How Utah Keeps the American Dream Alive

The article makes many good points about how upward mobility works. These points generally fit with what I understand: That stable marriage is one of the best ways to become and stay upper middle class; that poor neighborhoods with too few middle class people have much more serious problems than poor neighborhoods with X percentage of middle class residents; that spending on education is not the most critical metric for education effectiveness. etc.

It's a really good piece. The conversation here, not so much.

I am not hugely familiar with Mormonism myself, but I grew up in the Deep South, a place full of hellfire-and-brimstone Christians. That does not mean all Christians are like that. I am not personally fond of Christianity, but there is a line in the bible somewhere where someone tells Jesus "People will do terrible things in your name someday" (or words to that effect) and he replies "I will say I did not know them." (or words to that effect). Christians behaving in a way that gives Christianity a bad name is not definitive proof that Christianity is an inherently evil organization. Ditto Mormonism.

I am somewhat disappointed that so much of this discussion is about Mormonism and so little about upward mobility. I am deeply disappointed that the topmost comment here is one that outright mocks Mormonism. Bad enough it was said, but then multiple people apparently upvoted it. Ugh.

So, no citations

I think claiming that the LDS church hasn't been hostile toward LGBT people is pretty disingenuous, much like claiming they haven't been historically explicitly racist towards black people.

One doesn't have to much more than a google search for "Lds gay quotes" to find a long history of negative teachings from church leaders about gay people. The church recently expended a ton of time and effort to attempt to block gay people from being able to be married. The church had policies about gay behavior (even non-sexual in nature) at its universities until recently. It has had a role in forced gay conversion therapy, which is a horrendous practice.

Even setting aside official teachings, church members in Utah have been incredibly hostile towards gays in the past. I grew up Mormon, and I heard all the things people said about gay people. I worked at the LDS church, where I overheard 2 other employees bemoaning the fact that it was 'probably illegal' to bring a machine gun to a planned gay rally in SLC and mow down all the gays there. Others who were there just chuckled and mumbled about political correctness. I wish I could say that attitudes like that were the exception, rather than the rule.

I appreciate that the church leaders are trying to take a much more moderate approach, and I know there are a lot of church members who work hard to treat LGBT people appropriately and work to make it more accepted by others, and it is really encouraging to see some of the changes over the past 5 years. I do think, however, it is wrong to pretend that the LDS church hasn't contributed to the problem, and I think even the current teaching of "hey, so god decided to tell us that you actually can't change your sexuality, so it is cool if you are gay, but we still think it is kind of icky, so don't do gay stuff" is really hard for someone in that situation. Can you put yourself in their shoes for a minute, and think about how you'd feel in that situation?

The myth that an external force can drive otherwise-sane people to suicide merely by disapproving of some of their behaviors needs to go.

It is, ironically, perpetuated to shame and humiliate political opponents, by insidiously attempting to saddle them with responsibility for the deaths of the depressed and mentally ill.

Healthy people do not commit suicide, and they certainly don't over issues as ethereal and inconsequential as some religion's disapproval. Just having any religion automatically makes you the target of more condemnation than not, because most religions reserve eternal bliss for their own members.

Furthermore, almost every religion preaches against theft, dishonesty, duplicity, extramarital sexual conduct of any kind, and a range of other basic moral violations that are consistently verboten throughout the history of the human family. People violate these things routinely and, despite the frequent imperatives issued and social pressures imposed to encourage compliance, somehow refrain from killing themselves.

If the argument is that it's about the typical human response to homosexual conduct being so negative that it drives people over the edge, I don't see how the Mormon church, or most other Christian churches, could have any culpability for that, since a universal Christian theme is redemption, forgiveness, and an ability to leave behind a past life of sin and error whenever one commits themselves to doing so.

Mormonism in particular, as described in the parent comment, makes an effort to be civil and polite, and to encourage families to fellowship and associate with their children and friends regardless of one's level of agreement with their personal choices, including their sexual choices.

That doesn't mean that one must endorse, accept, witness, or accommodate any and all behaviors, but it means that one should remain respectful and polite, treat others with dignity and decorum, and continue to have contact in a positive manner to the fullest extent possible.

The Church is compassionate and welcoming to sinners [read: humans] of all types. No special scrutiny or shame is applied to persons who are inclined to sin by engaging in homosexual behaviors vs. those are inclined to sin differently. Any type of sexual misconduct, heterosexual or homosexual, is forbidden by the Church and regularly preached against, and I guarantee you there are many more adulterous husbands feeling guilt and shame over the much-more-frequently discussed topic of marital fidelity than there are homosexuals feeling shame on the rather rare occasion that homosexuality is broached.

> Mormons try harder to keep on the straight and narrow because their religion is less authentic - it's made up by a couple of PT Barnum types

This would be outrageous to day about Jews, Lutherans, Muslims ... Mormons are not a special case. At the least, if criticizing other people's religion, offer something that demonstrates thought and contributes value, not just a cheap insult, and show some respect.

Mormon's origin stories are no more unbelievable than other religions', full of angels, the voice of God, ascensions to heaven, reincarnation, etc. People just give more the other stories more leeway because they are the status quo.

> Whiter, higher social trust, more Christian, neighborly, higher work ethic, higher rates of marriage, more kids, fewer illegitimate kids, no grievance industry etc. Many of these factors are looked down on by people of a certain political outlook.

This is a great example of a common problem of political dialog and ideas. It's not real.

Which "people" does this refer to, specifically? Can you name one? Can you cite specific statements by a popular group that corroborates what you are saying? These "people" created in the mind of the commenter, who then criticizes figments of his/her own imagination.

I'm not saying that to pick on the commenter, but to point out that everyone has the tendency of creating somewhat paranoid, imaginary representations of the "other" - 100% dogmatic adherents to political ideologies, hyperbolic, incorporating all the bad things we hear about these other people. Real people are complex (and not even internally consistent), generally good willed toward you, and don't object to things like high marriage rates and kids with parents.