order to defend discriminatory belief systems and practices that were receiving intense public scrutiny—such as the priesthood and temple ban on people of African descent— church leaders began positioning their institutional norms and policies as antithetical to the “secular” and “sinful” tendencies of the world. They have even described Satan as the author of social justice movements that have fought against racism, patriarchy and heteronormativity.

This ideological framework has undoubtedly influenced the modern LDS Church and continues to shape the rhetoric of its leaders. Nelson is among those who frequently elevates church teachings above the “sin-stained world,” a framework that I believe has several unhealthy effects on the church and its members.

First, this kind of rhetoric enables an us-versus-them mentality, which has the potential to taint and distort the way that members interact with their non- or former-LDS friends and family members. I am aware of several instances in which LDS parents have prohibited their children from visiting their non-LDS friends’ houses. Even worse, I am aware of devoted church members ostracizing and even disowning family members who are “living in sin.”

As part of my graduate research in Mormonism and sexuality, I have interviewed dozens of current and former LGBTQ+ members of the LDS Church. Tragically, countless individuals have described heinous acts of marginalization and othering from their own orthodox family members. I am certain that the “church vs. world” framework exacerbates this type of abuse, especially when leaders like apostle and LDS First Counselor Dallin H. Oaks frequently position queer identity and activism as oppositional to God’s teachings.

In addition to harming relationships and fueling abuse, decrying worldly ills also impacts the way that many church members feel about science and current events. In 1993, the late Elder Boyd K. Packer warned of three groups that constituted the “greatest threat to the church”: feminists, homosexuals and intellectuals. And although most current leaders no longer express such hardline positions at the pulpit, this way of thinking still occupies space within church leadership.

The anti-intellectual sentiments of Packer and other leaders can be clearly observed in a general skepticism among members toward science and public health, most recently demonstrated by a widespread reluctance to wear masks and get vaccinated in response to COVID-19. Similarly, framing feminism and homosexuality as insidious threats has caused many members to demonize LGBTQ+ individuals and delegitimize the struggle for gender and sexual equality.

Lastly, rhetoric that denounces the “ways of the world” prevents many members from thinking critically about harmful church teachings and practices. By creating a construct known as “the world,” LDS leaders have been able to label those who criticize oppressive aspects of the church as being “worldly”—and according to Nelson, worldliness comes with a slew of negative attributes including pride, anger and hatred.

This toxic framework is an example of what psychologists refer to as “poisoning the well,” in which members of an ingroup create an adverse narrative about out-groups, such that any criticism made by a member of the out-group is immediately discounted.

Despite the harm caused by pitting “the world” against “the church,” more members than ever are beginning to think critically about harmful LDS teachings, especially those of younger generations. For instance, LDS sociologist Jana Riess found in her “Next Mormons” survey that younger members are significantly more likely than older members to believe that homosexuality should be accepted by society. Her data revealed other hopeful trends in which millennial and Gen Z members of the LDS Church demonstrate greater willingness to examine and scrutinize social injustices and oppressive ideologies, both within and outside of the faith.

As the 21st century church continues to grow and evolve amid contemporary sociocultural norms, framing the world as antithetical to LDS teachings will become increasingly unacceptable to rising Latter-day Saint generations. Worse, it will enable more orthodox members to continue othering people with different beliefs and provide ongoing justification for the abuse of marginalized groups, most notably LGBTQ+ individuals.

I challenge LDS leaders and members to think more carefully about the ways they speak of the world, with the hope that the church will move toward a more inclusive and unifying perspective of their relationship with broader culture and society. CW

Private Eye is off this week. Send feedback to comments@cityweekly.net.

MISS: Pray the Gay Away

Let’s see how this works. We should leave it up to individual doctors whether they use bloodletting—oops—we meant conversion therapy in their practices. But it’s OK to ban medical professionals from offering gender-affirming medical care, according to a Salt Lake Tribune report. Oh, and let’s not forget how doctors should never, ever perform an abortion. In the eyes of the Legislature and the GOP, it’s important to get the gay out of people, prevent them from becoming their best selves and put a halt to women aborting babies because they are simply murderous trollops. As politicians attempt to socially engineer their world, real people suffer the consequences. No matter how much you might want it to work, conversion “therapy” is more like conversion torture. “Efforts to change someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity are associated with poor mental health for LGBT people,” concludes a 2019 report from UCLA School of Law.

HIT: Late but Great

Every week, we hear something new about how lawmakers are working to save the Great Salt Lake. Joel Ferry thinks we can just twiddle along, tweaking water usage here and there, and all will be fine. “What you’re talking about is a rigid approach, all or nothing,” Ferry, director of the Department of Natural Resources, told The Salt Lake Tribune. “We need to be flexible and mindful and adaptive to a condition we find ourselves in.” In other words, Utah’s not going to mandate any kind of water restrictions. Ferry has determined a “sweet spot” level for the lake, and it will have to rise 11 feet to hit it. Strangely, he’s still talking about a pipeline from the Pacific Ocean. The University of Utah is offering prize money to innovate and address climate change. Even Utah’s 3rd District Rep. John Curtis is getting on board. His Conservative Climate Caucus in Congress could move the needle for rightwing climate deniers. Will it be in time? Climate doesn’t change overnight.

MISS: Nursing a Grudge

Burgess Owens was miffed. A Pat Bagley political cartoon has been eating at him for a long time. The Deseret News notes that he’s been chewing on what he calls the “racist cartoon” for the past year, which he expects from a “liberal outlet” like The Salt Lake Tribune. The straw that broke his back was editor Lauren Gustus being named to moderate a debate between him and his challengers. But wait—this wasn’t the first debate Owens has ducked out on. He demurred on the pre-primary debates, too. They were held by the Utah Republican Party because the GOP wanted to choose its own moderators. Apparently, the moderators didn’t make any difference, and neither did Owens’ disdain for the public process. He handily beat his GOP opponent Jake Hunsaker, and deep red Utah will likely give him another term in office to do whatever it is he does.

Fall Transitions

It’s nice to have autumn finally upon us. After a seemingly endless streak of 100-degree days and record-breaking temperatures, it feels more than just a relief to have this past summer behind us.

In Utah, especially, autumn has always been a season of transition. You can practically hear camera shutters clicking across the valley as leaf peepers travel through such color-changing scenes as Millcreek Canyon or the Alpine Loop.

But you can find plenty of transitions in Salt Lake City without having to leave the urban core—if you know where to look. Green spaces like the large Wasatch Community Gardens, located in the central portion of the city at 800 South and 600 East, is a great spot to catch the fleeting nature of things.

The collage above shows a series of aerial photos at this particular garden throughout the growing season from May until October. What starts as a mostly colorless arrangement of planter boxes and ground cover becomes more green and lush as the months pass by until, inevitably, returning back to their brown hues, post-harvest.

Unlike the routine of a plant’s life cycle, the change in graffiti scattered throughout the city is mostly unpredictable. You never know when or where a fresh coat of paint will be sprayed onto a wall.

The collage below captures the evolution over the past year of the Pyramid Wall, one of the last legal graffiti walls in the city. Located across Genesee Avenue from the iconic Summum Pyramid on 700 West—another well-known, unusual SLC site—this wall has seen decades of changes as generations of artists have added their work on top of this unusual canvas. I’d imagine it is more paint than wall at this point.

Of the nearly 1,000 quirky Salt Lake sights I’ve photographed so far, I’d estimate that one-third no longer remain in their original form. Nothing gold can stay, after all. CW