Primordiality and Official Statements

The LDS identity is very interesting and unique in that many fundamental and basic values are shared throughout the religion, especially in the culture of the United States. There are specific values that members of the LDS church hold. These things include wanting to protect the family, wanting to protect equality, and wanting to protect people’s life. Coincidentally, these are the values that the LDS church has actually endorsed as well.

There have been very few official statements from the church on political subjects. There are three very distinct official statements that the church put out. They were ¹“The Divine Institution of Marriage” which was a statement against gay marriage. Another was on abortion² and advocated for abortion, but only in special cases that are prayerful considered. And a last one is on illegal immigration³ where in the church advocates “an approach where undocumented immigrants are allowed to square themselves with the law and continue to work without this necessarily leading to citizenship.”

               So, this argument tends to favor the conclusion that there would be an LDS political identity. But, then we look deeper at what that political identity would believe. The LDS political identity would tend to be more republican, and air more by the way of a political candidate like Mitt Romney. This can also be seen by the large amount of Mormons sporting Mitt Romney gear and going around looking down upon people who choose to support another candidate. This isn’t inherently wrong, until you examine why good upstanding members of the church might not support Romney, especially given his stance on illegal immigration and how that affects his love for others in the view of many voters. Not to say that any other candidate would be a ton better in following official church doctrine, but the vast majority of LDS people choose to ignore this crucial statement.

               We must take a finer tooth comb and look at how many Mormon democrats in Utah say that they look at Romney in a favorable light. According to Utah Data Points⁴, 58% of Utah Mormon democrats looked at Romney in a negative light. If there was a definite Mormon political identity, then 100% of Utah Mormon democrats should look at Romney in a favorable light, because he would represent exactly what they believed. But, because there is so much movement and decision within the political atmosphere, this is not the case.

               So, if the people ideologically do not agree with what the church believes then the political identity has to be from somewhere that isn’t the church. This is why political identity tends to come more primordially than constructively. If and when people join the church, their political beliefs aren’t changed to the church’s, they tend to be left alone. Even when the church officially declares things, the vast majority of people refuse to listen. This tends to assert that people’s ideologies tend to come from their values, taught to them at a young age. People’s values don’t tend to sway much over time, even if big life changes like becoming a member of the church happen to them. Once your values set in at a young age, it is very hard to change what you believe to be right.

               Primordially, people’s ideologies represent the values they were taught. The values they were taught were usually taught to them by their parents. And so their political ideologies usually are based off of their parent’s or at least their parent’s beliefs. And this is why there is no LDS political identity within the LDS population in the United States of America.

              

1 “Gay marriage” Web page, Mormonnewsroom.org, accessed 9 October 2012

2 “Abortion” Web page, Mormonnewsroom.org, accessed 9 October 2012

3 “Immigration”, Web page, Mormonnewsroom.org, accessed 9 October 2012

4 “Do LDS Dems like Mitt Romney” Web page, UtahDataPoints.com, accessed 11 October 2012