Religion and Law Intertwined-Podcast

America, specifically Utah, has seen laws and rulings influenced by evangelical doctrine rather than the needs of the people. The dominant religion, the LDS church, has significant influence over laws and representatives. Gerrymandering and biased redistricting further distort representation. The issue of fair representation is not unique to Utah, as gerrymandering is a widespread problem. Solutions include using independent commissions for district mapping and having voter-determined districts. Communities of color are also underrepresented. Theocracy and partisan politics hinder fair and equal governance. Changing the approach to politics and lawmaking can help address these issues. Laws should protect rights and not restrict. The focus should be on creating a world where everyone can live and thrive. Starting at the national level can ensure that Utah is governed by all its people, not just one group. The current situation is unfair and discriminates against those who don't align wi America has always called itself a bastion of democracy, a secular nation in which self-governance was principle and democracy was law. Inspired by the theories of philosophers like John Locke and John Jacks Rousseau, Americans sought a mutualistic relationship between a government and its people based on consent, meant to represent the rights of all its people rather than a single collective. It was Thomas Jefferson who further defined this relationship, championing the Establishment Clause and the separation of church and state. Today this clause reads, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. Yet the 21st century has seen a burst of rulings and laws founded more so on evangelical doctrine than the needs of its people. Utah reflects these same observations, a state in which the dominant religion, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is so ingrained in the culture and governing authority that LDS in Utah are often synonymous terms. Here laws and representatives are chosen based on the moral code of the LDS church, and as many a non-LDS member can sympathize with, a frustrating environment to be in when your own needs are not reflected in your home's legislature. From gerrymandering to the Equal Rights Amendment to liquor laws, the LDS church has been involved in issues the church itself has claimed to have no place in. As church spokesman Dawn LeFevere has stated, the church is not trying to run the state of Utah. Yet influential church leaders such as D. Todd Christofferson have been pressuring lawmakers to enact laws that will uphold the moral culture of the state, whatever that's supposed to mean. Those lawmakers sure follow through, placing restrictions on liquor sales, backing controversial laws on marriage and abortion rights, biased redistricting, and a host of other things. So how do we even go about rectifying an issue that runs? Out of three. House elections are utterly warped by gerrymandering and geography. The Senate gives 623,000 people in Vermont as much power as the more than 19 million people in New York. And meanwhile, five dudes in robes who are politically appointed by parties looking for ideologues, they made it legal for billionaires to spend as much money buying elections as they want. This is why the LDS church is so deep. When the distribution of our political representatives don't actually reflect the makeup of the voter population, this is when we get laws that don't actually represent the wants of the voters. This happens largely through gerrymandering, an issue we see here in Utah. Gerrymandering is definitely not unique to Utah, though, so thankfully we already know a few ways in which gerrymandering has been fought in other places. One of these ways is to put independent commissions in charge of the district map instead of state legislatures. This is something that states like Idaho, California, and Michigan have been doing for a long time, and it has proven successful. Another fix to gerrymandering is having voter-determined districts, which is just what it sounds like. Districts where elected representatives reflect the people who elected them as accurately as possible in the House and in the Senate. Communities of color are also horrifically underrepresented in Congress, especially in Utah, so it is crucial that districts increase the number of representatives for these communities. By having fairly mapped districts, we can have fair representation and pass laws that are true to all citizens here in Utah, not just one group. This is a deep-rooted issue, not just for Utah, but America as a whole. Theocracy has been a long-standing threat to fair and equal governing all throughout America's history, and changing that will take a shift in how we interact politically. Today, our politics are rife with polarization and partisanship. Political leaders seem to be more about proving the other side wrong than creating a better, safer, and fairer world for us all to live in, which undermines the purpose of democracy in the first place. This goal becomes even more impossible when you consider that America itself is built on a never-ending bid for power between two ideologically opposed parties, and these parties rely on funding from more extreme or biased groups that want to push their own ideas of government, whether it's the LDS Church in Utah or Christian Nationalists in America. It would take a five-hour-long podcast to fully address the incompatible nature between a two-party system grappling for power and maintaining a nation that is equal, fair, and prosperous, but what we can begin talking about is how we can change the ways in which we approach politics and lawmaking. Looking at laws instead as a means to further rights while protecting the safety of its people, and not as a vessel to restrict, is a perspective that takes us away from polarizing each other. When we have this perspective, we look to representatives that want to further the needs of their citizens and not just their party's goals. Then that's how we start fixing gerrymandering, repetiting unfair laws, expanding rights, and overall shifting the focus away from control towards what really matters, creating a world anybody can live and thrive in. You have to start big if you want to permanently fix the little issues, and starting at the national level is a surefire way of ensuring Utah is a state that is run by all the people who live in it and not just one group. I have lived in Utah all my life. My parents raised me Catholic and sent me to a Catholic school from kindergarten to 12th grade. All my extended family belonged to the LDS church. I have been surrounded by religion my entire life and have always known religion played an integral part of Utah's culture. As a now adult who has drifted from both the religions I grew up in, I see decisions being made for me on behalf of religions I don't prescribe it to. My experience is a shared reality for many citizens in Utah and in America, and it isn't a fair one. Beliefs are abstract, mutable, and infinitely diverse. To apply them to an entire state or an entire nation of people is dooming those people to a culture of discrimination and exclusion. This is why it is crucial that laws being made are a matter of protection and not an endorsement of religion. And to do so, we have to change the climate that allows for this in the first place.