Thanks for being some pissy-ass liberal fucks to make Idaho look like it's full of crap. I live in Idaho. Why? Why? I am a huge liberal. I VOTED FOR COBB. But articles and perspectives like this bleed intolerance and just make me so sad, and makes it unbearable for me to live in the liberal meccas in the US.

Oddly, the Mormons are nice and relatively non judgmental.

Thanks for the hate article!

Loving it in Idaho... though not in Rexburg...

i know why mormons generally have supported the war in iraq. the entire premise of their support for the war is based upon their undying allegience to the political party in america which is pro life. there is no other political allegience in america more blatant.

if al gore had been president and had waged a war in iraq, mormons would have been against the war. generally, they cannot believe that a person who is pro choice politically, can be trusted to make sound decisions.

generally, what mormons failed to see coming was a party who actually would support a pro life position on abortion, but not on war. whatever the number of people collaterally damaged by our successful attempt at removing sadaam husein from his imperialship, it is more than one.

what i am trying to say is: because mormons are so prone to respecting authority, they got swindled by a party which knew this to be the case and used it against them.

as a mormon you might argue, "it is better that one man perish, than a whole nation dwindle in unbelief." -nephi, from book of mormon

the problem with this argument is: sadaam hasn't perished, he is still alive. thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands of people in iraq, have perished. there is no way mormons would still support this war if al gore were president. (they are a vacuuos people).

by the way, i once visited rexburg. i drove in on a friday night and snuck in to my girlfriend's dorm room. we later left and went over to some friends where we all enjoyed a couple of cases of beer.

I can't believe there are still Mormons around. It's a cult that just won't die.

Joseph Smith finds golden tablets with another testament of Jee-bus? Puh-leeze. What a crock of sh!t.

there are plenty of judgmental mormons out there, just as there are judgmental people of all faiths, creeds and beliefs.

some mormons, particularly those in areas where there is a diversity of opinion, tend to be rather open (relatively speaking) and thoughtful people. others, like people in any faith where there is a monpoly on an area, can be remarkably closed-minded.

I love Tim Grieve's writing, but I think the demographic comparison he makes to a county in Utah must refer to Utah County, where Provo (and the main BYU campus) is located. Salt Lake County is about 85% white, and our elected county executive (County Mayor Peter Corroon) is a Democrat. An almost-Blue county!

Those idiots are idiots.

Scientology and LDS are separated by a century and a buttload of money. It's a cult, bigtime, and as insular and exclusive as any KKK kounty in Mississippi. They dress nice. They're polite. If you disagree with them, they'll shun your infidel ass until you move. We lived in Mormon country for ten years, and it was like being black in Birmingham in 1955. Don't let the veneer fool ya. they're bigots, and proud of it.

Washington: We're left of Idaho, but then again, who isn't?

(From the Seattle area's "Almost Live" TV comedy show a few years ago.)

I live 90 miles south of Rexburg and even onced dated a girl from there. I was a long hair hippie wanna-be at the time and the students of the college looked at me like the zoombies of Dawn of the Dead looked at their victims. It was creepy.

The "MOs" as we call them, can be the nicest people, but get too many of them concentrated in one place and they can be as suffocating as any dominant religious group.

And as we say around here, "Scientology -- making the Mormans look normal".

Dear Hmmpf,

The article does not demonize Idaho and certainly can’t be characterized as a ‘hate article’. What the author is pointing out is that there is a county in Idaho that is overwhelmingly white, Mormon and Republican and that despite the recent meltdown of the Republican Party they remain party loyalists even though they may be mildly disappointed by the administration that they help put in office. Anyone who has spent any time in Rexburg or any other predominantly Mormon community knows that this is a relatively fair assessment. So don’t get your knickers in a twist. We are all aware that Idaho is a lovely state full of lovely people and this article was in no way an indictment of Idahoans in general.

Also, Zollinger (comment above) is partially right in his assessment that Mormons have an obsequious allegiance to the pro-life stance of the Republicans. But I would go further and say that what they have really been swindled by is the pro-family posture (of which pro-life is part and parcel) that the Republicans have been giving lip service to for years. I am, of course, pro-family as well but my idea of pro-family is universal healthcare, good education, a home free of sexual and physical abuse, etc. To the typical Mormon, family values is more a matter of “keep your big government nose out of my family’s business”, educational choice (read; school vouchers), no R rated movies in my community, no access to porn on the internet, no abortion—and lots and lots of kids! It’s a very ‘Father Knows Best’ world they live in. To Mormons, being pro-family is largely concerned with moral issues—not overarching government programs to level the playing field or increase a family’s quality of life. The Republicans have been waging a war on the family for years but Mormons don’t see it for the simple reason that the rhetoric of the Republicans fits snuggly with the moral outlook of the average Mormon (why give more to education when they just use the money to teach our children crap!)

Tim Grieve also made a prescient observation in quoting the gentleman who said that in Rexburg they were better educated and better off than the average American when in fact they were quite average or even below average compared to an average county in a ‘Blue’ state. This is a pathology that is typical in Mormondom. As a group they are taught that they are exceptional and this makes them particularly prone to counting the ‘hits’ while discounting the ‘misses’ when it comes to evaluating their way of life.

Hmmpf also states that “Mormons are oddly nice and relatively non judgmental”. This is only partially true. Mormons are nice and not oddly so. It is a church that puts a great emphasis on social skills and being outwardly tolerant. That is one of the reasons their missionary program is so successful. However, with that said I have to disagree with the judgmental part because they may not be judgmental to your face but they have very definite ideas about your thinking and it is far from non-judgmental! They just talk about you in their self righteously patronizing way after you’ve gone.

At BYU (Provo) there is a sign at the entrance to the campus that reads: ‘The World Is Our Campus’. The running joke was that it should read ‘The Campus Is Our World’. The later is much closer to the truth.

I spent 20 years in Provo which is only 80% Republican and 80% Mormon and I thought that was the reddest of red places. I glad someplace finally beat us out in that embarrassing distinction.