In the 1880s, seeking to project complete political neutrality, the Mormon Church purposely split itself between the Democratic and the Republican parties. At the time, explained Lynn Wardle, a professor at the Brigham Young University’s J. Reuben Clark Law School, Utah was fighting for statehood. Both Democrats and Republicans were wary, not just because of polygamy, but because they each feared that the church’s members would throw their support to the other side. “The church realized it was in a no-win situation,” he said. “It sent apostles to various communities and said we want you to divide.” Wardle says that a friend of his, a judge who grew up in a small Utah mountain town, heard people describe the day “when the apostle came to town and said everyone who lives on this side of the street becomes Republicans, and people on that side of the street should register as Democrats.”
Since then the LDS church, despite its deep social conservatism, has largely remained scrupulously nonpartisan. Every election year, the church sends out letters to be read at temples urging people to vote, but never telling them who to vote for. Wardle knew one Utah Stake President—the Mormon equivalent of a bishop in a Catholic diocese—who felt uncomfortable reading even such a neutral exhortation: “He said personally I don’t even vote, because politics are so dirty.”
In light of this history, the critical role that Mormons played in organizing to pass Proposition 8, California’s anti-gay marriage amendment, represents a profound shift. On June 29, 2008, a letter from church leadership was read at every Mormon congregation in California saying, “We ask that you do all you can to support the proposed constitutional amendment by donating of your means and time to assure that marriage in California is legally defined as being between a man and a woman.” Mormons responded avidly, reportedly raising more than half the money to fund the Proposition 8 campaign and playing an indispensable role in the initiative’s ground operation.
The last time Mormons were so involved in such a high profile, controversial campaign in the United States was the fight against the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s. For those who work in the international realm, though, Mormon activism is nothing new. The last decade has seen a flurry of conservative interfaith organizing at the global level, largely in response to feminist gains, and Mormons have been key leaders of the emerging international religious right. Some of the lessons right-wing Mormon activists learned globally have likely contributed to their newfound success in influencing American politics.
Because it operates at the esoteric level of United Nations bureaucracy and international law and policymaking, the global religious right isn’t nearly as visible as the domestic version. To understand it, it’s necessary to understand the way that women’s rights—and reproductive rights specifically—are increasingly being treated as human rights under international law. Women who have been denied medically necessary abortions have won rulings against their own countries in international forums like the United Nations Human Rights Committee and the European Court of Human Rights. International treaties like the Convention of the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, or CEDAW, call on signatory countries to foster equality, and various UN committees monitor member nations’ progress towards eliminating sexism in both national laws and cultural practices.
These tensions command scant public attention, especially in the United States, where international law carries little weight and where CEDAW has never been ratified. Abroad, however, things are different, and women’s rights activists, especially in developing countries, have appealed to the global system when seeking redress on discriminatory inheritance laws, draconian abortion bans, and protection from domestic violence, among other things. This, in turn, has led to a conservative counter-movement, with Mormons playing a leading role in a world-spanning alliance of right-wing Christians and Muslims who have banded together to defeat threats to patriarchal tradition.
Interreligious Coalition of Co-Belligerency
One of the first American conservatives to pay close attention to the way global politics was reshaping gender norms was a Brigham Young law professor named Richard Wilkins. In 1996, Wilkins, who had long fought against abortion rights domestically, attended the UN Conference on Habitats in Istanbul. As Jennifer S. Butler reports in her book, Born Again: The Christian Right Globalized, Wilkins gave a speech based on LDS president Gordon B. Hinckley’s statement, The Family: A Proclamation to the World. “By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families. Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children,” Hinckley’s proclamation said, warning that “the disintegration of the family will bring upon individuals, communities, and nations the calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets.”
Tags: feminism, mormons, proposition 8, reproductive rights, un
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