Transcript: National Press Club Q&A with President Gordon B. Hinckley

Jack Cushman: I'll try to remember that, too.

Q. What is your church's teaching on divorce?

A. Well, we don't like it. We have divorce. We permit divorce. I very much regret that divorce is so rampant in the land. It is indicative of the breaking up of the family. I think it is a very sorrowful thing to witness that we have so much divorce which comes of a disrespect on the part of men and women and the lack of appreciation and unwillingness to give and take a little here and there. If every man would make his prime concern the comfort and well-being of his wife and every wife make her chief concern the comfort and well-being of her husband, we would have very little divorce in the land.

Q. Perhaps it was another journalist in the audience, he wants you to think back to the time when you were considering Columbia University and the School of Journalism. What was it that made you decide that wasn't such a great idea?

A. That's a long time ago. The fact is when I came home from my mission in England I graduated from the University of Utah before I went and stopped in New York on the way home to inquire at Columbia and so on. I came home and the leaders of the church asked me to come and do some work there, and I ceded to their requests and have been there ever since. Can't get out of the rut (laughter).

Jack Cushman: Neither can I.

Q. With the voice of authority do you think you could convince Sen. Hatch here to stick around and sing a few songs for us?

A. One of our major principles is the sanctity of free agency, and if he chooses to sing I'll stay and listen, but if he leaves I'll go out right behind him.