From Deseret News archives:
Follow LDS counsel: Study issues
This counsel is explicit in urging members to find out about candidates, examine the issues and exercise good judgment after an analysis of who the candidates are and what positions they hold. The statement implies that people who engage in such a thoughtful approach are following the counsel of church leaders.
Yet, on average, about 40 percent of Utah voters vote straight party ticket, with the vast majority of those voting Republican. They take a couple of seconds to find the straight party lever and then they're done. No need to "study the issues and candidates carefully and prayerfully" or look for leaders "who will act with integrity." They just vote for whoever the party offers up to them. In all likelihood it will happen again in November.
Nor can it be suggested that those 40 percent are not LDS members. Seventy percent of Utah is LDS. And an even higher percentage of the electorate is LDS since LDS Church members typically vote.
That is not a message that comes from the First Presidency. Again and again, the First Presidency has proclaimed the church's political neutrality. Do they say this with a "wink and a nod" that communicates something different? Some members may think that, but the First Presidency's actions in actually remaining neutral would suggest otherwise.
Is it because all of the church leaders are Republicans? No, that's not true either. Over time, many prominent church leaders also have been Democrats, including President Hugh B. Brown, President Heber J. Grant and Elder B.H. Roberts. In fact, in the 1950s, President Hinckley even wrote a sympathetic biography of James Moyle, a prominent Mormon Democrat.
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