ARTICLE - MORMONS IMMIGRATION ATTITUDES SET THEM APART

Mormons' immigration attitudes set them apart

Published: Saturday, Jan. 14, 2012 8:12 p.m. MST

By Eric Schulzke, Deseret News

Editor's note: This article is the first in a five-part series examining survey findings on Mormons in America. Read the second article here.

Download PDF infographic: "Mormons in America"

As the "Mormon moment" extends into 2012, the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life Thursday releases a groundbreaking new survey, the first ever published by a non-LDS research organization to focus exclusively on members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and their beliefs, values, perceptions and political preferences.


Entitled "Mormons in America: Certain in Their Beliefs, Uncertain of Their Place in Society," the survey was conducted between Oct. 25 and Nov. 16, 2011, among a national sample of 1,019 respondents who identified themselves as Mormons. The results validate a number of long-held stereotypes (most American Mormons are white, well-educated, politically conservative and religiously observant) while providing a few interesting surprises (care for the poor and needy is high on the list of LDS priorities, while drinking coffee and watching R-rated movies aren't as taboo among the rank and file as you might think).
"While this survey comes amid a contentious election campaign, it is not solely or even chiefly about politics," said Luis Lugo, Pew Research Center director, in the published survey's preface. "Rather, we hope that it will contribute to a broader public understanding of Mormons and Mormonism at a time of great interest in both."
For example, in one very interesting section of the new survey, respondents were asked several questions about what is essential to being a good Mormon. According to the survey, 80 percent said "believing Joseph Smith saw God the Father and Jesus Christ" is essential to being a good Mormon, 73 percent said "working to help the poor," 51 percent said "regular Family Home Evenings," 49 percent said "not drinking coffee and tea" and 32 percent said "not watching R-rated movies.
"To be honest, I found the strong sentiment that 'working to help the poor' is essential to being a good Mormon refreshing and a little surprising," said David Campbell, an LDS Church member who is an associate professor at the University of Notre Dame and who consulted with the Pew Research Center on the new survey. "As a Mormon, I would hope it would be that way, but I wasn't sure what to expect. It's good to see the church's genuine compassion for the poor and needy reflected in these numbers."

 People outside the church may or may not be aware of the LDS propensity for compassionate service and other distinctive characteristics. According to the survey, 62 percent of Mormons think that Americans are generally uninformed about Mormonism, and 68 percent feel that they are not viewed as part of mainstream American society. But they remain optimistic, with 63 percent expressing the belief that Mormonism will eventually become part of mainstream society and 56 percent saying that the American people are ready for a Mormon president.


In fact, optimism is one of the themes to emerge from the survey relative to Latter-day Saints. Some 87 percent say they are satisfied with the way things are going in their own life, and 92 percent say their respective communities are excellent (52 percent) or good (40 percent) places to live (this is especially true among Mormons in Utah, of whom 71 percent say their communities are excellent).
But evidently, optimism only goes so far with Mormons.
"I think it is interesting that the respondents are overwhelmingly positive about their communities. They love their communities and everything's fine there," said Marie Cornwall, professor of sociology at Brigham Young University and another advisor to the Pew Research Center on this study. "But when you ask them about the way things are going in the country today, they are overwhelmingly (75 percent) dissatisfied. You would think that their satisfaction with their personal lives would factor into their feelings about how things are going in the country, but there seems to be a total disconnect there."
It should be noted that the Mormon view of how things are going in the country today closely resembles the view of the American public as a whole, among whom 78 percent said they were dissatisfied in an October 2011 Pew Research Center survey.
Generally speaking, the new survey looks at Mormons and their perspectives in four key areas: politics and ideology, religious beliefs and practices, cultural and moral issues and family life.
Politically, there are few surprises. Most Mormons (66 percent) describe themselves as politically conservative, and 74 percent of Mormon voters identify with or lean toward the Republican Party. Philosophically, 75 percent of respondents said they prefer a smaller government providing fewer services to a bigger government providing more services.
Among a number of politicians currently in the spotlight, Mitt Romney is a favorite, being viewed favorably by 86 percent of all Mormons and 94 percent of Mormon Republicans. Even among Mormon Democrats, 62 percent rate Romney favorably.
The other Mormon running for president, Jon Huntsman, is viewed favorably by 50 percent of Mormon voters, while President Barack Obama is viewed favorably by 25 percent — slightly ahead of the rating Mormons bestowed upon another one of their own: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (22 percent).


Interestingly, Latter-day Saints seem to be somewhat divided on the issue of immigration. They are fairly evenly split on whether immigrants strengthen the U.S. because of their hard work and talents (45 percent) or burden the U.S. by taking American jobs, housing and health care (41 percent).
Campbell, who is an expert in the field of religion, politics and civic engagement, said he wasn't surprised by that result.


"Although Mormons are caricatured as being really right wing, on the issue of immigration they are not," he said. "The church itself has been quite a voice of moderation on this issue, and that has resulted in Mormons being more positive toward immigrants than other conservative religious groups tend to be."
Campbell suggests that the LDS Church's missionary program has something to do with that, with Latter-day Saints tending to develop a broader worldview as a result of their missionary service around the world. In any event, he said, "this result really does cut against the stereotype."
In terms of religious beliefs and practices, the survey makes it clear that Mormons are highly religious — again, not a big surprise. Eighty-two percent say that religion is very important in their lives, and 77 percent say they believe wholeheartedly in all of the church's teachings. Fully 83 percent say they pray every day, 79 percent say they donate 10 percent of their earnings to the church in tithing and 77 percent say they attend church at least once a week. According to Pew, "Mormons exhibit higher levels of religious commitment than many other religious groups, including white evangelical Protestants."
Looking at basic, core religious beliefs, 98 percent say they believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 94 percent believe the president of the LDS Church is a prophet of God, 95 percent believe that families can be bound together eternally in temple ceremonies, 94 percent believe that God the Father and Jesus Christ are separate, physical beings and 91 percent believe that the Book of Mormon was written by ancient prophets.
Clearly, Mormons are believers.
But are they Christian? Ninety-seven percent of Mormons think so. And when asked to volunteer the one word that best describes Mormons, the most common responses were "Christian" and "Christ-centered." By way of contrast, a November Pew Research Center survey found that nearly half (49 percent) of non-Mormon U.S. adults say that Mormonism is NOT Christian or that they are unsure whether or not it is Christian. In that same survey, when respondents were asked for one word that best describes the LDS Church, the most commonly offered response was "cult."


Culturally, Mormon conservatism extends to a wide variety of moral issues. Polygamy (86 percent), sex between unmarried adults (79 percent), abortion (74 percent) and drinking alcohol (54 percent) are viewed as morally wrong. Divorce, on the other hand, is largely considered "not a moral issue" by respondents (46 percent).
Similarly, 65 percent of respondents said that homosexuality should be discouraged by society, compared with 58 percent of the general public who say homosexuality should be accepted by society.


"Mormons like to use the phrase, 'Be in the world but not of the world,'" Campbell noted. "They are active and involved in their communities, but they have these beliefs and practices that set them apart a little bit, and sometimes that creates conflict or tension. (Homosexuality) is one of those issues where, rightly or wrongly, Mormons just have a different position than most of the rest of America."
The survey also illustrates how important family life is to most members of the LDS Church. Among life's priorities, being a good parent (81 percent) and having a successful marriage (73 percent) place higher than career concerns, having free time or even living a religious life. Some 67 percent of Mormon adults are married (compared with 52 percent of the general public), and 85 percent of them are married to another Mormon.
"As the Church and its members are increasingly the focus of media attention, we're eager to participate in conversations that help the public get to know us better," said LDS Church spokesman Michael Purdy. "Even though the recent Pew study did not survey any of the Church's eight million members who live outside the U.S., it highlights some important aspects regarding who we are and what we believe.
"For example," Purdy continued, "the study found that Church members subscribe to traditional Christian beliefs, have high moral standards, are overwhelmingly satisfied with their lives and communities, are active in serving others and have a profound dedication to family. These results reflect the Church's message that a deep commitment to the teachings of Jesus Christ brings lasting happiness."
Speaking for the Pew Research Center, Lugo said the idea for the survey was born last summer, "around the time that a Newsweek cover story and a New York Times article declared that the United States was experiencing a 'Mormon moment.'"
"That got us thinking," Lugo said in the survey's preface. "Over the years, numerous polls have gauged public attitudes toward Mormons, who make up about 2 percent of all U.S. adults. But what do Mormons think about their place in American life? With the rising prominence of members of the LDS Church in politics, popular culture and the media, do Mormons feel more secure and accepted in American society? What do they think about other religions? What do they believe, how do they practice their faith and what do they see as essential to being a good Mormon and to leading a good life?"

An advisory panel was recruited to help the Pew Forum staff create the survey. The panel featured a number of Latter-day Saints who have professional experience in Mormon studies and research, including Campbell, Cornwall, Matthew Bowman of Hampden-Sydney College, Terryl Givens of the University of Richmond and Allison Pond of the Deseret News.
"We helped them to formulate the questions, and to frame them in the kind of language that Mormons use," Campbell said.


After a period of testing, the survey was conducted among respondents who identified themselves as Mormons (it also included qualifying questions that made it clear that respondents were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as opposed to other churches whose members may refer to themselves as Mormons).
"Since Mormons represent about 2 percent of the population, you'd have to call 98 people before you'd get a Mormon, and that would be very expensive," said Cornwall, who is also editor of the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. "But they had a fancy way of finding Mormons, including going back to Mormons they had found in the course of doing previous surveys, so they were able to get their sample in a cost-effective way."
Care was also taken to make sure the survey included those who had land lines as well as those who have only cell phones — a growing area of concern among those who conduct public opinion research today.
Among other interesting findings of the Pew Forum's survey of Mormons:

71 percent of respondents reside in the American West, including 53 percent who live in the Mountain states and 34 percent who live in Utah;

88 percent are white, 7 percent Hispanic, 1 percent black and 4 percent other racial and ethnic backgrounds;

50 percent say that evangelical Christians are generally unfriendly to Mormons;

54 percent say that the way their religion is portrayed on television and in movies hurts society's image of Mormons;

57 percent of Mormons said that most or all of their close friends are other Mormons (this number was significantly higher in Utah, where the number climbed to 73 percent);

65 percent of respondents say they hold a current temple recommend;

27 percent say they believe in yoga not just as exercise but as a spiritual practice;

11 percent say they believe in reincarnation;

74 percent were raised in the LDS Church;

59 percent of converts cite the church's beliefs as the main reason they joined the church;

59 percent of converts joined the church between the ages of 18 and 35;

27 percent have served a full-time mission, including 43 percent of men and 11 percent of women;

82 percent say they have a supply of food in storage, and 58 percent keep at least a three-month supply.

The margin of error for the survey is +/- 4.5 percentage points.


"I think this survey is a really good summary of the hyper-committed Mormon community that shows up at church every week," Cornwall said. "I'm not sure it captures Mormons on the margins very well, but that's OK — hopefully we can do that the next time. Meanwhile, this is a pretty good picture — and an interesting picture — of Mormons."
Listen to and download audio soundbites of Michael Purdy, spokesman for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, discussing the Pew study:
Clip 1 - Study takes a deeper look at beliefs  

Clip 2 - There is a national conversation going on about the church  

Clip 3 - There's a connection between satisfaction in life and religious belief

2011: WHAT A YEAR FOR MORMONS!

2011: What a Year for Mormons! 

 

NEWS - SCHOOL BOARD REMOVES SHERLOCK HOLMES NOVEL AS DEROGATORY TO MORMONS

School board removes Sherlock Holmes novel as derogatory to Mormons

By Douglas Stanglin, USA TODAY

A Virginia county school board is removing a Sherlock Holmes novel from the 6th grade reading list after a parent's complaint that it is derogatory toward Mormons, The Charlottesville Daily Progress reports.

The Victorian-era book, A Study In Scarlet, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, was deeemed inappropriate for the age group, but it will be available for older students.The school board of Albermarle county, where Thomas Jefferson's Monticello home is located, took the action in response to a challenge from the parent of a middle school student.
Brette Stevenson had told the board that the book has been used to introduce the mystery genre and the character of Holmes.
"This is our young students' first inaccurate introduction to an American religion," Stevenson told the board, according to the newspaper.
While the newspaper did not indicate that any particular passage from the novel had been singled out, here is one extract from Chapter 3.

(John Ferrier) had always determined, deep down in his resolute heart, that nothing would ever induce him to allow his daughter to wed a Mormon. Such marriage he regarded as no marriage at all, but as a shame and a disgrace. Whatever he might think of the Mormon doctrines, upon that one point he was inflexible. He had to seal his mouth on the subject, however, for to express an unorthodox opinion was a dangerous matter in those days in the Land of the Saints.

Stevenson suggested replacing the book with Doyle's fifth novel, The Hound of the Baskervilles, which, she said, is a better introduction to mystery, the newspaper says.

NEWS - HOMELESS MAN CHARGED WITH STALKING MORMON CHURCH PRESIDENT

Homeless man charged with stalking Mormon church president

July 8, 2011 

SALT LAKE CITY — A homeless man was charged Friday with stalking the president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Benjamin Tucker Staples, 36, was charged with stalking, a class A misdemeanor.
Salt Lake police officers were called to the LDS Church Office Building, 50 E. North Temple, on July 5 after receiving a report of a trespasser. Officers were told Staples had been to the building about five times since June 25 asking to speak with President Thomas S. Monson.

Benjamin Tucker Staples, 36, was charged Friday with stalking LDS Church President Thomas S. Monson.

From the archive

Staples was "told on every prior appearance that he is not to return to the premises," the charges filed in 3rd District Court state. "Each prior incident, the defendant was arrested and booked into the jail."

Staples, who has the alias of "Jesus Christ" listed in the Salt Lake County Jail booking information, told officers "he intends to keep returning to the offices" until he meets President Monson, the charges state.

Each time, he refused to leave voluntarily, "choosing instead to be arrested by police," according to the charges.

"Church security is concerned for the safety of the president and those employed in the building because of defendant's persistence even after being told not to return and given a written trespass order," the charges state.

Staples is being held in jail on $25,000 bail.
— Brian West

NEWS - IS AMERICA READY FOR A MORMON PRESIDENT?

03:04 PM ET

Is America ready for a Mormon president?

By Dan Gilgoff, CNN.com Religion Editor

(CNN) - Mitt Romney’s campaign team knows that his Mormon faith scared off Republican voters the last time he ran for president.

But they believe a lot has changed in the last four years.

For starters, Romney is now much better known. The former Massachusetts governor campaigned hard in the 2008 primaries – even addressing his Mormonism head-on in a major speech — and has stayed in the public eye since, popping up on late-night talk shows and on cable news channels.

Romney’s Mormonism, the thinking goes, is less exotic than it was four years ago because the candidate is more familiar.

Plus, unlike in 2008, there’s a Democrat in the White House for Republican voters to unite against. The Romney camp hopes the Obama factor will boost support for a battle-tested candidate who’s shown he can raise the hundreds of millions of dollars White House bids require, regardless of the candidate’s religious affiliation.

And unlike the 2008 Republican primaries, when George W. Bush was in the White House and debate over the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan loomed large, next year’s elections are poised to hang on the economy. Not a bad time, maybe, for a guy with a Harvard MBA and a career spent turning around financially troubled companies and the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah.

“The country’s really in a tough situation — the economy’s in a bad place and so people suddenly think that a guy with Mitt Romney’s capacity and experience looks a lot more attractive than he did four years ago,” says Mark DeMoss, a senior adviser to Romney’s campaign, which launched Thursday.

“That makes his faith much less of an issue than it was four years ago,” says DeMoss, who is tasked with helping Romney woo evangelical voters, a huge chunk of the GOP base and a constituency that’s historically been wary of Mormonism.

Whether DeMoss is right may make the difference in whether Romney, the current Republican frontrunner based on polls and fundraising, can actually win the Republican nomination and, ultimately, the White House.

But Romney may not be the only Mormon running for president. Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman is seriously flirting with a presidential bid.

Huntsman, Obama’s former ambassador to China, recently took a five-day swing through New Hampshire, site of the first-in-the-nation Republican primary, and has hired staff in South Carolina, another key primary state.

The prospect of a Huntsman campaign means the nation could see an unprecedented test of whether the GOP — and, perhaps, the rest of the country — is ready for a Mormon president in an era when candidates’ religious beliefs have become weighty campaign issues.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as the Mormon Church is officially known, certainly seems eager for Mormonism to be less an issue in the presidential race than it was for Romney in 2008

“Recent media coverage seems to lean toward the conclusion that among many Americans, faith will be less of an issue in this election than it was in 2008,” church spokesman Michael Purdy said in a statement to CNN. “But it’s really for others to speculate on this.”

Public opinion polls suggest a lingering bias against Mormon candidates. A survey released Thursday by the Pew Research Center found that a quarter of American adults admit to being less likely to vote for a Mormon candidate for president. (that doesnt surprise me)


The survey found that resistance to Mormon candidates was even higher among two groups: liberal Democrats and evangelicals, who overwhelmingly vote Republican. One in three white evangelicals said they were less likely to support a Mormon candidate.

That creates a stiff headwind for Romney and Huntsman, given evangelicals’ primary power. In 2008, evangelicals accounted for 60 percent of Republican voters in Iowa, home to the first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses, and in South Carolina, whose primaries come hard on the heels of New Hampshire’s.

In 2008, Romney’s Mormonism “was a real factor in Iowa and South Carolina that predisposed many potential voters to never to consider Romney or hear his message,” said Gary Marx, who directed conservative outreach for Romney the last time he ran.

That year, Romney placed second in Iowa and fourth in South Carolina behind then-frontrunner Mike Huckabee – a Baptist preacher who won major evangelical support.

Though Mormons consider themselves to be Christians, many evangelicals consider the Latter-day Saints to be a cult. (and because of such nonsense, this is why he wont win)


Evangelicals object to the Mormon belief that the Book of Mormon is the revealed word of God and to such Mormon practices as proxy baptisms for the dead. Evangelicals and Mormons also compete for converts.

Many evangelical leaders have discouraged their followers from translating such differences into opposition to Mormon candidates. But that message isn’t always heeded.

“I don’t think it’s much of an issue among the leadership in evangelical circles,” Michael Farris, an influential evangelical activist, says of Mormon candidates. “But I don’t know if that is always true at the grassroots level.”

Richard Land, who directs public policy for the Southern Baptist Convention, the country’s largest evangelical denomination, says evangelicals could coalesce around Romney but that the conditions would have to be just right.

“If Southern Baptists have a choice between an evangelical candidate, a Catholic and a Mormon and all three appear to be equally conservative and equally likely to beat Barack Obama, they’ll vote for the evangelical,” says Land, who has informally advised Romney on how to deal with his faith on the campaign trail.


“If there’s no such evangelical [in the] race, they’ll vote for the Catholic,” he says, “But if there’s no other candidate who’s likely to beat Obama, they’ll vote for the Mormon.”

Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, an evangelical, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Catholic, are running for the GOP nomination.

Beyond theological challenges, conservative activists like Land and Farris say Romney faces skepticism among religious conservatives because he once supported abortion rights and signed a healthcare law in Massachusetts that critics say represented a dramatic government overreach.

But those close to Romney argue that Huckabee’s decision not to enter the 2012 race creates an opportunity for Romney to pick up more evangelical support. Or, they say, it could wind up splitting evangelical voters among multiple primary candidates, making evangelicals a less potent force.

DeMoss, a Christian public relations executive who also helped Romney with evangelical outreach in 2008, says one of the victories from the last campaign was that no big-name evangelical came out against Romney over his Mormonism. This time, DeMoss is working to get some evangelical leaders to go a step further and publicly support Romney.

After Romney’s 2008 defeat, one nationally known evangelical leader privately told DeMoss that he’d voted for Romney in the primaries.

“I remember thinking, it would have been nice if somebody else knew that,” says DeMoss, who believes such revelations would have made more evangelicals comfortable supporting a Mormon candidate.

Huntsman’s entry into the presidential race could make Mormonism less of an issue if it has a mainstreaming effect. But the two candidates’ religious affiliations could play out quite differently.

Romney has long been active in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), having occupied Mormon leadership positions like bishop (the rough equivalent of a lay pastor) and stake president (someone who oversees groups of Mormon congregations).

“I believe in my Mormon faith and I endeavor to live by it,” Romney said in a December 2007 speech in which he addressed his Mormonism. “My faith is the faith of my fathers — I will be true to them and to my beliefs.”

Huntsman, like Romney, spent two years abroad as a Mormon missionary but has kept some distance from the LDS church. As governor of Utah, he loosened liquor laws that had been inspired by Mormon orthodoxy and broke with his church in signing a law allowing civil unions for gay couples.

In a recent television interview, Huntsman affirmed his Mormon faith but added that Mormonism is “a very diverse and heterogeneous cross-section of people. ... I probably add to that diversity somewhat.”

A Huntsman adviser who often deals with the media declined to respond to requests for comment.

Matthew Bowman, an editor at a Mormon studies journal called Dialogue, says Huntsman hails from a slightly younger generation of Mormons who are less defensive about their Mormonism.

“Huntsman is a Mormon who thinks of his faith not as something that separates him from American culture or as something he has to defend or explain away, which is what Romney did,” says Bowman. “Romney is always hyperaware of his Mormonism.”

That means Huntsman may face fewer questions about his Mormonism should he run.

The LDS church, for its part, says its policy is to steer clear of electoral politics. Some church observers say the controversy the church generated by supporting California’s 2008 gay marriage ban, Proposition 8, exacerbated its political reticence. (most mormons dont support gay marriage)

At the same time, the church has capitalized on increased attention paid to Mormonism - provoked by everything from Romney’s 2008 campaign to the current hit Broadway musical, “Book of Mormon” - with a succession of public awareness campaigns.

The church website Mormon.org, for example, was recently revamped with an eye toward educating non-Mormons about the religion. The site features video profiles of Mormons from different walks of life.

“The message of these ads is that members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints are your friends and neighbors,” says Purdy, the church spokesman. “We are professionals and tradespeople, artists and teachers and everything in between.”

Put another way, the message is that Mormons are normal, everyday Americans.

With the Republican primary race finally starting in earnest, the nation is about get a major glimpse into whether GOP voters agree.

8 PEOPLE RIDE OUT TORNADO IN JOPLIN INSIDE AN LDS (mormon) CHURCH AND LIVE TO TELL ABOUT IT -VIDEO INCLUDED

Group rides out Joplin tornado inside LDS church building
May 25th, 2011 @ 11:29pm
By Lori Prichard

JOPLIN, Mo. — Three days after an F5 tornado swept parts of Joplin, Mo., to ruins, residents there remain in shock and disbelief. One group rode out Sunday's devastating tornado in a Latter-day Saint stake center. Amazingly, all eight walked out alive.

Janice Falls and Lee Allphin are two of those survivors.
"We were very blessed. We were very fortunate. We felt hands protecting us -- all of us felt that." -Lee Allphin, tornado survivor

"We were alive. Every single person in that room was alive, and that we were grateful for," Falls told KSL News Wednesday.

Falls was getting ready for a Relief Society meeting Sunday evening; Allphin was going to speak.

"It was cloudy. It was just a typical Missouri storm," Falls said. "The meeting started, and the first indication we had that it was going to be something different was that the sirens went off."

One of the men shouted at everyone to get into the bathroom. The sirens the group heard were followed by silence. Then the tornado hit.

"You could hear this cracking, and explosion after explosion; and there were so many sounds you can't even describe it" Falls said. "But it wasn't just the hearing it, you could feel it. Because it just went right through your body."
RELATED:
Residents, volunteers dig through rubble in Joplin
Three days after one of the deadliest tornadoes ever tore through the small town of Joplin, Missouri, residents who survived the direct hit are trying to put their lives back together.

"It was like a thousand timpanis being beat, it was like a thousand trumpets blowing," Allphin said.

They ran into the women's restroom; each piled on the other. A 7-year-old girl was at the bottom of the pile.

"We all just piled on, and Ruby was at the bottom, and we just rode it out," Falls said.

They felt the pressure. They heard the shredding of metal. Cinder blocks flew the air.

"A cinder block came and hit me in the head," Allphin said.

After four long minutes, the tornado moved on. Stunned, they realized they had survived.

"We were very blessed. We were very fortunate," Allphin said. "We felt hands protecting us — all of us felt that."

Now, both Falls and Allphin are reevaluating their mission, purpose and outlook on life.

"It's a big reminder to me of what's important in life," Falls said.

Falls said once she got home that night, she looked in the mirror to find herself covered with debris. But she counted herself lucky that she survived.

NEWS - UTAH MAN CHARGED FOR THREATENING MORMONS ON FACEBOOK PAGE

 i wish all i could ever post were good, happy stories, but unfortunately, those days have long gone. there staill are good, happy stories, but more and more stories like this one keep creeping in.
to me, a sign of the times. its not going to get any better, but worse, and well see worse reports than this as we get closer to the end. MICHELLE


Utah man charged for threatening Mormons on Facebook page

By Melinda Rogers

The Salt Lake Tribune

First published Dec 17 2010 

 

A Salt Lake City man is charged in federal court with allegedly using his Facebook page to threaten to kill members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Mark Eric Bayne, 36, faces a charge of felony threats in interstate commerce in U.S. District Court, according to a complaint filed Friday.

Bayne used his Facebook page to post a status update on Nov. 26 that referred to Mormons as the “worst form of humanity” and made threats to “take at least thirty of their women and children [at the cost of each man] EVER DAY,” the complaint states.

The message continues on to label “primary targets,” whose identities have been redacted from the complaint.

Bayne has also used his Google mail account to send e-mails to federal, state and private institutions — including colleges — which “expressed deep-seated anger and used vulgar epithets to demean the recipients and the particular institutions they represent,” the complaint states.

In the e-mails, he vowed to carry out violence against those he believed had “wronged him,” according to the complaint.

Bayne is accused of accessing Facebook and his e-mail account from computers at Salt Lake Community College, where he would launch threats, the complaint states. Bayne’s Facebook settings were set to public at the time of his arrest Friday. On Thursday, he posted a video showing footage of a man who shot a firearm during a public school board meeting in Florida earlier this week.

The content of Bayne’s postings would “cause apprehension and fear in a reasonable person,” the complaint states.

The threats in interstate commerce charge applies because Bayne alledgedly used the Internet and e-mail to make threats, which could interfere with interstate and foreign commerce, according to the complaint.

He appeared before U.S. Magistrate Sam Alba on Friday and will next appear in court on Tuesday. He faces up to five years in federal prison if convicted of the charge.

Bayne is being held in the Davis County Jail under the custody of U.S. Marshals until his detention hearing next week.