Simple Utah Mormon Politics

Last Sunday, as we got home from church, we noticed a plastic bag hanging on the front door knob. Inside was a very attractive DVD. Based on the title of the DVD, as well as the paucity of any other information on the cover, I guessed that it was an attack on Mormonism. I was right. The first 15 minutes of the video were actually pretty good. It seemed to me a very fair comparison of what (I think) traditional Christianity believes versus what the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints believe. They got the Mormon part right, anyway. It is actually something I wouldn't have minded showing my children--except for what followed. Flowing music and beautifully professional cinematography couldn't cover up the scurrility that made up most of the rest of the video. A Deseret News article this morning quoted the producer of the video as saying that he produced the video out of love for the Mormons. Pshaw!!! When it comes to showing love for a group of people, in this case...

It is rather difficult in many instances to determine whether something said or done is hateful, or whether it is just stupid. It is difficult to get into the mind of the potential criminal, but it is much easier to understand how his or her actions affected its victims. My recent post regarding Tim Hardaway's silly comments about homosexuality, as cross-posted on OneUtah.org, elicited a response suggesting that hate is the line over which we must not allow such statements to cross . It got me thinking, could Mr. Hardaway's comments be construed to be a hate crime under traditional hate crime laws? I'm not sure. Traditional hate crime laws consider as hate crimes "criminal acts or attempted criminal acts that are motivated because of a person's actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, sexual orientation, gender, or disability. " Utah law forges a better solution, under which Hardaway's comm...