November 18, 2008

Mormon Lesson of the Day: How the Mormon Church Mobilizes Its Members Politically — And Why It Works

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.

If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.

If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.

— Sun Tzu

We’re going to start learning about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, you and I — for the simple reason Sun Tzu — who knew just about everything there was to know about winning (which is why his treatise on war is recommended, if not required, reading for U.S. military officers and corporative executives alike) — states at left.

In fact, we’re going to post a new “Mormon Lesson of the Day,” every day, from now on, until… well, until we no longer need to. Some of these “lessons” (like this one) may be a bit dry, but many, I promise, will have your jaw hitting your chest — and all will arm you with the knowledge you need if we, together, are to stem the ongoing attack on our fundamental civil rights by a breathtakingly powerful organization which doesn’t like the truth to be known (especially by its own members).

I expect to receive many angry responses from Mormons who will cry persecution and call us “anti-Mormons” and “anti-religionists,” but there is no vendetta here; our purpose is to expose the real agenda of the Mormon church as it pertains to the subversion of civil rights, from marriage equality to freedom of speech to freedom of assembly, and well beyond, for one reason and one reason only:

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.”

As I wrote not long ago (in a post, or in comments to a post — I don’t remember where now), our only goal is equality, and always has been; we never set out to find or create a common enemy, as is utterly necessary for all conservative religions to do in order to keep their flocks chained, and obedient, through fear. (If you don’t understand why they need an enemy, read Chris Hedges’ American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War On America, and you will have the key to the entire mindset.)

We did not set out to make the Mormon church, or any other church, or any other organization, or any individual, our enemy. The Mormon church made itself our enemy. They didn’t have to, and the repercussions of leaving us alone to live our lives in peace were nonexistent.

But as they have drawn the battle lines, we have no choice but to do everything in our power, legally, peacefully, nonviolently, to stop the encroachment of their peculiar beliefs into our government, into our lives, into our families.

The only place to begin is to understand who they are, what they want, and why they do what they do. These are not things they want you to know — and there’s a reason for that: I expect the LDS leadership subscribes to the philosophy — the very successful philosophy — of Sun Tzu, too.

That’s said, let’s begin with excerpts from a paper (made available by our tireless friend and hero, Chino Blanco) presented at the Conference on Religion and American Political Behavior, Southern Methodist University, October 4, 2002:

“Dry Kindling: A Political Profile of American Mormons“
(42-page PDF document)

This paper was written by the pro-Mormon side; J. Quin Monson (can anyone tell us his relationship to current LDS President Thomas S. Monson?) teaches political science at Brigham Young University, and David E. Campbell teaches political science at the University of Notre Dame:

. . .

In addition to their size and growth rate, the geographic concentration of Mormons in many Western states makes Mormon voters a potentially formidable electoral bloc. Utah, settled by Mormons and home of the LDS Church’s world headquarters, has a population that is two-thirds LDS. Even beyond Utah, however, Mormons congregate in substantial numbers. They constitute 27 percent of the population in Idaho, 10 percent in Wyoming, 7 percent in Nevada, and 5 percent in Arizona. Even in areas where Mormons are not as numerous, they nonetheless have a considerable share of the religious market. In the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, for example, there are twice as many Mormons (40,000) as Missouri Synod Lutherans.

The potential potency of a Mormon electoral bloc is not merely a theoretical proposition. Mansbridge (1986), for example, credits Mormon voters as instrumental in the defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment in some key states near the end of its ratification period. In particular, Mormons have played an important role in the politics of various Western states. In California, for example, LDS Church members were urged by church leaders not only to vote for Proposition 22 (a ban on gay marriages) in 2000, but also to become actively involved in the campaign (Coile 1999; Salladay 1999). Latter-day Saints in other states have also been involved in advocating ballot initiatives banning same-sex marriages, including active support for efforts in Hawaii, Alaska, and Nevada. Mormon political involvement has also been observed outside of the Western states, as the Mormon Church has supported an anti-same sex marriage initiative in Nebraska and opposed riverboat gambling in Ohio.

. . .

We seek to contribute to the expanding literature on America’s religious mosaic by presenting a political profile of American Mormons, with particular attention paid to how the LDS Church mobilizes its members on select political issues. …

. . .

Our discussion of Mormon mobilization relies on a metaphor, what we call the “dry kindling” effect. By this we mean that Mormons have great potential for political activity. Like kindling they can be lit, ignited by the spark of explicit direction from their church leaders. However, much of the flammability is due to the relative infrequency with which Mormons are mobilized by their church leaders. …

. . .

In two words, Mormons are conservative and cohesive. For example, in the 2000 presidential election the Third National Survey of Religion and Politics found that 88 percent of Mormons voted for George W. Bush, exceeding the 84 percent of observant white evangelicals who voted for the Bush-Cheney ticket (Green et al. 2001).

There is great historical irony in the fact that contemporary Mormons are such loyal Republicans. When it was founded in the 1850s, the Republican Party had as its aim the elimination of what the 1856 party platform called the “twin relics of barbarism” – slavery and polygamy. The reference to polygamy was a direct attack on the Mormons, as they were reviled nationally for this practice (which was officially repudiated by the church in 1890).

That all seems to be water under the bridge, as Mormons have become increasingly Republican in both their partisanship and voting patterns. … In terms of institutional structure, the LDS Church has much in common with the Catholic Church. But in terms of their cultural worldview, Mormons are more like Southern Baptists (or at least like Southern Baptists are often portrayed).

…[I]n the 1970s, roughly half of Mormons identified as Republicans, climbing to 60 percent in the 1990s. While Catholics and Southern Baptists show a similarly sloping upward line, the percentage of Republicans in both groups is about twenty-five to thirty percentage points lower than among Mormons in all three decades.

Mormons not only identify as Republicans; they vote for them too. … For example, in the 1990s 65 percent of Mormons voted for GOP candidates, while nationally the average was 39 percent. … We see, therefore, that even though the percentage of Mormons voting for Republican presidential candidates fell from 75 percent to 65 percent between the 1980s and 1990s, Republican support in the general electorate fell even more sharply (which should be obvious from the fact that a Democrat won the presidential elections in 1992 and 1996, and the popular vote in 2000). While Catholics and Southern Baptists, relative to everyone else, also became more likely to vote Republican, again we see that Mormons lean much more heavily toward the GOP.

While it is perhaps a historical irony that contemporary Mormons favor Republicans, history teaches us that we should not be surprised to see that Mormons are homogeneous in their political leanings. Political unity among Mormons has deep historical roots. In the 1830s and 1840s, one of the charges leveled at Mormon settlers in Missouri and Illinois was that they voted as a bloc. In fact, in 1838 fears of Mormon bloc voting led non-Mormons to thwart Mormon voters’ attempts to cast ballots in Gallatin, Missouri. The resulting riot led the governor of Missouri, Lilburn W. Boggs, to issue an order that the Mormons must be driven from the state or “exterminated” (Arrington and Bitton 1979, 51). Faced with this choice the Mormons opted to leave the state, crossing the Mississippi River to found the city of Nauvoo, Illinois. But their bloc voting continued. In the 1840s Mormon leaders, church founder Joseph Smith particularly, were courted by candidates of different parties vying for the cohesive Mormon vote. When the Mormons settled in Utah, the church actually had its own political party (the People’s Party), which dominated state politics until it was disbanded in 1891 by church leaders who saw that Utah’s unique political landscape was an impediment to efforts to achieve statehood. Owing to the historical antipathy many Mormons felt toward the Republican Party, Utah became a predominantly Democratic state. Concerned that the one-partyism of Utah was still an obstacle to becoming a state, LDS Church leaders “encouraged the development of the Republican party among church members” (Barrus 1992, 1102) [see also (Larson and Poll 1989; Lyman 1986, 150-184)]. These efforts were quite successful and the Mormon Church, as reflected in the politics of Utah, enjoyed a relatively healthy balance between the two parties throughout much of the 20th century, at least until the 1980s. Prominent church leaders were affiliated with both parties. …

. . .

While LDS leaders may wish to see greater partisan diversity among Mormons, their conservative leanings on social issues makes the Republican Party their natural home. As one example of their conservatism on an issue that has resonated in the so-called “culture war,” Latter-day Saints generally take a traditionalist view regarding the role of women in society. …

. . .

However, among Mormons, Southern Baptists, and Catholics, only the Mormons became – relative to the rest of the nation – more culturally conservative from the 1970s to the 1990s. In the 1970s, 38 percent of Mormons chose a traditionalist view of gender roles, while by the 1990s that had dropped to 29 percent. 8 In contrast, the national average fell from 27 to 12 percent. In other words, the mean for Mormons in the 1990s is about the same as the national average during the 1970s.

. . .

Religious Participation and Political Activity

The social distinctiveness of Mormons goes hand in hand with the distinctive level of commitment Latter-day Saints make to their church. … Members of strict churches are able to overcome collective action dilemmas because the distinctive lifestyle expected of members—abstinence from alcohol, regulation of sexual behavior, etc.—screens out free riders. In order to ensure compliance with their behavioral guidelines, strict churches

penalize or prohibit alternative activities that compete for members’ resources. In mixed populations, such penalties and prohibitions tend to screen out the less committed members. They act like entry fees and thus discourage anyone not seriously interested in buying the product. Only those willing to pay the price remain. (Iannaccone 1994, 1187)

Members of strict churches are thus expected to devote significant amounts of time and energy into volunteer activity for their faith, reinforcing these social networks (Wuthnow 1999). The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a quintessentially strict church (Campbell 2003).

Even a brief description of the expectations placed upon members of the LDS Church underscores the level of commitment required within the Mormon faith. The Mormon Church asks for a considerable investment of time from its laity. First, Mormons are expected to spend a significant amount of time at church meetings—members of the LDS Church attend three consecutive meetings on Sundays, lasting for a total of three hours. Mormons may also spend considerable time traveling to and worshiping in LDS temples, which are distinct from the Sunday meetings held in the more numerous church meetinghouses. In addition to the time spent attending these church meetings, adult Mormons usually receive an assignment within the local congregation. This might include arising at the crack of dawn to teach high school students about LDS doctrine before they go to school. It might be organizing local proselytizing efforts, or participating in one of the church’s welfare activities. On top of these specialized assignments, each Mormon is also assigned a set of other members of the local congregation to visit every month, to ensure that their needs are being met by the church. Furthermore, many Mormons spend up to two years in full-time missionary work while young or when retired. This list, which is far from exhaustive, hopefully provides a sense that the Mormon Church has high expectations for the amount of time its members invest in the church’s activities.

These investments of time and energy are also accompanied by a considerable financial commitment as Mormons are taught that they must pay a literal tithe, or ten percent of their income, to the church. In addition to their tithes, many Mormons also contribute to other funds operated by the church, particularly one set aside for the assistance of the poor in their local communities.

. . .

An implication that follows from the intensive church involvement of Mormons is that their church activity provides training in what Verba, Schlozman, and Brady (1995) call “civic skills.” These are the quotidian tasks that constitute the practice of civic involvement – holding meetings, giving speeches, writing letters, etc. They find that training in these skills is an important resource leading to political activity, and that such training is often provided by churches. …

. . .

But does their religious involvement pull them into political activity, as the dry kindling hypothesis suggests? …

. . .

As expected, we see that … The more Mormons are involved in their church, the more they are involved in politics. … Interestingly, Mormons with the lowest level of religious participation have a slightly lower rate of political activity than Southern Baptists or Catholics who have the same level of religious involvement. Mormons have the steepest sloping line, however, and so at the highest level of religious participation, they have the highest level of political involvement.

In sum… the intensive church involvement of Mormons facilitates their capacity to be politically involved. It is important that we note, however, that the higher rate of political activity of Mormons who are fully engaged with their church is not generally due to explicit mobilization on the part of LDS leaders. As we will explain in greater detail below, such direction comes infrequently. Instead, the high rate of political activity among participating Mormons is far more likely to be due to the civic skills and social networks they foster through their church activity.

Political Mobilization

The third component of the dry kindling effect centers on the emphasis within Mormonism on adherence to the instructions of the church’s leaders. These instructions are generally affirmations of LDS doctrine, but on rare — and thus significant — occasions also include direction on political matters.

Strictly in terms of its organizational structure, the LDS Church is reminiscent of the Catholic Church; it is centralized and hierarchical, with clear lines of authority. Like the Catholics, Mormons have a single leader for the entire organization. The LDS Church is led by a president, a position that is simultaneously both ecclesiastical and administrative in nature. In Mormon parlance, the president of the church is a “prophet, seer, and revelator,” and the only person entitled to receive divine instruction pertaining to the church as a whole. Mormons pay close attention to the speeches he delivers and books and articles he writes. Adherence to the prophet’s instructions in all matters is a hallmark of Mormon religious observance, including in regards to political questions. For example, in an oft-cited address to students at church-owned Brigham Young University, Elder Ezra Taft Benson – at the time next in line to become president of the LDS Church and someone who had been visibly active in political causes – emphasized that the church president’s counsel is not necessarily restricted to spiritual matters, but may extend to political issues as well (Benson 1980). Speaking of the LDS Church’s involvement in legislative and electoral politics, current LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley more recently explained the reasoning behind the church’s occasional involvement in politics by saying, “…we deal only with those legislative matters which are of a strictly moral nature or which directly affect the welfare of the Church…We regard it as not only our right but our duty to oppose those forces which we feel undermine the moral fiber of society” (Hinckley 1999).

The president of the LDS Church is at the apex of an organization with a clearly defined chain of command. He is assisted by two “counselors,” (somewhat like vice presidents). These three men comprise the First Presidency, the church’s highest governing body. Immediately below the First Presidency in both stature and decisionmaking authority is a group of twelve church officials known as the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Collectively these church officials are known as general authorities. The general authorities oversee the global operations of the LDS Church, which is divided into geographic units. Their role is administrative as well as pastoral, as they are the key policy-making body for the entire church. Individual congregations, known as wards, are run entirely by lay members, under the close oversight of the church’s general authorities. Local leaders receive instruction from the church’s leaders through periodic visits by general authorities and training sessions broadcast on the church’s satellite network. Day-to-day operations are governed by a handbook of instruction and policies, which local leaders are advised to consult regularly. In short, within the LDS Church the doctrinal principle that church members should “follow their leaders” is not merely an abstract platitude. It is embodied within both the doctrine and the institutional structure of the organization.

The centralized organization and small cohesive congregations that characterize the LDS Church mean that church members can be rapidly mobilized when necessary. When natural disasters strike, for example, the LDS Church is often among the first groups within a community to render aid (Arrington, Fox, and May 1976). In theory, this same type of mobilization could be applied to political causes.

However, in practice it rarely has been applied to politics, at least in contemporary times. While the church’s members may be predominantly Republican, the LDS Church itself is scrupulously nonpartisan. Indeed, while it may appear that the Mormon emphasis on adherence to the church’s leadership would mean that they wield great political influence, in reality LDS general authorities have not made public statements advocating candidates or a particular party for several decades.

The authors appear to make the assumption (both within and without the excerpts quoted here) that this is due to the church’s commitment to nonpartisanship, neglecting to mention, deliberately or not, the fact that advocacy of any candidate or political party would violate IRS regulations for non-profit religious organizations, thus risking the church’s tax-exempt status.

Before every biennial U.S. election, the First Presidency issues a letter that is read during Sunday meetings to every congregation in the United States, in which the strict political neutrality of the church is emphasized. And this neutrality is not simply a formality, honored only in the breach. Political candidates (even those that are LDS) do not give political speeches in LDS meetings; campaign literature is not distributed in LDS Church buildings; and voter guides are not distributed to LDS members while they are at church.

Again, all of these activities are strictly prohibited as long as the church wants to retain its tax-exempt status.

. . .

The fact that Mormons rarely receive political direction from their church leaders does not mean that it never comes. While the Mormon Church maintains official political neutrality in partisan elections,

— again, as it is required to —

church leaders emphasize that they will take a public stand on issues deemed “moral” and not “political.” Thus, there are occasions when the LDS general authorities speak on public issues and channel the organizational energy of Mormon Church members to specific causes. For example, in 1976 LDS leaders announced the church’s official opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). In response, church members actively worked to defeat the ERA in a number of states including Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Nevada, and Virginia (Magleby 1992; Quinn 1997). Typically, the LDS Church has taken official stances on issues raised by ballot initiatives, and not campaigns for elected office. This is presumably because of the church’s reluctance to be seen as intervening in a partisan contest, as well as the fact that this is often the vehicle by which controversial social issues are brought before the electorate.

It cannot be emphasized enough that the authors are neglecting to mention IRS rules on tax exemptions for non-profits.

In recent years LDS Church involvement of some kind has been observed in numerous statewide initiative campaigns opposing gambling (Arizona, Idaho, Ohio, and Utah) and gay marriage (Alaska, California, Hawaii, Nebraska, and Nevada).

Because of the contest’s national profile and the relatively large number of Mormons in the state, the extensive involvement of the Mormon Church leading up to the March 2000 primary election in California is especially interesting. Local church leaders were intensely involved at all levels of the campaign to mobilize Mormon Church members to actively support Proposition 22, an initiative to ban gay marriages. The official involvement by LDS Church leaders included two letters in May 1999. The first outlined the justification for supporting the initiative and gave fundraising instructions to the leaders of local congregations. A second letter was read over California pulpits during Sunday worship meetings, encouraging church members to donate money, volunteer for the campaign, and otherwise support the initiative. The grass roots involvement of church members included participation as precinct walkers in a sophisticated voter identification effort and in subsequent phone bank and mailing operations staffed by LDS volunteers to mobilize voters. It is difficult to estimate the precise impact of Mormon Church members on the campaign, as there are no public records that record the religion of campaign donors or workers, but press accounts indicate the pressure brought to bear on Mormons in California was intense and that the subsequent level of participation in both fundraising and grass-roots political activity, especially among church attending Mormons, was quite high (Coile 1999; Salladay 1999).

We have good reason to believe that the official involvement of the LDS Church exerted a significant influence on the voting behavior of its membership. In previous research regarding Mormon voting behavior on ballot initiatives we outline two conditions that must be present in order for Mormons to respond to their leaders on political questions (Campbell and Monson Forthcoming). First, the position must receive the official institutional endorsement of the church. Second, the position of the leadership must be unified and widely known among church members. Both conditions were clearly met in the case of Proposition 22. It is also interesting to note that the model of LDS Church involvement in the Proposition 22 campaign follows closely tactics used in a 1988 Idaho lottery initiative campaign. In both cases this included using local leaders to solicit contributions from members as well as to actively recruit them as campaign workers (Popkey 1988).

. . .

The uniqueness of the Mormon capacity for sparking intense activity among its membership is highlighted with a final comparison to attempts at mobilization among Evangelical Protestants and Roman Catholics. Christian Right organizations like the Christian Coalition, which of course target Evangelical Protestant churches (including Southern Baptists), expend great efforts to mobilize voters. Without the organizational advantages of a single centralized church, however, the Christian Coalition is less able to tap into channels of communication within a religious community the way the Mormons have done. On the other hand, a hierarchical organization is clearly not sufficient for intense mobilization. The Catholic Church has just such an institutional structure, and yet without intensive voluntarism among the laity to foster social networks, civic skills, and intragroup trust, church-directed political activity is not terribly successful. In the Proposition 22 case, Catholic leaders in California also endorsed the effort, but there is not evidence of a broad mobilization of lay Catholics in California by their leaders that compares to the mobilization of Mormons.

. . .

Since World War II, Mormon general authorities have only offered formal endorsements on a select number of public controversies, opposition to gay marriage being the most recent. Our intention has been to demonstrate that Mormons have an explosive capacity to muster their troops on behalf of these political causes – with enough firepower to conceivably tip the balance in a close contest.

Yet as we have stressed, it is the very infrequency of Mormon mobilization that accentuates its effectiveness. Because LDS Church leaders rarely speak out on explicitly political questions, when they do Mormons sit up and take notice. Should LDS leaders speak on politics more frequently, Latter-day Saints might respond in smaller numbers or with less vigor. The result is a delicate balance between frequency and potency. …

And they’ll certainly respond with less money; it’s going to take Pam and Rick Patterson a long time to raise another $50,000 to devote to the next anti-gay mobilization directive from Salt Lake City — and next time, they might regret wasting fifty grand that could have gone toward the college education of one of their five sons.

Posted by: Sapphocrat

Permalink | |