Utah in the Twentieth Century

9. Public Opinion, Culture, and Religion in Utah

227 9 Public Opinion, Culture, and Religion in Utah Wayne K. Hinton and Stephen Roberds Although Utah had a liberal tradition, that is not the image that most people have when they consider Utah politics. In this essay, Wayne K. Hinton and Stephen Roberds use 2002 Brigham Young University exit-poll data to support the opposite point of view. They show that Utahns are very conservative and Mormon. But what is a conservative ? Hinton and Roberds carefully define the beliefs of several types of conservatives and liberals. Readers will find these definitions helpful in understanding not only this essay but others in the volume. In addition, the authors make excellent use of tables that compare Utahns to each other and with the rest of the nation. They then attempt to answer the question of how Utahns became so conservative and Republican by looking at Utah history in the nineteenth century and decade by decade in the twentieth. The essay concludes that Utah public opinion and culture are a mixture of Mormon and western American values. Introduction This chapter examines (1) public opinion as well as (2) political culture and (3) religion in Utah. Through statistical analysis, it compares Utah to other states in these three areas. An historical perspective then shows the ways that the cultural and religious dominance of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints affects Utahns’ public opinions. Partisanship and Ideology in Utah Two key terms with regard to public opinion are partisanship and ideology . Partisanship means the ways citizens align themselves with political parties. Ideology reflects the way they align themselves along a conservative/liberal spectrum .There are various ways to measure partisanship and ideology. One method, 228 Wayne K. Hinton and Stephen Roberds survey data, asks respondents to describe themselves. Another approach involves examining behavior. Partisanship and ideology near the turn of the twentiethfirst century were measured through an analysis of survey data gathered by the KBYU/Utah Colleges Exit Poll, administered at randomly selected voting places throughout the state of Utah on the day of the 2002 general election.1 Table 1 reports the findings about where Utah voters placed themselves on the questions pertaining to partisanship and ideology. The data are striking and show that Utahns are overwhelmingly Republican and conservative. In 2002 Republican identifiers outnumbered Democrats 61 percent to 26 percent. More than a third of GOP identifiers claimed to be strong Republicans. Of those identifying themselves as Democrats, most described themselves as independent but leaning toward Democratic policies. Table 1. Self-placement on Partisan and Ideology Scales Strong Democrat 7% Not-so-strong Democrat 4% Independent, leaning Democrat 15% Independent 8% Independent, leaning Republican 15% Not-so-strong Republican 18% Strong Republican 28% Other/don’t know 5% 100% N = 1,018 Strong liberal 4% Moderate liberal 12% Neither 19% Moderate conservative 46% Strong conservative 15% Don’t know 5% 100% N = 1,003 Data: Kelly D. Patterson, “KBYU/Utah College Exit Poll” (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University, 2002). Table 1 also shows that Utah is a conservative state. In 2002 conservatives outnumbered liberals in Utah 60 to 16 percent.The terms conservative and liberal are slippery and lack precision so they need definitions. Most political scientists agree that basic attributes go with the terms. Conservatives tend to favor state and local governments as best suited to deal with social problems. They are likely to be suspicious of the federal government and Washington, D.C. They stress “family values” of heterosexual marriage, oppose pornography and alternative lifestyles, and believe that government should support and promote traditional values. Conservatives tend to stress individualism in relation to property rights. In Utah the term conservative also entails a belief in the individual’s right to own firearms, state control over natural resources and land, and government support of basic religious values found in the LDS Church. 229 Public Opinion, Culture, and Religion in Utah The term liberal tends to be associated with a belief in equality over individualism , but liberals do stress individual freedom in the realms of press, speech, and privacy. Liberals usually have more faith in government as a legitimate agent of positive social change and a higher tolerance for those with alternative lifestyles and views. Liberals generally believe that religion and politics should be separate and that traditional values, while important, should not be imposed on those who favor less traditional values. While the data from Table 1 are quite revealing, they are just a start in understanding the...