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Perhaps the most difficult kind of analysis that scholars may presume to make is that of presenting attitudes of people toward various ideas. Any poll can be affected by weakness in the sampling technique, by various shades of meaning imputed to the questions by the people polled, and by several other variables. Nevertheless, we continue to make the effort. Armand Mauss has attempted to discover how Mormon attitudes differ from one area of Church population to another and how these differences compare with similar differences among other Christian churches. Mauss is the first to admit that a survey of two cities is hardly sufficient to make generalizations about the entire Church, but his impressive survey at least begins to provide important insights into attitudes of Mormons in the modern urban and secular environments. 

One wonders if it has ever been reasonable to speak of “what Mormons believe” or “how Mormons feel” on any but the most fundamental questions of Church doctrine. If so, to what extent has consensus on theological questions extended to social and political ones? And even if Mormons have historically shared some degree of uniformity in their outlooks on any of these matters, to what extent has it been possible to maintain consensus in the face of modern urban living, with its exposure to an immense heterogeneity of life circumstances and life styles? I argue elsewhere that Mormons, like others, are susceptible to the powerful forces of assimilation and secularization in urban industrial societies like our own, and that we are not a terribly “peculiar people” any more, except perhaps in a small number of religious ideas and observances that are easily tolerated by our neighbors.[1] And if we are not particularly conspicuous any longer for our religion per se, it would be somewhat surprising if our political and social ideas were anything but part of the general American consensus. I shall be contending here that while such ideas run quite a gamut among modern Mormons, “moderate” and “mainstream” are probably the most appropriate adjectives to describe them. 

The data on which this article is based came primarily from two surveys which I conducted privately during 1967 and 1968. Space here does not permit methodological details, but the model for my surveys was the Glock and Stark project at the Survey Research Center, University of California, Berkeley, on religion in American life.[2] My first survey yielded about 1,000 valid cases (questionnaires) from ten sample wards in Salt Lake City, and my second survey about 300 cases from two sample wards in a coastal city of California.[3] The questionnaires were extensive and covered a great variety of religious, social, political and other questions, and considerable social background information as well. Standard social research techniques were used with great care in dealing with the problems of sampling, follow-up, reliability, non response bias and the like. The results make it possible for us to learn a great deal about the attitudes of representative urban Mormons (who are now, after all, the modal Mormon type), both in Utah and outside. We will turn now to the presentation of some of our findings on political and social attitudes. 

Political Outlooks 

Let us look first at the question of political preferences among Mormons. There can be but few of us who have not encountered the widespread impression that 20th century Mormons are generally Republicans, and conservative Republicans at that (except, perhaps, for our “pseudo-intellectuals”). Such an impression is reinforced by Mormon writers of conservative hue who seek to identify authentic Mormonism with conservative “Americanism.”[4] It is not clear to me just where gentile observers gather the same impression; it might be derived or inferred from the Church policy toward Blacks. An impression of conservative Republican proclivities as dominant, however, certainly cannot be derived from the voting history of Utah during the present century, nor from the party affiliations of Mormon congressmen, who have been largely Democratic for some years.[5] Prominent Mormon politicians and statesmen of national stature during this century could easily be named from both parties. Thomas O’Dea has claimed that the leadership of the Church is predominantly Republican and conservative, though he observes that such does not seem to be true for the membership at large.[6] In my own data, region (or at least city) made some difference (as we might expect) in the party affiliations claimed by my Mormon respondents, but not as much as one would expect. As Table 1 indicates, the CC (Coastal City) saints, on the average, claim to be somewhat more liberal and Democratic than their SLC (Salt Lake City) brethren and sisters, but one is struck over all more by the similarities in the figures of the two columns than by the differences. If we were to apply the “right-wing” label to the “conservative Republican” category, then it is clear that less than a fifth of the Church membership (as per these samples) could be so designated, despite the conventional wisdom to the contrary. The data in this table would probably indicate that Mormons, with a Republican percentage around half, are still somewhat more likely to be Republican than are the nation’s voters as a whole (among whom the Republican Party is clearly in the minority), but a more appropriate comparison would be a regional one, rather than a national one; and it is doubtful that SLC Mormons are more likely to claim Republican affiliation than, say, the voters of the Mountain West in general. Be that as it may, there is no evidence here for the belief that Mormons are predominantly Republican, to say nothing of conservative Republican. Indeed, exactly half of them (in both samples) are found in the political center (i.e. in the two “moderate” categories). 

Table 1: Political Preference*
	SLC	CC
Liberal Democrat	6%	15%
Moderate Democrat	16%	20%
Moderate Republican	35%	30%
Conservative Republican	19%	15%
Independent	18%	15%
N (100%) =	(958)	(296)
*Percentages in this table do not total 100% because of omission of non-respondents to this item.

Social scientists are aware, however, that claimed party affiliation is only a very rough indicator of actual political attitudes. Somewhat greater precision can be obtained by ascertaining a respondent’s beliefs on a series of issues. Of course, the saliency of issues can change significantly over time, and let us remember that the data I am presenting were gathered mostly in 1967 and 1968. At that time, attitudes toward certain issues were more indicative than they would be now of a generally conservative outlook in domestic and foreign affairs. In order to get a comprehensive and composite measure of political conservatism, two indices were developed, one for domestic policy conservatism and one for foreign policy conservatism.[7] The first of these was built from the responses to five questions: one on labor unions, a second on internal communism, a third on the House Committee on Un-American Activities, a fourth on government medical care for the aged, and a fifth on the danger of recent trends toward “socialism.” A strong agreement with the “conservative position” on these issues received a score of 2, and an agreement “somewhat” a score of 1. The distributions of the SLC and CC samples are shown in Table 2 where we can see that the CC saints have considerably lower levels of conservatism than do their SLC brethren, probably in line with the general political climate of the CC area. Even the SLC saints, how*. _i, have a larger proportion (29%) at the lowest level of conservatism than at the highest (24%). While a fully valid relative statement about Mormon conservatism would require a comparison with surrounding non-Mormons, it does seem reasonable to say, just on the strength of the distributions in Table 2, that Mormons (even in SLC) lean more in the moderate and liberal directions than in the conservative one. The degree to which Mormons might be taken as “soft on the John Birch Society” can perhaps be inferred from a single item in the questionnaire, which stated, “All things considered, the John Birch Society probably does more good than harm” (not a terribly strong endorsement of the JBS at best). “Agree strongly” responses were given by 13% of the SLC saints and by 7% of the CC saints. “Agree somewhat” responses were given by twice those numbers, respectively, in the two samples. It is rather difficult to know what meaning should be assigned to an agreement “somewhat” with a statement that is itself not very decisive, but the smaller figures for “strongly” agree (13% and 7%) probably can be taken as endorsements of the Birch Society. All in all, it would probably not be accurate to characterize Mormons as especially conservative in domestic political affairs, but again, rather, as moderates. 

Table 2: Domestic Policy Conservativsm*
DPCE Index Scores:	SLC	CC
Low (0-4)	29%	47%
(5-7)	39%	33%
High (8-10)	24%	10%
N (100%) =	(958)	(296)
*Percentages in this table do not total 100% because of omission of respondents who failed to answer one or more of the questions on which the Index was based. The same will be true in all subsequent tables.

A similarly constructed index was used to get some measure of conservatism in foreign affairs, but with fewer items: one on admitting Red China to the UN; a second on supporting the UN; and a third on the desirability of a decisive military effort in Viet-Nam (remember that these issues were much more controversial a few years ago). Table 3 shows the comparison of the SLC and the CC saints in foreign policy conservatism (which I would define as a generally militant, “hawklike,” and nationalistic outlook in international affairs). Once again, we are lacking comparable national or regional data and measures against which to rate these two Mormon samples, but just on the rather rough 6-point scale deriving from the Index (Table 3), we would have to regard the Mormons as foreign policy “moderates” at most. With both samples, the overwhelming majority is found in the lower and middle ranges of the scale; indeed, in the case of the CC saints, more than half (58%) scored zero or one out of a possible 6 points. It seems fair to conclude that, according to my measures, the “doves” outnumber the “hawks” rather substantially among Mormons.[8]

Table 3: Foreign Policy Conservatism
FPC Index Scores:	SLC	CC
Low (0-1)	33%	58%
(2-4)	52%	32%
High (5-6)	6%	2%
N (100%) =	(958)	(296)

Libertarianism 

Closely related to the liberal-conservative axis in the literature of political sociology (at least since Adorno) has been the issue of libertarianism.[9] While my data do not permit me to address that complex issue in a comprehensive way, I do have some standard measures of religious libertarianism, based upon respondents’ beliefs about what action (if any) should be taken against atheists (in the questionnaire: “people who claim they do not believe in God”). Since atheists are the most extreme kind of religious “outsider,” tolerance toward them should be an indicator a fortiori of tolerance toward other religious groups. Table 4 shows the distribution of Mormon respondents on the very same Index of Religious Libertarianism used in the Glock-Stark study, and a comparison with the appropriate table in that study will indicate that Mormons (particularly those of CC) are more likely to be libertarian than are the Catholic and Protestant samples in the Glock-Stark survey.[10] Note, for example, that a surprising 71% of the CC saints would get the highest rating in religious libertarianism, compared with 53% of the Catholics and Protestants, which the SLC saints more resemble.[11] It would appear, then, that the Latter-day Saints have taken seriously the concept of religious tolerance expressed in the 11th article of faith, and have extended it even to atheists. 

Table 4: Religious Libertarianism
RL Index Scores:	SLC	CC
0	5%	3%
1	5%	3%
2	10%	5%
3	11%	6%
4	54%	71%
N (100%) =	(958)	(296)

The Race Question 

The indices discussed above, let us remember, have the effect of summarizing the outlook of my Mormon respondents on a considerable range of social and political issues (this is particularly the case with the Index of Domestic Political Conservatism). It seems appropriate to single out one such issue, namely the race issue, for special attention here, considering the controversy and publicity which have been focused upon Mormons in recent years over this problem. A few interesting observations from my data might contribute to the more general discussion of the social attitudes of contemporary Mormons.[12]

The Mormon Church propagates doctrines concerning at least three ethnic groups: Negroes, Jews (and other Israelites insofar as such can be identified), and American Indians (usually broadened to include Polynesians as well). While we have received much notoriety of late for our doctrines and policies on the Negro, with particular respect to the alleged social consequences thereof, it is no less interesting to investigate the consequences, if any, of the Church teachings on the other two ethnic groups. If negative doctrines and discriminatory policies toward Blacks are supposed to result in a generalized anti-Black bigotry among Mormons (as our critics claim), then what might we expect from our doctrines about Jews and Indians? These doctrines are at worst ambivalent, and, on balance, even favorable, in their definition of the status of these groups in the eyes of the Lord. 

The data from my major surveys did not include anything on attitudes toward Indians, though a small study conducted in Cache Valley indicated much lower levels of prejudice there against Indians than against Blacks. Prejudice against both groups was highly contingent upon the amount of exposure respondents had had to ethnic groups (which, in effect, meant living outside of Utah).[13] Whatever may be the attitudes of church members toward Indians, however, there can be little doubt about the commitment of the Church as an organization to the redemption of the Red Man. Few non-Mormons are aware of the thousands of Indian children living in white Mormon homes, of the hundreds of Indian youth in special education programs at BYU, or of the many other forms of expensive assistance given by the Church to Indians both on and off the reservation. It is difficult to avoid the rather obvious conclusion that the Indian programs of the Church issue directly from its Indian doctrines, though, like any “obvious conclusion,” it is still open to question and to proof. The involvement of the Mormon Church with the Indians is surely one of the most poorly publicized “social action” programs in this age of frantic social reform; and the Mormon work with the Indians in the “Indian country” of the great West is a fully appropriate counterpart to the work that other (historically urban) churches are doing in the Black ghettoes. 

Where the Jews are concerned, Mormon doctrines are unique among Christian churches. The concept of a special Jewish perfidy and treachery, so pervasive in traditional Christianity, is largely absent in Mormonism.[14] The Jewish “apostasies” are regarded primarily as examples merely of the general proclivity for apostasy that is endemic to mankind. The chief focus of Mormon doctrines on Jews is zionist and redemptionist. The Jews are people of destiny, like the Latter-day Saints themselves; furthermore, since the great majority of the saints are of Ephraim or other Israelite lines, they are literally “blood brothers” of the Jews.[15] With doctrines like these in the theological realm, what attitudes toward Jews might we expect in secular civil life? Glock and Stark have demonstrated empirically and rather conclusively the chain of beliefs and attitudes that link traditional Christian doctrines to modern secular anti Semitism among Catholics and Protestants.[16] Using the same basic theoretical model, I have elsewhere (and with different data) demonstrated how the peculiar Mormon doctrines about Jews intervene to neutralize anti-Semitism in the development of their secular attitudes about Jews.[17]

Table 5 of my present data shows the distribution of my two Mormon samples on an Index of Secular Anti-Semitism. This index, a somewhat shortened form of the one used in the Glock-Stark work, is based on degrees of respondents’ assent to certain hostile characterizations of Jews, such as that they engage in “shady” business practices. A comparison of the distributions in Table 5 with those in the Glock-Stark counterpart will show that the Mormons compare favorably with the least anti-Semitic denominations, having the highest rates of zero anti-Semitism.[18] Further analysis of my data (not presented here) shows also that such Mormon anti-Semitism as there is drops away drastically among those who believe in the traditional Church doctrines about the Jews and Mormons as “blood brothers.” 

Table 5: Secular Anti-Semitism
SAS Index Scores:	SLC	CC
(Low) 0	23%	26%
1-2	32%	35%
3-4	16%	16%
(Hi) 5-6	4%	3%
N (100%) =	(958)	(296)

With respect to Jews and Indians, then, two of the most brutally oppressed minorities in history, Mormon attitudes and behavior should be acceptable even to the most sensitive guardian of social virtue. It is a pity that the controversy over the Blacks has overshadowed the more general Mormon proclivity toward equalitarianism in racial relations.[19]

With respect to Mormon relations with Blacks, there are several separate (if related) questions, most of which are, unfortunately, lumped together in the discourse and controversy over this matter. (1) Just what is the policy, and doctrine about Blacks within the Mormon Church? (2) How much grounding or support can be found for the policy and doctrine(s) in authentic revelation? (3) How do Mormons as individual church members feel about the traditional Church policy? (4) What meaning and consequences, if any, do church members give to this ecclesiastical tradition when it comes to secular civil relations with Blacks? This is not the place to deal with questions (1) or (2); I and others have already addressed these questions rather extensively.[20] On the third question, public opinion within the Church on the “Negro policy,” there are interesting data from my surveys. Both the SLC and the CC saints were asked to agree or disagree with the statement, “I wish that Negroes could be given the Priesthood in the LDS Church.” Levels of agreement ran considerably higher among the CC saints: 44% agreed either “strongly” (33%) or “somewhat” (11%). Among the SLC saints, the corresponding figures were only 11% and 12%, for a total of 23% agreement. One remarkable thing about this question, though, was the extraordinarily large proportions of respondents who abstained from response: 38% in SLC and 33% in CC chose the “no opinion” option on this question. If we add together the responses indicating agreement and those indicating abstention, we are left with the disagreement rate: 39% in SLC and 23% in CC. These latter figures are perhaps the most important ones on this particular question, for they give some indication of the net opposition existing in Mormon public opinion to a change in the traditional Church policy toward Negroes. This opposition apparently runs to a little over a third of the SLC saints and to less than a fourth of the CC saints. It seems reasonable to conclude that a change in the Church policy on Negroes would either be welcomed or accepted by a large majority of the Latter-day Saints in and outside of Utah; and even many of the devout saints now in opposition could be expected to acquiesce out of commitment to the principle of continuous revelation, should a change take place. Furthermore, comparisons of responses to this question by age categories showed that levels of disagreement declined noticeably among the younger saints, so that we can expect opposition to change to be even lower in the future. 

The last question of the four I posed above has to do with the “carry-over” issue: to what extent is the Church policy toward Blacks carried over by Mormons in their everyday relations with Blacks outside the Church realm? This too is a question which I and others have addressed before, but with much less systematic data than are now available through my more recent surveys. The earlier works have indicated that Mormons in general (and even those believing in the Church policy) lack any unique or distinctive prejudice toward Blacks in matters of stereotypes, job opportunities, educational opportunities, housing and the like.[21] This is not to say that Mormons lack anti-Black prejudice; only that their measurable levels of prejudice are similar to (or lower than) those of most other religious groups. 

The larger surveys on which I have based this paper have brought consider ably more systematic data to bear on the issue. A general idea of how the saints think the Lord looks upon anti-Negro discrimination can be obtained from responses to a question asking “how serious” an infraction it is “in (the Lord’s) eyes” to discriminate against Negroes in housing, employment, etc. Of the SLC saints, 63 % responded with either “very serious” or “fairly serious;” among the CC saints the corresponding figure was 76%. These are large figures in themselves, but are more meaningful if compared to figures indicating responses about other infractions. Take for example beer drinking: about as many SLC saints (64%) regarded that infraction also as either “very serious” or “fairly serious/’ which suggests that anti-Negro discrimination ranks about with beer drinking in the hierarchy of sins among the SLC saints. One might wonder about such priorities, but it is difficult to be sure whether they are more indicative of complacency about discrimination or of anxiety about drinking; for among the CC saints only 47% were concerned about beer drinking, compared to 76% about discrimination. 

Aside from what the saints think that the Lord thinks about prejudice and discrimination, what do they themselves think? In my earlier article on this subject (based on data from three East Bay California wards), I employed three questionnaire items as indicators of anti-Negro prejudice, and three others as indicators of discrimination tendencies.[22] I was here drawing again upon the work of Glock and Stark, with whose data I wanted mine to be comparable.[23] In my more recent work, I have combined those three prejudice indicators into a single Index of Prejudice, and the three discrimination indicators into an Index of Segregationism. Tables 6 and 7 compare the standings of the SLC and the CC saints on these two indices, respectively. It is interesting here to note the unusual similarity of the SLC and the CC saints in their distributions on these two indices (the same was true for their distributions on anti-Semitism). This suggests that however much the SLC and CC saints may differ in many of their other attitudes, they differ but very little in (secular) racial attitudes. The figures in the tables indicate also that only miniscule proportions of the saints agree with all three of the indicators of prejudice and segregationism (i.e., rank “high” on the indices), and that the large majority in both samples rank “low” on the indices (i.e., give little or no support to the usual anti-Black notions that have been common in our culture).[24]

Table 6: Anti-Black Prejudice
ABP Index Scores:	SLC	CC
(Low) 0-2	60%	66%
3-4	23%	17%
(High) 5-6	8%	9%
N (100%) =	(958)	(296)
Table 7: Anti-Black Segregationism
ABS Index Scores:	SLC	CC
(Low) 0-2	76%	78%
3-4	14%	9%
(High) 5-6	6%	4%
N (100%) =	(958)	(296)

There is much more analysis that needs to be done on these data in order for them to be fully meaningful, but this is not the place to do it. The work of thorough analysis is still in progress and will be published soon.[25] Suffice it to say here that it does not now appear that the results of my analysis, when fully completed, will overturn or seriously contradict the main conclusions of my earlier (less systematic) surveys: i.e., that when compared to others, the Latter-day Saints do not have especially high levels of anti-Black feeling, even if they subscribe to the traditional Church policy on Blacks and the priesthood; that the extent to which Mormon attitudes toward Blacks are influenced by the Church policy is heavily contingent upon the region of the country in which they live, upon their educational level, upon their age, upon their exposure to heterogeneous urban living, and upon a host of other factors which have nothing whatever to do with religious indoctrination. When Mormons are compared with non-Mormons according to age-level, education-level, urban background, and the other factors, my data still indicate that the Mormon/ non-Mormon differences in attitudes toward Blacks will simply disappear. This leaves certain other questions which I am not able to address with my data: Would Mormons be even less anti-Negro than other people if it were not for the Church policy on priesthood? Do the intervening social factors which I have mentioned simply neutralize an underlying anti-Black outlook that is still latent among Mormons? We can only conjecture. Glock and Stark showed that religious Libertarianism intervened to considerably neutralize hostility toward religious “outsiders,” and Mormons, it will be recalled, rate relatively high in libertarianism, so it might function as a neutralizing factor.[26] Social psychologists who specialize in the study of the formations and expressions of attitudes have made clear how complex (if not impossible) are predictions and assertions about how (and whether) certain attitudes will lead to other attitudes, or will issue in certain kinds of behavior.[27] Such evidence as we have, in any case, does not support a hypothesis of uniquely Mormon anti-Black feeling or behavior. Let us therefore be judged in the surrounding society by our individual behavior toward Blacks and others, rather than by doubtful assumptions about how Mormons as a whole are supposed to think in light of a controversial Church custom. 

Concluding Observations 

It is probably necessary to add the caveat that what-has been presented here is only the beginning of analysis; it is really more description than analysis, in the Gallup style, though the indices I have employed are somewhat more sophisticated measures than the single-item indicators in the standard Gallup reports. Considerable statistical manipulation of all these data, with techniques ranging from cross-tabulation to regression analysis, will be necessary before we can have any understanding of the factors related to differences among the Saints in their social and political attitudes. In particular, nothing has been presented here concerning the impact of religious beliefs on these secular attitudes. Work of this kind is in progress and is being published elsewhere as it is finished. 

If the reader has remained unstartled so far, then the main point of this paper has perhaps been made: that there is nothing startling about the political or social attitudes of modern urban Mormons. These attitudes are well within the mainstream of contemporary American thought—a bit on the “liberal” side in CC, perhaps, and a bit on the “conservative” side in SLC, but then this too simply reflects regional differences in American public opinion more generally. In political party preference, the Latter-day Saints show a strong centrist tendency, insofar as they accept party labels at all. In both foreign and domestic policy, the clearly conservative among the Saints, according to the measures employed here, are decided minorities (indeed, miniscule minorities in foreign policy conservatism). Again, a kind of center-to-liberal posture seems dominant. In religious tolerance (libertarianism), the Saints rank rather high on standard measures, the CC Saints especially so, when compared to a West Coast sample of Protestants and Catholics, so that once again they meet or exceed the norms of at least western America. Finally, in attitudes toward ethnic minorities, both samples of Saints compare favorably with the Glock-Stark denominational samples, measuring decisively-to-overwhelmingly low in their incidence of prejudice. However well the Mormons may follow their cultural cliche “moderation in all things” in other aspects of life, they do seem to apply it to social and political positions. 

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[1] See my paper, “Saints, Cities, and Secularism: Religious Attitudes and Behavior of Modern Urban Mormons,” forthcoming soon in Dialogue. 

[2] See especially C. Y. Glock and Rodney Stark, Christian Beliefs and Anti-Semitism (New York: Harper and Row, 1966). The Appendices to that volume describe the methodological procedures used in gathering and preparing their data. I used the same procedures for the most part. 

[3] With only two wards involved in my Coastal City sample, it seems appropriate to respect the anonymity of the cooperating respondents and bishops by not specifically identifying the city. I will add, however, that it was not a city in southern California, and that the two wards chosen included the most “urban” sections of the city—i.e. rooming houses and apartments—as well as family residential areas. The ten Salt Lake City wards were distributed throughout the Greater Salt Lake area in patterns that reflected the contours of population density. These wards were selected by a system of probability sampling weighted in such a way that a ward’s chance of being selected in the sample was proportional to its membership size. In drawing the sample wards and obtaining lists of ward members, I was, of course, totally dependent upon the cooperation and good will of ward bishops and others in the Church Office Building, and I hereby gratefully acknowledge their help. The data I collected are stored on computer tape under the title “Mormonism and Urbanism” at the University of California (Berkeley) and at the computer center, Washington State University (Pullman). In addition to this body of data, I have collected somewhat less systematic bodies from an East Bay (California) stake and from Logan, Utah. A number of articles and theses have been produced from all these data sources, and much additional work is in progress. 

[4] I base this statement upon my reading of the relevant works of Hyrum Andrus, Cleon Skousen, Richard Vetterli, and others. 

[5] See, e.g. H. G. Frederickson and A. J. Stevens, “The Mormon Congressman and the Line between Church and State,” Dialogue, 3 (Summer, 1968), 121-129. 

[6] Thomas F. O’Dea, The Mormons (Chicago: University of Chicago Press [paperback edition], 1964), pp. 172-73 and 253-55. 

[7] A word is perhaps in order here about the measuring device called an “index,” although, again, space does not permit a thorough explanation. The kind of composite scaled index used here is based upon two or more individual questionnaire items, each contributing to the over-all score of the index. Such an index is justified by the assumption that a respondent’s answers to a series of questions about a certain kind of belief is a more consistent and reliable “measure” than would be his answer to only one question about that belief. The highest possible score on the index goes only to those respondents who give a definite answer (in the “direction” being measured) to all of the items on which the index is based. Those who give the opposite answer, or who demur, receive a score of zero each time. Scores in between zero and the maximum reflect combinations of “definitely,” “somewhat,” and no-score answers on the various items making up the index. When the resulting distributions on an index are strung out, it is usually desirable to combine or “collapse” the index into fewer categories, which has been the usual practice in this paper. The cutting points in the collapsing process are not entirely arbitrary; consideration is given to such criteria as the clustering tendencies that appear in the original version of the index. No claim is being made that this kind of index is either very precise or is an evenly calibrated interval scale. We cannot say exactly how much higher in “conservatism” is a person who ranks “high” on an index, compared to one who ranks “medium” or “low.” We can claim only that he is higher—i.e. more conservative.

[8] These findings may seem somewhat at odds with those reported for a B.Y.U. population recently (Knud S. Larsen and Gary Schwendiman, “The Vietnam War through the Eyes of a Mormon Subculture,” Dialogue, 3 [Autumn, 1968], 152-162). The reasons for the difference between my findings and theirs could perhaps be discussed at some length, but are probably to be found mainly in (1) the important differences in our two samples, especially considering the selective recruitment to B.Y.U. by age and social class, and (2) the psychological variables discussed in their article. 

[9] I have reference here to the enormous body of social-psychological literature on personality variables and political attitudes, beginning with the classic (but much criticized) work by T. W. Adorno, et al., The Authoritarian Personality (New York: Harper and Row, 1950). 

[10] See Chapter 5 of Glock and Stark, op. cit. 

[11] Calculated from table on page 89 of Glock & Stark, op. cit. 

[12] I have offered more thorough and comprehensive analyses of race questions among Mormons in the following works: “Mormonism and Secular Attitudes toward Negroes,” Pacific Sociological Review 9 (Fall, 1966), 91-99; “Mormonism and the Negro: Faith, Folklore, and Civil Rights,” Dialogue 2 (Winter, 1967), 19-39; “Mormon Semitism and Anti-Semitism,” Sociological Analysis, 29 (Spring, 1968), 11-27; and my unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, “Mormonism and Minorities,” University of California (Berkeley), 1970. A revised and expanded version of the dissertation will soon be issued by University of California Press under the revised title, Mormons and Minorities. 

[13] Armand L. Mauss and Ella D. Lewis Douglas, “Religious and Secular Factors in the Race Attitudes of Logan, Utah Residents,” Proceedings of the Utah Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters, 45 (Fall, 1968). 

[14] Jules Isaac, The Teaching of Contempt: Christian Roots of Anti-Semitism (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965).

[15] Lynn M. Hilton, The Jews, a Promised People (Provo, Utah: B.Y.U. Extension Publications, 1958).

[16] Charles Y. Glock and Rodney Stark, op. cit.; also, Rodney Stark, et. al., Wayward Shepherds: Prejudice among the Protestant Clergy (New York: Harper and Row, 1970).

[17] Armand L. Mauss, in Sociological .Analysis, op. cit.; also, Chapters 4, 5 and 6 of above cited dissertation. 

[18] Glock and Stark, op. cit., p. 129. 

[19] A less well-known case serves to illustrate the potential effect of such attitudes. In a study commissioned and published by the New Zealand National Council of Churches, the sociologist Hans Mol wrote “The Mormons are the most successful of all churches in the implementation of a policy of integration . . . This applies to the absolute numbers of Maoris who are in meaningful interaction with Pakehas (white men) in face-to-face religious groups. It also applies to their effectiveness in reaching and moulding their members into cohesive communities which are the best antidote to the social disorganization of the urban Maori migrant.” Religion and Race in New Zealand, Hans Mol, (Christchurch, N.Z.: National Council of Churches, 1966), pp. 46-47. This study does not resolve whether the rather dramatic difference between Mormon policies and those of other denominations, and their respective degrees of effectiveness, are the result of theology (Mormons considering Maoris Lamanites), Mormonism being a “culture- transcending faith,” or the possibility that Mormonism “offers a modern non-Maori culture . . . which has the advantage of being also non-Pakeha.” (p. 59). Such questions remain unanswered.

[20] Stephen G. Taggart, Mormonism”s Negro Policy: Social and Historical Origins (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1970); and Lester Bush’s commentary on Taggart’s book Dialogue 4 (Winter 1969). 

[21] Armand L. Mauss, Pacific Sociological Review, op. cit.; and dissertation cited above, Chapters 7, 8 and 9. See also David L. Brewer, “Utah Elites and Utah Racial Norms,” unpublished dissertation, University of Utah, 1966, and a shorter version of same, “Religious Resistance to Changing Beliefs about Race,” Pacific Sociological Review, 13 (Summer, 1970) 163-170. Brewer’s study, implicitly if not explicitly, purports to find a tie between Mormon religious indoctrination (on the race issue) and the conservatism of Mormons in civil rights matters, which would be in direct contradiction to the conclusions of my study reported earlier in the same journal (see above). While Brewer’s study is well done, given its unavoidable limitations of data and scope, it cannot provide the warrant for contradicting my findings, for the following reasons: (1) It is a study of the race attitudes of Utah elites (not the general church membership) and thus is even more limited in its generalizability than is my earlier study of three wards; (2) Generalizations from the leadership of an organization to its membership are too hazardous to take for granted, as is amply proved by the differences in birth control attitudes (and practices) as between the Catholic clergy and the Catholic laity; (3) Of all the elites which Brewer studied, the church elite was the only one where denominational affiliation made any difference in racial attitudes, even though the other elites whose attitudes he studied (i.e. legal, academic, medical, economic, and governmental elites) were also predominantly L.D.S. in their affiliation; and (4) the chief indirect evidence which Brewer cites for a “carry-over” of the Church policy into secular civil matters is the observation that “in 1964, Utah was the only state outside the Southern and border states which had not passed civil rights laws in either public accommodations, employment, or housing.” The saliency of that observation, to say nothing of its accuracy, is highly doubtful in light of the fact that in November, 1964, the voters of California (including a very small Mormon minority!) passed “Proposition 14,” which effectively wiped off the books most of the civil rights legislation that had accumulated in that state. The fact that the voters’ action was subsequently negated by the courts does not in the least restore the shattered argument that one can automatically link the political behavior of a people to the presumably “reactionary” stance of their church leaders!

[22] Mauss, Pacific Sociological Review, op. cit. 

[23] Glock & Stark, op. cit., Chapter 10. 

[24] Although Glock and Stark did not develop comparable indices of anti-Black attitudes in their work, my earlier article (PSR) suggests that once again Mormons would compare favorably to most other denominations in their rates of anti-Black prejudice. (Compare my PSR article with Glock and Stark, Chapt. 10.)

[25] See my forthcoming book, University of California Press, op. cit. 

[26] Glock & Stark, op. cit., Chapter 5. 

[27] Melvin L. DeFleur and Frank R. Westie, “Verbal Attitudes and Overt Acts: An Experiment on the Salience of Attitudes,” American Sociological Review, 33 (December, 1963) 667-73; and I. Ajzen & M. Fishbein, “The Prediction of Behavior from Attitudinal and Normative Variables,” Journal of Experimental and Social Psychology, 6 (December, 1970) 667-73; and many other such studies.