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Show j r - - We Said It - - . Pari-mutuel heathens on right track to line pockets Pari-mutuel lobbyists and our Capitol Hill bishopric. ..er, legislators (pardon me for the Freudian Freu-dian slip), like deity, move in mysterious ways, their wonders to perform. Wi 1 On"ThBr Mark by Mark Eddington would, supporters said, put more dollars and cents into education than a few good kicks to the head would put sense in members of the state legislature. With all those greenbacks and jobs flooding the backwater towns like Delta, Roosevelt and Vernal, the desert would truly blossom as the rose and citizens would no longer have to smell the offending stench of Utah betting money funding fun-ding schools in Idaho and Wyoming. Wyom-ing. Tourism, always a problem in many a one-horse or even 100-horse 100-horse town, isn't as much of a boon in Parowan as it is in Provo. As hard as it is for many lawmakers extolling ex-tolling the benefits of tourism to believe, tourists like something to see or do on their travels. It's not easy enticing visitors to out-of-the-way towns with a Lenny's Laundromat Laun-dromat or Martha's Gag -n- Puke. No problem, pari-mutuel lobbyists would argue. We have one the nation's largest horse industries. in-dustries. It's non-polluting, would draw tourists like flies, provide jobs, is just itching to get started and, most important of all... already here! But that was before the always obscure if non-existent line separating church and state became even more so with the intervention of the Mormon Church. When that intervention made it obvious the bill allowing voters in each county to decide the issue for themselves stood little chance of passage, pari-mutuel pari-mutuel bill sponsor. Rep. David Adams, R-Monticello, abandoned ship and asked for a bailout for the state's horse industry. When the going got tough, pari-mutuel pari-mutuel proponents got down on their hands and knees to beg for tax incentives and a $200,000 a year subsidy for the horse industry. So much for the broad-based coalition. It is now clearly just another narrow special interest group groveling for its share of the state's budgetary pie. Now, not only will Utah dollars continue to subsidize education in other states, but taxpayers will pay additional taxes to subsidize local breeders in their efforts to provide championship-caliber race horses to compete elsewhere. Where is the logic in that? The lack of perseverance exhibited ex-hibited by the bill's supporters was matched only by the political cowardice displayed by many Utah lawmakers. News reports had no sooner indicated the pari-mutuel bill was only a few votes shy of the simple majority required for passage in both houses when LDS leaders stepped in, publishing a statement condemning pari-mutuel and began putting pressure to bear on individual legislators. Oh sure, the lawmakers all said the right things. Sen. Haven Barlow's response to the church statement was typical of the replies of many when asked about what influence in-fluence the church would have. "I represent all the people and not just Mormons. I'm very sensitive sen-sitive to that," he said. Yet just days later, Barlow, Rep. Ann S medley and other local legislators were tripping all over each other to see who would be the first to get in line with the church pronouncement. While most citizens would not dispute the right of a church to take a stand on what a moral issue, the actions Mormon Church leaders took to intimidate lawmakers and make it politically unpalatable for them to represent all Utahns offended many, including some ac-ive ac-ive Mormons who felt the church leadership had crossed the line When rank and file Mormons were treated to a carefully orchestrated or-chestrated diatribe on the evils of pari-mutuel in ward meetings last Sunday at the behest of church leaders and individual lawmakers received letters stating the chur position, a few eyebrows were :fj ed. But when it was discovered i church informational packet distributed to 13 Mormon regional representatives contained a Ust of members of the Utah House of Representatives Rep-resentatives Rules CommifV0 with their LDS priesuA , tions, some openly queuoncd whether church leaders were threatening the church status of Mormon lawmakers if they approved approv-ed the pari-mutuel bilL Church officials have been quick to deny such intentions and say the "rogue page" was an innocent accident that was put in the packet by a staffer out of haste. The real question is what this person was doing do-ing with that kind of information in the first place. Was it really an accident? Or, was it there to he p prominent Mormon leaders bull legislators who were merA 0 the church. I r SEE HEATHENS O- - Let's see, who to skewer first? With so many targets, that is the obvious question. How about racetrack lobbyists? Citizens To Put Utah First represented itself as a broad-based coalition made up of people in the horse industry, businessmen, busi-nessmen, educators and concerned citizens. Their slogan was to put Utahns first. Then, when their pari-mutuel pari-mutuel chips were down because of the stance of the LDS church, their rhetoric changed to reveal their "me first and to hell with the rest" mentality. Racetrack betting was portrayed as an all-purpose panacea to cure all of Utah's education funding ills. It Heathens CONTINUED FROM PG.4 When a legislator was overheard asking Mormon President Joseph Smith how he was able to do such a good job governing his people and preserving preser-ving such perfect order, Smith was quoted in the November 1851 issue of the Millennial Star as having repUed, "We teach them correct principles and they govern themselves." Sadly, what was once true in Nauvoo no longer seems to be much in evidence. Today, with the Utah Legislature making decisions based on the direction of Mormon Church leaders ramer than the people, Utahns are fast becoming accustomed to having their Uves governed for them. And that is the real tragedy, not the amount of potential poten-tial tax revenues lost because Utahns must travel to other states to place a $2 bet at a pari-mutuel pari-mutuel window. |