Bridging the divide

Rhys said he's disturbed to see Latter-day Saints harassed on the street near the Conference Center during their semiannual general conferences by street preachers and others "protesting and screaming at them. If that were to happen to the Jews at one of the synagogues or another faith group, everyone here would be up in arms about it. But we seem to be complacent about it as free speech, rather than looking at people going about their business of worshipping."

Because of circles he travels in, "Mormon bashing is a common and accepted thing among people who would never tolerate a racial joke or one about another religion, but in Utah it seems like Mormons are fair game."

As a teacher, he sees the divide play out in school, where students quickly determine who is LDS and who is not.

When students ask about his faith flat out, he tells them it's personal.

Alison Anderson is an active Latter-day Saint businesswoman who sells concert clothing for female musicians on her Web site. She and her family returned to Utah in the mid-1980s after living for eight years in the San Francisco Bay Area.

As an "affluent mainstream active Mormon lady, I'm a Democrat and have more liberal political leanings, and I'm not afraid to discuss them.

"A lot of people in my family are not Mormons . . . Living outside Utah broadens your experience, because you find that people don't really pay too much attention to divisions along religious lines. There's a much broader norm . . . "

Anderson found the group discussions about the religious divide "disturbing and sad. Some non-Latter-day Saints felt they had been really brutalized and made to feel they were never as good, never players. It was hard, and there were times that I sat there and thought, 'What I need to do here as a human being and probably as a Mormon is to listen and to hear and to understand. That's what I should do with this.' And it was hard sometimes."

Anderson said she and her husband now actively "cultivate relationships with those who aren't LDS. We take our Mormons neighbors for granted because we see them every week at church . . . We're comfortable with having a good friendship for the sake of having a good friendship."

Block parties in their current neighborhood are put on by an organizing committee that cuts across faith lines. She urged fellow Latter-day Saints to "build relationships one at a time," and to move outside their LDS circle.

Polly Stewart grew up within the boundaries of the 27th LDS Ward in Salt Lake City during the 1940s and 1950s. Her parents had become disaffected from their LDS faith and took her and her siblings to the Unitarian Church, yet all of her kin on her mother's side were active Latter-day Saints. Her father's side became disaffected as well, though she grew up learning a great deal about LDS history.

After graduating from the U., she left Utah for 38 years, only to return in 2004 to her childhood home, where she cares for her aging mother.