Howard Berkes, Salt Lake-based reporter for National Public Radio, explores anew the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) public relations campaign to distance themselves from their polygamous sibling the F(undamental)LDS.

Berkes reports:

Mormons want the world to know this: They're not polygamists. And the FLDS polygamists in Texas are not Mormons.

A recent poll the LDS Church paid for found that more than 90 percent of Americans heard about the raid on the Eldorado, Tx., ranch owned by the FLDS. But here's what really bugs the church: Nearly one in three respondents believed the FLDS were Mormons.

LDS spokesman Mike Otterson says:

We're certainly aware that there is some confusion out there. But when that comes back as three out of every four people either not knowing that there is a difference [between Mormons and FLDS polygamists] or actually thinking that there is a connection, that's sobering.

But Berkes reports the public can be excused their confusion. Richard Bushman, a Mormon and visiting professor in Mormon studies at Claremont Graduate University in California, acknowledges polygamy persists in LDS theology:

A man can be sealed [in eternal marriage] to two women if one of them dies and he marries again. There's sort of an implicit heavenly plural marriage that is still authorized and acknowledged. So at the very best we're caught in kind of an ambiguous situation, and people probably pick that up.

The new Mormon public relations effort does not address these ambiguities, says Berkes. But Otterson argues the point is irrelevant because there's no polygamy in earthly Mormon life.

Above: A bevy of Brigham Young's wives.

Politico reports:

In a surprise to many Republican insiders, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is at the top of the vice presidential prospect list for John McCain. But lack of personal chemistry could derail the pick.

What would make Mitt suddenly go from gum on McCain's shoe to his top choice for running mate? Money can, indeed, buy friends. According to Politico:

One of the chief reasons the Massachusetts governor is looking so attractive is his ability to raise huge amounts of money quickly through his former business partners and from fellow members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the Mormons.

A Romney insider says Mitt could bring McCain $50 million-$60 million in 60 days.

But the the blog Stump asks:

If, as expected, McCain stays within the public financing system for the general election, how useful is the money Romney raises?

A law professor and expert on cults says that by returning the FLDS children to their parents, Texas has "sent out an engraved invitation to any group who wants to abuse children."

Marci Hamilton, a professor at Princeton and Yeshiva University’s Cardozo Law School, told the International Cultic Studies Association that the Texas Supreme Court’s decision to release the FLDS children from foster care and, in a separate ruling, overturn damages to child that underwent an "exorcism" makes a dangerous statement.

Hamilton says:

When you add yesterday’s decision to FLDS, the state of the Texas has just sent out an engraved invitation to any group who wants to abuse children. . . . [The two decisions make] Texas a very dangerous place for children.

Defending Texas' foster care, Hamilton says:

They had to eat pizza. They had to learn to ride bicycles. They had to live in a universe where abuse is not normal. They saw a window of information they would have otherwise not gotten.

The Los Angeles Times reports from Sandy on the man the polygamous FLDS church may fear most.

Dan Fischer was branded a apostate when he left the cult with one of his wives. Since then, the successful dentist and inventor has used his fortune to help others escape the group through his Diversity Foundation.

To Enos Deloy Steed, one of the "Lost Boys" banished from the FLDS in their teens (in his case for kissing a girl), Fischer was a guardian angel who put him through college:

He gives us a fair shot in the world, a chance to have a life, because he can relate. It's really great that someone is willing.

Fischer sheltered Carolyn Jessop, who recounts her leaving the FLDS in a best-selling memoir Escape:

Without him, I would not have survived.

Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff says of Fischer:

He has done more for the lost boys than everyone else combined. I know he doesn't like to brag about it, but he has spent millions.

Fischer also has also gone on the offense against FLDS prophet Warren Jeffs, whom Fischer says "annihilated" his family after he left the group. Fischer hired private investigators who tracked down a child bride and got her to testify in Jeffs' accomplice-to-rape trial. Jeffs was sentenced to two consecutive terms of five years to life in prison.

A funny thing happened to me at the Utah Art Festival.

When I attempted to purchase a tasty Summer Solstice Ale, I was waylaid by the beer security crew. I had to prove that I am an adult. A reasonable precaution.

At that point I learned that my driver's license had expired and was not valid proof that I am 21+ years old. The polite crew told me I would have to produce a passport or other government-issued I.D. before I could get wristband and quench my thirst.

I didn't have my passport — but I did possess, like many Utahns, Ugandans and Uruguayans — a Utah Concealed Firearm Permit card that proves my date of birth. Problem solved.

Hopes dashed: The crew informed me that the Utah Alcohol Beverage Control board does not accept the Utah Concealed Firearm Permit as valid I.D.

Now let me get this straight: My concealed gun permit proves I am old enough and honest enough to not only buy a gun, say a .50 cal. Desert Eagle pistol, but hide it on my person and walk around the art festival.

But is not adequate proof that I can buy a beer!

Fortunately, the crew suggested that I get a nearby adult to buy me a cold one (apparently forgetting that I am theoretically an underage hoodlum). And I did.

Pollster Dan Jones picked the pockets of KSL and the Deseret News again.

They actually paid him to conduct a survey to discover this: Gov. Jon Huntsman and Attorney General Mark Shurtleff have commanding, killer, leads over their Democratic opponents — whoever they are*.

The DNews political editor Bob Bernick sticks his neck way out with this story lead:

Republican Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. and Attorney General Mark Shurtleff have no political worries — at least not now — a new poll shows.

"At least not now!" Ominous foreshadowing there. Jon and Mark might just get drunk and run naked through Temple Square, which would bring those numbers down. Says Bernick:

. . . all four candidates in the poll have not yet started their public campaigns. But the Democrats clearly have a long way to go, the poll shows.

Way to make it a real horserace.

*Bob Springmeyer and Jean Welch Hill, above, respectively.

The Seattle Stranger offers an intimate glimpse into the clash of gay and Mormon cultures triggered by the California Supreme Court's decision to strike down the state's ban on same-sex marriage.

Writer David Schmader's marriage to Dolly Parton-adoring Jake is threatened by a ticking time bomb beyond the usual nightmare of joining two families.

..Mixed among the approving in Jake's family are those who are forbidden to approve, explicitly and eternally, on religious grounds. Specifically, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, under whose guidance both sides of Jake's family have conducted their earthly existences for generations.

For Mormons, family is forever, David explains, "Unless a family member is gay."

I'd like to say that hilarity ensues as David describes Jake's Mormon family's struggles with homosexuality, faith and wedding planning. Jake's sister recently had gotten word from God to marry in the temple before her father voluntarily allowed his temple recommend to expire. She married a returned missionary she had known only a few weeks. The hypocrisy of the event disgusts Schmader as much as his wedding plans disgust Jake's family.

And if you think being invited to attend a Mormon wedding is weird, imagine being invited to stand around outside one. . . .

Still, if they could grin and bear it when their family-damning son brought home his gay lover to meet the folks and sleep in the same bed, I could grin and bear it through a barely legal, beat-the-clock, sham-sacred wedding. Tolerance is a two-way street, and smiling politely at each other's insanity is a big part of what family's all about.

Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Dick Polman says Congressman Chris Cannon's defeat is an ominous sign of a passion gap spreading like dry rot through the GOP.

You — and Inquirer readers —are wondering: "Why does anyone on the East Coast care about Utah?"

Polman explains to his Philly readers:

This is just a wild guess, but I'm betting that you haven't been paying much attention to what happened the other night in Utah. Probably because you rarely spend time thinking about Utah.

But there was a noteworthy Republican primary on Tuesday in Utah, an ostensibly local affair that provides us with yet more evidence that the GOP establishment is in serious trouble this year with its grassroots voters.

Cannon's defeat was the result of a "dearth of enthusiasm for the GOP establishment," Polman says.

The '08 candidate who most needs to heed these results is the GOP establishment's titular leader, John McCain.

Of course, a KSL-Deseret News poll showed that McCain could rekindle Utah's Grand Ol' Party passion by picking beloved Mitt Romney as his running mate.

Deseret News political editor Bob Bernick says an ethic probe being demanded by Utah House members into recent Treasurer race shenanigans has the potential to explode into an ugly grudge match between Lege moderates and conservatives.

Rep. Mark Walker, R-Sandy, says the probe and special prosecutor demanded by a close-knit group of Democrats and Republican moderates "is just a vindictive political cheap shot."

Walker, who lost the GOP treasurer's primary Tuesday, told Bernick:

I think [the Dems/GOP moderates] are just using me as a whipping boy to get to (Republican) leaders.

His opponent Richard Ellis claims that Walker offered him a lucrative state job if he would drop out of the race. GOP conservatives, who control the Lege with knuckledusters, are agitato about where such misguided ethics fever could spread.

The Senate, of course, is still trying to brick up it's ethical skeleton, Chris Buttars, in a closet. Buttars used his position as chairman of the Senate Judicial Confirmation Committee to try to intimidate a judge who ruled against a Buttars' crony. Buttars managed to drag Senate President John Valentine into the mess.

As for Walker's lament about the base motivation behind the probe—as Senate Majority Leader Curt Bramble can tell him: Without vindictive cheap shots, there'd be no politics.

Prediction: The ethics do-gooders will be crushed (again) like so many bugs.

Tiger Woods' Park City surgeon, Thomas Rosenberg, is known for an innovative procedure that he hopes will fix Tiger's winning swing.

Rosenberg won't reveal exactly what he did during surgery on Tiger's knee, but he is a pioneer of the so-called double-bundle ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) reconstruction.

Routinely, surgeons repair a torn ACL with a single strand of tendon tissue, taken from the patient's knee (or a willing cadaver). Rosenberg replaces both of the two parts of the ACL to preserve the "screw'' action of the knee crucial in a golf swing.

The Salt Lake Tribune editorial board blasts the U.S. Supreme Court decision that defines the Second Amendment as extending beyond allowing "well-regulated" militias to guarantee an individual's right to pack heat.

Justice John Paul Stevens got it right in his dissent. He wrote that the Second Amendment was adopted to protect the right of the people in the individual states to maintain a militia in response to concerns that the new Constitution gave Congress power to disarm the state militias and create a national standing army. . . .

But neither the text of the amendment nor the arguments of its proponents give any evidence that it was intended to limit any legislature's authority to regulate private civilian uses of firearms, Justice Stevens wrote. "Specifically, there is no indication that the Framers of the Amendment intended to enshrine the common-law right of self-defense in the Constitution."

The Deseret News opinionators say the ruling majority of Supremes got it right.

It also was right to go a step further and reject laws that require trigger locks and the dismantling of weapons when kept in the home. . . .

The gun-ban movement has lost considerable steam. Perhaps this is because laws completely banning firearms have proven ineffective against crime.

The Supremes' narrow decision, of course, means America's gun debate is far from over.

Gov. Jon Huntsman is not happy with Utah's concealed weapon permit system that has become hugely popular with out-of-state-residents. Non-residents can qualify for Utah's undercover gun permit without setting foot in the Beehive.

Huntsman said during his monthly KUED press conference that he fears issuing permits to out-of-state residents is stealing Department of Public Safety resources that could be better used for Utahns.

I have yet to identify where this serves any of our state's interests by giving permits to people who in no way reside here. There's no way to measure quality control. I'm not totally comforatable with the way things are being done — and I've made my feelings known.

If nothing else, Huntsman says the state should at least require applicants to come to Utah to get the permits.

Let's use it as a travel and tourism opportunity. Have them come here to our state and go through the prerequisites here, while staying in our hotels and dining in our restaurants as opposed to doing it in another state.

State Sen. Scott McCoy has begun pushing the Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Committee to look into restricting the permits to Utah residents only. But at a meeting last week, Republican committee members were not enthusiastic about revisiting the issue. Rep. Carl Wimmer said McCoy's suggestion is a "solution looking for a problem." "Blood isn't running in the streets," Wimmer said.

Huntsman's comments came shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court declared the Constitution protects an individual’s right to have a gun, not just the right of the states to maintain militias. The court said the ruling does not affect states' regulation of concealed weapons.

Obviously, until Utah permit holders start causing problems, the Lege is not about to restrict Utah's program. And DPS, which depends on the Legislature for funding, is not going to alienate law-and-order-and-guns types like Rep. Curt Oda, by pushing the issue.

Huntsman and McCoy's best bet is to call for a detailed audit to find out if the program's costs are really covered by its modest fees. An audit several years ago indicated the true costs of the permits are much higher than supporters say.

Besides hiking, camping, picknicking and birdwatching American national parks are a popular place to kill yourself.

The Associated Press reports that since 2008 began, at least 18 people have committed suicide in the national parks. Al Nash, a spokesman at Yellowstone, where five suicides have been recorded since 1997, explains:

Parks hold a special place in people's hearts. There are some individuals who feel it's important to have that kind of connection in those final moments.

Biology professor Jerry O. Wolff disappeared into Utah's Canyonlands National Park last month after mailing a letter to family and friends:

I am gone in a remote wilderness where I can return my body and soul to nature. There is no reason for anyone to look for me, just leave me where I am.

That was the last Wolff was heard of and park officials assume he committed suicide.

Jon Huntsman Sr., author of Cheaters Never Win, has taken on Leon Black, a man who revels in the title, "the greediest man on Wall Street." Black's Apollo Management backed out of a $10.6 billion deal to buy Huntsman Corp., which among other things jeopardized cancer research at the Huntsman Institute.

A livid Huntsman says Black's welshing on the deal amounts to fraud:

Leon Black is a man who thinks he doesn't have to play by the rules. Up to now he has gotten away with doing just as he pleases. Well, I will not tolerate unethical conduct. Our suit is designed to show him that in this case, he can't act that way and get away with it.

It's shaping into a hell of a story—white hats vs. black hats. King Kong v. that Big Dinosaur. Gog v. Magog.

Phyllis Berman at Forbes offers some background:

Black seems unfazed. Walking away from deals might make it harder to get other companies to sign on the dotted line, but with $4 billion and a rough reputation on Wall Street, Black has always been indifferent to appearances and revels in being known as one of the greediest men in the money business. He and Huntsman have been tangling for years.

At a recent "corporate night" at Caroline's Comedy Club in New York, billionaire Carl Icahn told an anecdote about Leon Black's attempt to shakedown U.S. Steel chief, David Roderick, a former Marine.

Roderick told Icahn, "If you don't get that guy out of here in 30 seconds, I'll slice his balls off." You can watch Icahn's shtick below, the anecdote is at the end, about five minutes in.

Ever since Gov. Jon Huntsman aggressively started the ball rolling to abolish Utah's quirky club membership rules to get a drink, I wondered if the Guv had gotten some wink, nod or high sign from the LDS Church.

After all, no change in liquor laws will clear the Lege without the Mormon Church's stamp of approval. (There actually is a rubber stamp, right, with a little Angel Moroni on it that the church uses to approve legislation.)

Huntsman has already gotten the amount of alcohol in a drink increased from one ounce to 1.5 ounces. Now with his prodding, the Alcohol Control Board is considering eliminating the sham "drinking club memberships" needed to get a cocktail.

I figured Huntsman, with his experience as a foreign trade negotiator, had scoped out the terrain ahead before he launched his newest thrust to "normalize" Utah's liquor laws.

I cornered him after the monthly press conference on KUED-TV and asked the question: Did he discuss the club-elimination initiative with any church leaders?

Huntsman said:

There were no such conversations. No formal or informal conversations [with the church].

The drinking liberalization ideas came out his transition team report when he took office, he says:

I put them on our list of things to do while I was in office.

Arguing for the Foreign Service Intelligence Act (FSIA), Sen. Orrin Hatch compared critics of the bill — which basically lets the federal goverment tap your phone and rifle through your panties drawer — to looney conspiracy theorists.

Those who would require what Hatch calls “onerous oversight provisions” and who fear unlimited executive wiretapping power “feed the delusions of those who wear tin foil hats around their house and think that 9/11 was an inside job.” That would include senators Harry Reid and Chris Dodd.

What I love is the the name supporters use for FSIA: "The Protect America Act." What kind of monster would oppose that?

We are clearly headed into an exceptional election year. Utah's first taste of it came in Tuesday's primary.

After 12 years, Third District Republicans gave Congressman Chris Cannon the bum's rush in a landside victory for Jason Chaffetz.

The Deseret News' Bob Bernick says Cannon was bitter in an interview following his thumping — refusing to endorse Chaffetz. Cannon claims low voter turnout is what brought him down.

Clearly there are some out there who hate me. And every stinking one of them voted.

Cannon warns the voter dissatisfaction backlash may spell disaster for the broader GOP.

It doesn't take a genius to see that Republicans (in office) have lost the credibility of people in America and in the 3rd District.

Becky Edwards, who took down state Rep. Paul Neuenschwander in the GOP primary would agree with Cannon:

I think one of the things that resonated with people is, if we want to see a change in the legislative body, we can start that change in District 20.

Could it be a coincidence that Cannon's brother Joe Cannon's newspaper the Deseret News is chastising Republicans for not showing up to vote for Chris?

For those of you who just didn't bother to vote, shame on you.

Don't feel bad Red Folks, I would argue that not showing up to vote is, in its own way, voting.

The Tribune opinionaires, on the other hand, say Cannon "was in the wrong place at the wrong time":

He says that the conservative people of the 3rd District support President Bush and the war in Iraq, but that's whistling past the graveyard. When the economy goes south because of shenanigans in the financial markets, when a six-year war bogs down in stalemate and incompetence and lies, when gasoline soars to $4 a gallon, you don't want to be in office, regardless of what pollsters say about local support for the incumbent administration or Congress.

Finally, Chaffetz, who promises change, really isn't all that different than Cannon. Jason, formerly a cosmetic executive, is worth up to $5.6 million, about the same as Cannon.

BlogCritics magazine hails Robert Redford's newest effort to nurture independent filmmaking.

Redford has joined his Sundance brand with Landmark Theaters to develop a new kind of movie house.

It wasn’t enough, [Landmark] said, to just take the people’s money, sell them some popcorn, and show them a movie.... Their idea was that the movie house should be a “destination,” which is to say a place that, yes, shows movies, but also provides other amenities that would attract larger audiences.

Those amentities include a good restaurant, screening rooms in which drinks are served —"a place where a film can be enjoyed, talked about, even debated in friendly circumstances by people who really love the movies." And no commercials before the films!

Two of the new Sundance Theaters have opened, one in Madison, Wis., the other in San Francisco.

Nancy Klasky Gribler, Marketing VP for Sundance Cinemas, says the idea works:

I’m the person in the organization who gets letters from patrons, and many people write just to describe the experience in one of our theaters. It’s almost always a very positive response.

The sad part is that the concept likely would fail in Utah, the home of Sundance, because the state lacks a large enough base of sophisticated filmgoers.

The blogger at Florida Families for Virtual Education attended an Orlando conference on school choice and overheard conversation between an unnamed Utah education-choice lobbyist and a politician. It was about Utah's referendum that ditched the Legislature's voucher program.

In "the quote of the conference" the lobbyist explained the anti-voucherites victory:

The [Utah] teachers union, the feminists, and the superintendent’s groups are all organized and they’re out there beating the drum everyday. The parents and those directly affected by the bill only get up in arms every so often. Who do you think the courts and the media will listen to?

The lesson, says FFVE, is:

As parents, can we afford not to stay informed and be engaged? Don’t we have to keep working and just as hard as THEY do?

The owners of a Tooele home in which a human skull was discovered, fear it will hurt their chances of selling. (They probably ought to worry more about the "location, location, location" rule that they violated by living in Tooele.)

Roofers found the skull in the attic and police are trying to figure out who it is and how it got there.

Owner Helen Dupaix sends out this message to potential buyers:

We know there is nothing in the attic now that is old and scary. We don't feel we need to leave because it's freaky or anything. We've liked this house.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reports that Attorney-General Robert McLelland has rejected a plea from it's Islamic community to legalize polygamy:

There is absolutely no way that the government will recognize polygamist relationships. They are unlawful and they will remain as such.'

Islamic Friendship Association of Australia leader Keysar Trad, right, argued that polygamy is a fact in Australia (as it is in Utah, Colorado, Texas, Arizona, Wyoming...) and should be legalized to protect the rights of widows in polygamous relationships.

If this woman has wilfully chosen to enter into this relationship and makes a lifelong commitment to this person to be married, it shouldn't matter. If it was a business and the business had four partners we'd recognise that, but why don't we recognise it when it comes to consensual relationships amongst adults?

An ebullient Jason Chaffetz stopped at the 7-Eleven at Fifth North and Third West this morning and bought every copy of the Tribune and Deseret News.

"He didn't think we knew who he was," says owner Mark Jorgenson.

I find it refreshing that Chaffetz did such a dopey thing after whupping Congressman Chris Cannon in the GOP primary. If nothing else, Chaffetz is excited about becoming a congressman. Cannon's been phoning in his performance since the new millenium began.

Mark, a political pundit who doesn't know it, explained:

People wanted change. They weren't voting for Chaffetz — they were voting against Cannon.

The blogs are spinning away about Cannon's defeat, trying to read more into it. Michelle Malkin says Cannon's constituents were finally fed up with him being a "shamnesty/DREAM Act shill":

The six-term incumbent went down in flames in the Utah primary, defeated by Republican Jason Chaffetz–an underfunded political newcomer who made opposition to illegal immigration, rejection of amnesty, and support for tough deportation policies a top campaign issue. Cannon outspent Chaffetz 7-to-1 and had the entire GOP establishment from the White House on down backing him. . . .

The simple fact is that voters finally got fed up with Cannon’s constant water-carrying for La Raza and MALDEF (watch him proudly boast, “We love immigrants in Utah. And we don’t oftentimes make the distinction between legal and illegal. In fact I think Utah was the first state in the country to legislate the ability to get a drivers license based on the matricula consular and of that I am proud.”) They got sick of the lies and arrogance. They got sick of Washington business as usual.

Meanwhile, Ron Paul's followers see it as a victory for their side:

The new congressman [Note: Chaffetz still has a Democrat to beat] is very inexperienced but seems to follow Ron Paul's principles very closely. He wants to get rid of the department of education, and many other federal programs, as well as eliminate birth right citizenship for illegals.

Notice the media's spin on the story, as if [Cannon] was "one of the most conservative congressmen" lol. His voting record is amazingly liberal and full of poor spending habits.

The New York Post's Page Six reports:

Talkmeister Larry King's stunning TV-personality wife, Shawn Southwick King, 48, has gone into rehab for addiction to painkillers. King, 74, has been married to Southwick, his sixth wife, for 10 years and they have two children together. A friend of King's confirmed to Page Six, "Shawn is in rehab for medication issues related to her chronic migraine problem."

The couple's Mormon-Jewish wedding in Beverly Hills was attended by best man Ted Turner, Jane Fonda, Al Pacino and Don Rickles. Southwick hosted "Hollywood Insider" in the '80s. King is best known in Utah as the BFF of the late prophet Gordon B. Hinckley.

Before you judge, think about it. How far would you go to relieve the pain of being married to homunculus like Larry King?

A cheap slur against Mitt Romney has put an Internet Christian evangelist in the IRS's crosshairs.

Sen. Scott McCoy, D-Salt Lake, is gaining a reputation around the country as a genuine Utah Democrat.

That's not a good thing.

In a story on post-Legislative session high jinks around the nation, Stateline, a online state government news distributor, reports:

Interns in Utah’s state Senate award signed Certificates of Senator Superlatives at the session’s close, including honors for the best wardrobe, the most likely to vote no, and the “only person on the floor able to understand his bill,” among others.

State Sen. Scott McCoy, a liberal Democrat in a state where two-thirds of the House and Senate is Republican, won an award from this year’s interns for delivering speeches most likely to fall on deaf ears.

“I’m often a dissenting voice on a lot of things we pass.” McCoy said. “(But) all of (the awards) are in good fun and in jest, and a way to celebrate what is normally a high-intensity, short time-frame period of 45 days.”

Of course, if McCoy and other Dems were to turn the table on the ruling GOP, the "good fun and jest" might end quickly. In Colorado, the minority party in both houses took shots at the dominant party in skits called “hummers.*” The fun was ended two session ago, (by majority vote, I'm sure). Lawmakers said the minority spoofs had become too political and hurtful.

*What is the etymology of that term?

As the Mormon Church throws its considerable weight behind a one man-one woman marriage amendment in California, some bloggers are equating the LDS Church's position to its formerly unequivocal belief that African-Americans were not worthy of its priesthood — that Mark of Cain hokum.

The church recently celebrated the 30th anniversary of God's straightening the brethren out. The Big Guy says black men can be priests. (Women still can't... but stay tuned.)

Now, in four paragraphs, the new LDS Prophet Tom Monson calls on the church's members to actively oppose same-sex marriage:

The church's teachings and position on this moral issue are unequivocal. . . .

We ask that you do all you can to support the proposed constitutional amendment by donating of your means and time to ensure that marriage in California is legally defined as being between a man and a woman,

RedStateBlues' bekkieann responds:

One can only wonder if 30 years from now the church will soft pedal their overt discrimination in this issue. . . .

One day it will be unfathomable to many outside the church that church members were pointedly urged to discriminate against this group.

Olin Thomas of Affirmation, a gay Mormon support groups says:

This initiative will hurt so many people. Without [gay] marriage, a couple who have been together 30 years could be torn apart at the doorway to the emergency room.

Affirmation leaders are schedules to meet with LDS middle-management officials in August to discuss the church's political and religious approach to homosexuality.

Why bother?

Finally, conservatives are energetically forging a link between same-sex marriage and polygamy and incest:

Intellectually there's also nothing wrong with three people marrying each other, or four, five, six … why settle on the arbitrary number two? If adults who love each other happen to be siblings, or parent and child, what justification do the rest of us have to keep them from marrying? I mean, speaking purely logically. Polygamy and incest pass muster just as well as homosexual marriages.

Just days after Joe Cannon, right, told his staff at the Deseret News that he is cutting 35 positions and heading in a "more Mormon" direction because the paper is in a financial skid, Advertising Age calls for a halt in depressing stories about the media end of times. What's really ending, says AA's Simon Dumenco, is the end of decades of easy profits for media.

Dumenco writes:

We've been getting the news, in dribs and drabs, about the disintegration of traditional media models for how many years now?

The chorus of death rattles -- all that gruesome gurgling and gasping! -- is getting to me. So I propose a moratorium: Let's stop obsessing about the lost golden age of easy media profits and just get on with inventing the media future.

Colorado law enforcement officials fear that tiny Westcliffe, near Pueblo, will be the nation's next polygamy "nerve center."

Custer County Sheriff Fred Jobe says members of the FLDS compound in Eldorado moved to Westcliffe after the Texas raid, boosting the Colorado settlement's population:

It's one thing to have one property, but it seems they are moving here in great numbers. We don't know what is on their mind. Are they going to build a temple? I am assuming that there will be enough of them someday to build a temple.

Jailed polygamist leader Warren Jeffs had followers pay more than $1 million for nearly 200 acres of land near Westcliffe.

Apparently the Second Congressional District, finally, wants change in tomorrow's GOP primary election.

A Dan Jones D-News-KSL poll says it's a neck-and-neck congressional race between incumbent Chris Cannon and PR man Jason Chaffetz.

Here's a typical comment in the blogosphere:

I’m mainly voting for Jason because a vote for Jason is a vote against Chris Cannon.

How much change the district will get by replacing an inarticulate, mentally meandering Dem baiter with a slick opportunist who not only has never held office, but doesn't even live in the district remains to be seen.

The winner of tomorrow's contest will get to whup some Democrat guy.

Lobbyists Frank Pignanelli and LaVarr Webb list several "intriguing" GOP primary races. But because the duo use their DNews column to advertise their services, they can't afford to bend a potential client out of shape, why read their jibber-jabber?

Above: Bennion Spencer, a former television reporter, who has failed twice getting elected to the state Senate. (Or is it Spencer Bennion?)

The Tribune's Kurt Kragthorpe lists Utah's most interesting, for lack of a better word, golf holes:

...some would call these holes goofy, while others would say they are intriguing - probably depending on how the golfer has just played one of them.
Regardless, they are memorable. This is not a "Divine Nine," necessarily, just a collection of holes from Utah public courses that are the most striking because of their design, setting or topography, occasionally resulting in some unusual local rules.

If you can only get to one this year, go for No. 7 at Canyon Breeze Golf Course in Beaver where horses have the right-of-way, barns are out of bounds and the dirt is considered a water hazard.

In a Deseret News column, John Florez says Utah's lawmakers care more about a one-eyed dog than they do coal miners.

A new animal cruelty law, propelled by Henry the one-eyed poster dog, has more teeth to it than the program to increase mine safety, which only calls for more training. Says Florez:

If lawmakers had applied the same logic to animal cruelty as they do for mine safety, they would have called for educating animal trainers to teach animals how to protect themselves, create "first-responder programs" and build animal shelters and hospitals. And they might even have thrown in anger management for violators. Under the Coal Mine Safety Act (SB224), the state is responsible for promoting mine safety through training and coordination but not enforcement

And that safety law only made it through after nine miners were killed in the Crandall Canyon mine last August.

If miners want 21st Century safety, they better start taking cute Shih Tzus underground with them — or a canary.