The church also directly addressed a column in Thursday's edition of the Salt Lake Tribune titled "Church shows true color — red." The church's statement said Tribune columnist Rebecca Walsh used "intemperate and disrespectful language" to claim that inviting Cheney "shreds the LDS Church's perennial claims of political neutrality."

Tribune executive editor Tom Baden didn't think the column was intemperate, saying Walsh's role as a local news columnist is to have a strong voice on issues of local importance.

"We don't think it was disrespectful," he said. "We think it was robust and vigorous."

The Tribune also published an editorial urging Cheney be allowed to speak. The editorial defended BYU's right to invite him and others' right to protest the invitation.

The invitation was extended by the three members of the First Presidency of the LDS Church, acting in their roles as members of the executive committee of the BYU board of trustees. One of the three men, President James E. Faust, is a noted Democrat who served in the Utah State Legislature from 1949-51 and was appointed by President John F. Kennedy to the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights in 1962.

The church's statement reiterated its policy of political neutrality, which prohibits church leaders from endorsing candidates in the name of the church and the use of church buildings or rolls for political purposes.

The church also avoids telling church members for whom they should vote, the statement said. In addition, according to the statement, the church also avoids telling church members who are elected officials how they should vote.

"The invitation to the vice president of the United States is not a violation of that policy, any more than inviting the majority leader of the Senate would be," the statement said.

The university has invited Democrats to speak in the past. U.S. Rep. Tom Lantos, D-California, spoke at commencement in 2001. Journalist Helen Thomas proudly called herself a liberal when she spoke at a BYU forum assembly in 2003.

Reid also spoke at the law school's graduation in 2004.

BYU extended invitations to the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates in 1992, Jenkins said. President George H.W. Bush accepted while Bill Clinton declined.

Democratic presidents Woodrow Wilson, Harry S. Truman and Lyndon B. Johnson spoke at BYU, as did presidential candidates Robert F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey.

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E-mail: twalch@desnews.com