George F. Will, a beautiful writer I read every time I can (even when I think he’s being foolish) did a nice piece today on Utah’s opposition to the No Child Left Behind law.
But he makes very a stupid mistake:
Not all Utahans are Mormons. Almost 11 percent are Hispanic, heading for 20 percent by 2020, and there is a significant population of Pacific islanders. But the state’s singular tone is set by the Mormons.
He’s equating being Mormon with being White, which is clearly not the case. Some of those Hispanics are certainly LDS, and many of the Pacific Islanders are there precisely because they are LDS (a few small Pacific nations are majority LDS). There are very large Mormon communities in South America — Brazil and Peru, as I recall — and clearly they are not made up of “white” people as I suspect many of us concieve of the idea.
I am not a LDS, never have been and likely never will be. But I’ve lived in Utah, enjoyed the time I spent there, and I have too much respect for Mormons and what they’ve made to allow a mistake like Will’s to go uncorrected.
11:25 am on November 11, 2005
