Rogue Columnist Jon Talton Created A Hot Thread Re-Posting "Phoenix 101: The Mormons"

Jon Talton first posted his column back on June 23, 2009. Ten years and six months later Talton re-posted his primer in a post on Facebook on Arizona Memories just 23 hours ago:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/AZmemories/permalink
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Jon Talton shared a link to the group: Arizona Memories.

23 hrs ·

 

The name "Mormon" is now frowned upon by the LDS leadership. But here's my primer on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and their influence on metro Phoenix:

Phoenix 101: The Mormons

The Arizona Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in…

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". . . The Mormons were revered among the great Arizona pioneers. They were known for their generosity, including to "gentiles," [Laminates] something our family experienced. Mormons were hard-working, reliable, self-reliant, patrons of education and the arts. Mesa in those days was a beautiful small city, a monument to the energy and far-sightedness of its LDS founders. We would regularly drive down neat and prosperous Main Street to see the beautiful Arizona Temple. The Mormon kids with whom I went to high school were among the most talented in one of the country's top high-school fine arts program.

The Mormons were also powerful. That was clear even at an early age
. . .  Mormons market themselves as Protestants, but they're not. LDS theology, which is intriguing, is based on continuing revelation . . . The LDS faith is different in many other ways, and compelling to millions. It's an American-born creed that is growing fast around the world. But it is generally opposed to equality of the sexes in the sense many modern Americans would understand it, and some lapsed Mormon women ("jack Mormons") tell horror stories. Well, every denomination has its problems and critics.
> The mainsteam LDS doesn't cover itself with glory on the issue of polygamy.
While it condemns the practice and excommunicates members who practice it, the church seems to have a "don't ask, don't tell" policy. At times, it appears more interested in protecting its image than addressing the problem.
> Arizona Gov. Howard Pyle was defeated for re-election, largely because of mainstream Mormon unhappiness with the state's 1953 raid on the Short Creek polygamy community. The hamlet changed its name to Colorado City. We now know that polygamy isn't like Big Love. It involves child rape, welfare fraud, the banishment of young men who would compete with the powerful old bulls. It may never be stamped out. But there's always the sense that the main LDS wants us to look away.
In Arizona, the Mormons seem to have changed, and of course some of this is seeing things through the eyes of an adult who had been out in the big world, and whose job involves looking under rocks. Still...

Sweet, neat, industrious Mesa has been abandoned to blight, while Mormons with means made an exodus to the sprawl of Gilbert and Chandler and all the "master planned communities." That's sad. What's more portentous is the melding of the Mormons with the agenda of the far right. Given general voter apathy and the dependability of the Saints, this has given the LDS control over the Legislature, which has given them control over the state.
Not for nothing was a trip to Salt Lake City and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles among the first things on Michael Crow's agenda on taking over as president of ASU.

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> The Saints becoming the base of the Arizona Republican Party has resulted in odd outcomes, in some ways different from even Utah and in dissonance with many LDS tenets.
For example, the right in metro Phoenix was apoplectic against light rail, while the church in Utah insisted it be built there.
> The Mormons were always community builders and strong supporters of education. Not in central Arizona, where the right's politics are division and nihilism, if not outright calls for violence.
> Somehow the natural bent of any persecuted religion to tribalism -- uncorrected by pluralism, education and self-interest -- is enhanced by all the walls and gates of the suburbs.
> The virulent anti-immigrant stance of prominent Mormon politicians in the East Valley is starkly at odds with the church's missionary zeal in developing nations and among all people. I have heard through decent sources that the Salt Lake bigs aren't happy with all that the East Valley bigs stand for. Still...

The economic power of the church is one of the great un-done stories by the Information Center (although the Arizona Republic may have examined this years ago, it deserves an update and ongoing scrutiny).
Its vast land-holdings gave, and give, it a major say in the regional economy.
The Mormon farmers of the East Valley got rich selling off the land for subdivisions -- destroying the cooling miles of citrus and fields -- and ensuring the freeway system was built there early and thoroughly.
Yet the chuch has not used its power to build a diversified economy as it has in Utah.
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> On a level that seems smaller, but looms large, are the tribal business ties between LDS businessmen and their patrons or proteges in the state Legislature.
This surfaced momentarily in the infamous "alt-fuels" scandal, where LDS legislators and businessmen appeared to disproportionately profit from the tax-subsidized conversion of vehicles (which did nothing to help the environment). This was quickly swept under assorted rugs, carpets, runners and mats, unhindered by an incurious press.

It is a serious question in the Legislature's ongoing effort to defund the public schools and steer money to favored businessmen in the charter schools racket.
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> Readers of this blog might like to note that Craig Harris has published a series of reports - more than 9 years after Rogue Columnist Jon Talton's Primer that's proving to be prescient about conservative Mesa Mormon Republican Eddie Farnsworth, an owner and operator of charter schools who's making millions . . . In the image above we see former AZ State Senator Bob Worsley and Jerry Lewis , employed by Sequoia Charter Schools and the EdKey Corporation.
In spite of getting endorsed by both former Mesa Mayor Scott and current mayor John Giles to gain a seat on the Mesa City Council, he was defeated in the unsuccessful contest.
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> The LDS was always a big part of Arizona history. Today its power seems even greater. It's too bad that it appears to have veered off track, into an unbreakable veto elite that can stop progress but offer nothing to really address the metro area's monumental challenges, into a too-reliable partner and enabler of extremists, into something that plays into the cabal paranoia of those who fear and hate the Mormons.
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Talton ends that Rogue Columnist post from 2009 on an optimistic note:
I write this and then am reminded of Ira Fulton. Although he did his share of sprawl, he is among metro Phoenix's greatest philanthropists -- and at a time when fewer and fewer existed. He's given away hundreds of millions of dollars. A few years ago, I asked him why more of Arizona's most powerful people didn't do the same, how much of a difference it would make. Standing strong despite his cane, he said in a folksy voice, "Well, we're going to make that happen." Maybe so. The company he started ended up in bankruptcy court, another casualty of the crash. The good he built in the community, such as at ASU, endures. And it reminds us that the Saints shouldn't be pigeon-holed. It makes me long for more of their old independence."
Think "there's no history here"? Read the Phoenix 101 archive.
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