Sunday, July 02, 2006

The recent story about the read-over-the-pulpit LDS letter helping boost turnout in the primary election, and thus aiding Chris Cannon, has drawn a lot of email. Here are some of them:

Boy again small town USA comes through. Hey moron, is life that slow in Salt Lake that this is all you have to report on? Once again we have a Mormon basher that gains fulfillment by wasting time writing an article like this.

Get a life.

Philadelphia PA
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Very good job. Your article is precisely on target and what needed to be said. And don't forget the Deserted News helped that mealy-mouthed bozo Cannon considerably.

If the ETHNIC SLUR feel we stole their land lets give them that voting district and call it even. And Cannon is a liar by doing a complete 180 on immigration. He has embarrassed Utah enough so it is too bad he won out.

Bountiful
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Mr. Gehrke,
In response to your article claiming the LDS Church effectively re-elected Chris Cannon to the U.S. House, I must strongly disagree with your accusation that the Church endorsed Mr. Cannon.
I know that you will deny that the Church explicitly endorsed him. But, the tone of your article carries the typical SL Tribune anti-Mormon swagger of saying anything that will raise question against the Church or cast the Church in a negative light. In this case, your article insinuates that the Church dictates to its members what they should and should not do politically. This simply is false. The Church is non-partisan and remains politically neutral. Also, encouraging its members to vote in a primary in Utah County doesn't mean it is endorsing one particular candidate. What is does mean is that it wants its members to be active participants in their community and nation.

For your information, not all Mormons agree with Mr. Cannon's point of view on the tough issue of immigration. As a former U.S. Senate staff member who worked primarily on immigration, I have a great deal of experience with this very issue. I also know that many Utahans, Mormons and people of other faiths, regard illegal immigration as a scourge to the state and the country.

I am also not naive enough to think that immigration was the only issue voters were considering, although that is what pundits like Lou Dobbs would like people to believe. Maybe it is just because he was the better candidate and his constituents trust him.
In the article you repeatedly wrote, either as a direct quote or your own narrative, that there is no way to quantify the effect of the Church's encouragement of its members to vote in the primary. For this very reason, you should have considered holding off on this article simply because it was spotted with speculation. By running this article, the SL Tribune put itself in the category of yellow journalism -- reporting without all the facts.

I would appreciate it if you and your SL Tribune colleagues would take a more responsible and educated approach to your reporting about the LDS Church.

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Blah blah blah . . .

Las Vegas. NV

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Hello Robert,

This has got to be one of the worst cases of spinning the facts I have seen in a long time. I could spin this even farther and say that John Jacob helped Chris Cannon re-elected due to his statements to VOTE. Come on. I personally heard that letter that was read from the pulpit at my Sunday meetings. I know you know the contents of the letter. So I am not going to go into them here. But this article is flat out remarkable. And this is not because of my faith. It is because I have heard what was said. I think a better story would have been that the letter actually prompted people to vote in a primary.

-- Robert Gehrke