rjzimmerman:

I’ve known Mormons, and continue to be friends with several people who are Mormons. Aside from certain quirky things that arise only when we talk about it, I’ve never considered these friends anything other than just friends. But the more I read about traditional and strict Mormon theology (if it can be called that), and discuss what I’m learning About the Mormon Church with these friends, the more I’m believing that Mormon religious beliefs, in its truest, purest sense, is probably one of the primary drivers behind the continual and loud fights over public lands in the western US, particularly in Utah. This article is giving these beliefs an even uglier perspective: racism, expressed particularly harshly against Native Americans.

Excerpt:

President Trump’s visit to Salt Lake City Monday to sign two orders slashing the sizeof Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments also included a meeting with Mormon religious leaders who shared “Church doctrine” with the president before he signed the controversial proclamations.

Trump’s unprecedented, two-million-acre cut in public land protection was spurred by Mormon political leaders, including Utah Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, and supported by the entire Utah congressional delegation, Utah governor and Utah legislature.

It remains unknown what was discussed when Trump met with the top leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints during the closed meeting.

But if Trump had also chosen to sit down with experts such as Thomas Murphy and Angelo Baca, two scholars of American Indian descent who were raised Mormon, he surely would have heard a different perspective on Mormon doctrine from the one offered by church leaders.

Trump would have heard how latent racism, a history of grave robbery beginning with LDS founder Joseph Smith, disrespect of tribal sovereignty and a belief in divine right to the land are at the heart Utah’s relentless drive to seize control of federal public lands, particularly Bears Ears.

Murphy and Baca co-authored a 2016 academic paper, “Rejecting Racism in Any Form: Latter-day Saint Rhetoric, Religion and Repatriation,” on the history of Mormon theology and its impact on indigenous people.

The paper provides an indigenous interpretation of Mormon history and details how religious scripture has been used to marginalize American Indians, justify the looting of artifacts, and reject tribal sovereignty and rights to petition the federal government to create national monuments such as Bears Ears.

Trump’s Dismemberment of Bears Ears National Monument: Perspective From Indigenous Scholars • The Revelator