This past year, there has been a spike in arsons and vandalism targeting Latter-day Saint meetinghouses. Today, the Salt Lake Tribune's Nate Carlisle asked why. He identified a 'growing trend' of arsons, but he said the reasons remain "elusive." Perhaps this is because he only considered the cases of arson and not the larger picture of vandalism and violence.
A list of anti-Mormon incidents from 1996 to 2014 shows 73 separate instances in that period. There was a discernible increase from 2008 to 2012. During this period, increased visibility of the Church due to its support of Proposition 8 and Mitt Romney's presidential campaigns likely contributed to the rise. When circumstances put the Church in the media spotlight, anti-Mormon incidents always increase. In the past two years, Church policies on LGBTQ issues have put it in the headlines again in a negative light.
This is not to say that it is the media's fault. There is generally a widespread tolerance of anti-Mormon opinions and behavior by society in general. Among conservative Christians, anti-Mormonism is actively taught by up to 800 anti-Mormon "ministries" and parachurches. Many of these purveyors of anti-Mormon information are commercial, for-profit enterprises. They sell CDs and literature, and they offer seminars/conferences held at various churches to warn Christians of the "danger" Mormonism represents. One megachurch in Texas shows its youth group the anti-Mormon film, The Godmakers, every quarter, to "inoculate" them from positive contacts thy have with their Mormon peers at school.
To liberals, the Church represents a worldview they repudiate and fear. They consider religion oppressive, patriarchal, and anti-gay. They hate all religion, but mostly they hate the Church because it is well-organized and it often opposes their agenda. The Salt Lake Tribune, for example, was founded by anti-Mormon apostates called "Godbeites," who rebelled against Brigham Young and the United Order in the nineteenth century. The Godbeites worked against the saints' interests and stoked hatred of Mormons among Americans outside the territory before statehood. That pattern continues today.
Sigmund Freud wrote, "It is always possible to bind together a considerable number of people in love, so long as there are other people left over to receive the manifestations of their aggression." In today's society, racism, sexism, and anti-Semitism are no longer tolerated. They still exist, but it is not acceptable to openly attack women, Blacks, Hispanics, Jews, etc. Anti-Muslim sentiment is muted because of the perception that Muslims fight back. Draw a cartoon of Muhammed and your office might mysteriously explode. (Case in point: the blasphemous and offensive Book of Mormon musical would never be produced about the Qur'an, would it?) There are groups like CAIR, the Anti-Defamation League, La Raza, and the NAACP that defend the interests of their respective groups. Mormons have no such groups that defend us. It is still considered OK to bash Mormonism. Mormonism doesn't fight back.
Around the world, Mormon missionaries are often the target of violence. The article mentioned above doesn't consider anti-Mormon incidents that are not arson. There are many incidents of vandalism of Mormons' cars and homes. In 2010, in West Linn, Oregon, a school library was trashed and vandalized. Police found anti-Mormon slogans spray-painted on the walls and a dagger stabbed into a Book of Mormon on the librarian's workstation. The librarian was a Latter-day Saint. A Texas family in 2008 found the words "Mormons die" spray-painted onto their home. Anti-Mormons regularly protest and harass visitors to temple open houses and church pageants.
The general acceptance of anti-Mormonism by both the left and the right leave Mormons open and defenseless against such attacks. During the years leading up to the Civil War, Mormons became a whipping horse because of polygamy, one of the "twin evils of barbarism" along with slavery. The new Republican party attacked the Democrats over their states' rights claims to support of slavery, saying that states' rights would allow the practice of polygamy in Utah. Dems, seeking to not be cornered by their political foes, blasted polygamy to protect their stand on slavery. Both sides found a common foe to divert media attention and take the heat off of them for a time.
The FBI documented seven steps in a hate model that explains the pattern of hatred, marginalization, and violence. Those steps include haters gathering, identifying themselves as different from their target, disparaging the target, taunting the target, attacks without weapons, attacks with weapons, and finally, destroying the target. All those steps are present in anti-Mormonism today. Thankfully, Mormonism itself is too big to destroy, but the individual targets of arson are manifestations of those latter steps in the pattern. So long as society thinks its OK to bash Mormonism, anti-Mormon arsons, vandalism, and violence will continue. It isn't elusive at all.
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