Course Description:
The aim of this course is to gain an understanding of how religion influences public policy in the United States. We will do this by investigating the case of Mormonism and its role in public policy in the United States. For the purpose of this course, the terms Mormon and LDS (Latter Day Saint) will be used interchangeably, as they are used interchangeably by members of that church. I chose this religion to focus on instead of faiths with greater numbers of adherents and political influence in the United States, like Evangelical Christianity, for a number of reasons. Among them is that it is easy to decide who counts as Mormon due to the orthodoxy of the religion that leaves little room for the gray areas that exist in the Bible Belt. Additionally, there is a strong concentration of LDS members in the intermountain west region of the United States. This makes it easier to specifically attribute certain policies to the influence of Mormonism as opposed to political or other influences. This makes it a strong first foray into public policy analysis with respect to religion in the U.S. In order to fully analyze this, we will approach Mormonism and government policies that were affected by it through a historical, philosophical, and religious studies approach with the aim of understanding how public policy is influenced by the “elephant in the room” of our personal beliefs and worldview so that we might be more effective in creating empathetic policy.
Week 1: Why Mormonism? + Background
Read –
The Mormon Church’s official stance on political involvement:
http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/official-statement/political-neutrality
We will be returning to these claims consistently throughout the course.
Read this for background about civic engagement within Mormonism:
I’m class we will be watching and discussing clips from:
PBS Frontline and American Experience Documentary: The Mormons
Link Here to explore more resources available on the website:
http://www.pbs.org/mormons/
The timeline is especially helpful to keep track of the events discussed in the documentary.
Week 2: History of Mormonism in Politics
Randall Balmer, Ed. Jana Reiss. Mormonism and American Politics (Religion, Culture, and Public Life). (2015).
Read Parts I and II.
Week 3: History of Mormonism in Politics + Case Study – The Equal Rights Amendment
Part III of the Balmer book
Read this article about the influence of Mormonism in the defeat of the ERA:
https://democracy.missouri.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/April-14-Park-CS-Reading-Young.pdf
Week 4: Case Study – Proposition 8
These two articles explore the role of the Mormon Church in Proposition 8:
http://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2008/10/the-mormon-money-behind-proposition-8/209748/
Transcript of Proposition 8 Case:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/documents/supreme-court-prop-8-oral-arguments-transcript.html
