Man and Wives
Contrary to the impression given by Stanley Kurtz, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints did not attempt to keep its followers illiterate (“Polygamy Versus Democracy,” June 5). The Mormons established numerous schools, including the University of Utah and Brigham Young University, and, in order to facilitate the assimilation of large numbers of foreign converts, experimented with phonetic spelling reforms.
Additionally, views of women in 19th-century Mormonism cannot be equated with the harems of the Ottoman sultans or with sub-Saharan polygamy. When Utah’s territorial legislature approved female suffrage in 1870–fully 50 years before the Nineteenth Amendment granted women the right to vote in national elections–it enfranchised more than 17,000 women, thus giving Utah the largest population of female voters in the world. (They were disfranchised by the Edmunds-Tucker Act of 1887, part of the federal campaign against Mormons that Kurtz celebrates as a triumph for democracy.) And where is the evidence that there was less love in 19th century Mormon marriages than among their non-Mormon contemporaries?
Daniel C. Peterson
Provo, Utah
Stanley Kurtz assumes the Reynolds decision was not only correctly decided but that its rationale was sound. But with its extreme application of logic, Reynolds was deeply flawed. No matter what one thinks of polygamy, it is undeniable that the Mormons were treated unjustly. After the Mormons settled in Utah, the federal government arbitrarily decided these peaceful, prosperous, and isolated people were a threat to American “democracy” and, with the help of Reynolds, impugned their character, confiscated their properties, and coerced them to adopt a more secular culture (notably through the establishment of public education).
Why besmirch innocent people to portray the lunacy of gay marriage? Gay marriage should be opposed because it is unsound public policy, not because early Mormons were somehow antidemocratic.
Paul T. Mero
Salt Lake City, Utah
They Fought the Law . . .
Regarding Fred Barnes’s “How to Lose the House” (May 29): I owned and operated businesses in Florida that were very dependent on Hispanics as customers and employees. My efforts, and the additional costs, to make sure I operated within the law appear now to have been a waste of time. I consider myself a compassionate conservative, but never have I thought that this includes encouraging amnesty for those who break the law. If the federal government offers amnesty for illegal aliens, I would not be surprised if a movement arises for a third political party.
Houston E. Ball
Knoxville, Tenn.
Nuclear Options
William Tucker rejoices over the momentum to revive nuclear electricity as the purported solution to global warming-without even mentioning two dreadful but very probable consequences (“Nuclear Proliferation,” June 5). First, terrorists would have easier access to plutonium and partially enriched uranium for making nuclear explosives. Second, gene-based health miseries would multiply due to increased exposure to nuclear pollutants, especially from sloppy handling of radioactive wastes in third-world nations. Greater energy efficiency would provide far more “new” energy than would thousands of additional nuclear power plants. Additionally, energy efficiency produces no radioactive targets for terrorists, no legacy of radioactive poisons for our descendants to try containing for thousands of years, and no exposure to ionizing radiation.
John W. Gofman
Berkeley, Calif.
Egan O’Connor
San Francisco, Calif.
