Mormon Church tarnished by scandal
Salt Lake City - With statehood shimmering on a distant
horizon, Brigham Young stood before his embattled Mormon
followers and spoke candidly about bribing federal officials to
"grease the wheels." Young justified catering to
corruption in 1861 to serve a higher cause- protecting the
faith's polygamists while gaining support of statehood. That
rationale resonates down the decades as the city Young founded on
the edge of the Great Basin agonizes over the Olympic bribery
scandal. Utahns are painfully aware their longed for debut on the
global stage has taken a doozy of a pratfall. 70% of Utah's
inhabitants are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints. For an image-conscious faith of 10 million
members that has 58,000 missionaries knocking on doors in 123
countries and territories, the seamy headlines are a painful
reminder that almost everyone outside Utah and its immediate
neighbors sees Salt Lake City and the Mormon heartland as one and
the same. Publicly the faith's hierarchy and the city's
Olympic boosters have kept their distance over the years, neither
wanting the 2002 Games to be perceived as the Mormon Olympics.
Some see that as a charade, since most of the boosters are
influential Mormons.
Register Guard, Jan 17, 1999