With Whom Do Mormons Identify?

Blog 5

            Political identity, as described by J.J. Samuelson, are the ways that individuals categorize themselves and others, and how they understand the power relationships of domination and oppression that exist between the groups. 

According to this definition, there is a definite trend in political identity that could be viewed as a “Mormon political identity” because of overwhelming statistics both in and outside of Utah and voting trends on party specific issues such as abortion and gay-marriage, which support that the majority of Mormons prefer the Republican Party. However, these may change in the future, as more Mormons become members of the Democratic Party.

            First, Mormon political identity, favoring the Republican Party is evident in a nationwide survey reported in the Salt Lake Tribune from December of 2011.  According to researchers from Trinity College in Connecticut, cited in article from 2008, 59 percent of Mormons declared themselves as Republicans while 14 percent declared themselves as Democrats (Gehrke). This overwhelming trend becomes even more evident within the largely Mormon state of Utah. According to the same survey, two-thirds of Utah citizens report themselves as Republican while only seven percent report themselves as Democrats (Gehrke). The chart at right from the Salt Lake Tribune portrays these above statistics.

This trend and therefore a political identity seems obvious though because of the LDS Church’s negative stance toward political issues like gay marriage and abortion. In the recent past, the LDS church has taken an aggressive stance against the passing of Proposition 8, in favor of gay-marriage in California, and abortion, which are two parts of the Republican platform. It therefore seems natural that the majority of Mormons would side with a party that supports those important political issues.

This brings up the important issue of whether Mormons are born into this identity according Huntinton’s primordialist argument, or whether there is the potential for change according to J.J. Samuelson’s constructivist argument. In this situation, Huntington argument would assert that the Mormon culture is primordialist because the identities that can become political are those formed very early in life (Hawkins). This theory would be true, except for the 14 percent in the above nationwide study and seven percent in the Utah study. In the case of the minority of democrats, Samuelson’s case seems to be true because the larger variation of Mormon-Democrats outside of Utah suggests that identities are malleable (Hawkins). If there are larger percentages of Mormon-Democrats outside of Utah, then the Mormon political identity must be semi-malleable and therefore constructivist.

Overall, it would seem that there is at least a semi-constructivist Mormon-Republican political identity within Utah, as demonstrated by statistics both in and outside of Utah and voting trends on party specific issues such as abortion and gay-marriage, which support that the majority of Mormons prefer the Republican Party.

Works Cited

Hawkins, Kirk Andrew. Comparative Politics Course Lecture, PL SC 150.  10 October 2012.  See also Samuels, David. Comparative Politics. Pearson Education, Inc., 2013. 149. Print.

Robert, Gehrke. "Survey: Mormons embrace GOP, shun Democrats." Salt Lake Tribune. 14 Dec 2011. Web. 11 Oct. 2012. <http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/home2/53110048-183/mormons-utah-lds-party.html.csp>.