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Show A-10 The Park Record Wed/Thurs/Fri, December 23-25, 2020 Mormons add call to eradicate prejudice, racism to handbook The move follows recent comments from faith’s leaders BRADY MCCOMBS Associated Press SALT LAKE CITY — The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints added new language to the faith's handbook Friday imploring members to root out prejudice and racism, adding significance and permanence to recent comments by top leaders on one of the most sensitive topics in the church's history. The faith's past ban on Black men in the lay priesthood, which stood until 1978, remains a delicate issue for members and non-members alike. The church disavowed the ban in a 2013 essay, saying it was enacted during an era of great racial divide that influenced the church's early teachings, but it never issued a formal apology — a sore spot for some members. Racial injustice has since surged to the forefront of global consciousness following the police killing of George Floyd, a Black man, in Minnesota that led to widespread protests this summer. In the handbook from the faith widely known as the Mormon church, the new section on prejudice echoes advice in a string of speeches by top leaders this year, reminding 16 million members around the globe that a person's standing with God depends on devotion to the commandments, not the color of their skin. “The church calls on all people to abandon attitudes and actions of prejudice toward any group or individuals,” it said. “Members of the church should lead out in promoting respect for all of God's children.” It notes that prejudice can be based on “race, ethnicity, nationality, tribe, gender, age, disability, socioeconomic status, religious belief or nonbelief, and sexual orientation.” The guidance is latest sign of a more strident tone church leaders have been trying to take against racism in the last five years, said W. Paul Reeve, the Simmons professor of Mormon studies at the University of Utah. The handbook entry gives the message more “cachet and power,” he said. “It signals an ongoing commitment to eradicate or even be at the forefront of eradicating racial prejudice,” Reeve said. “It is now part of the official handbook that local leaders have and can refer to in counseling with their members and also in giving guidance and direction from the pulpit.” Preaching for the elimination of racism in speeches and handbook entries is a step in the right direction, but the faith must back that with action to combat systemic racism that remains in the church, said Phylicia Norris-Jimenez, a Black church member from Dallas. She is part of the grassroots Black LDS Legacy Committee, a group of women who organize annual conferences to discuss race issues in the faith. Members who exhibit racist behaviors should be held accountable, maybe even forced to go before disciplinary councils, she said. “We can say all these really nice things, but our members are still ignorant as to what it (racism) even means,” Norris-Jimenez said. “They are unwilling to learn what that looks in order to be better.” Rooting out racism is becoming a hallmark of church President Russell M. Nelson's tenure, said Patrick Mason, a religious scholar who is the Arrington Chair of Mormon History and Culture at Utah State University. Since assuming the top post in 2018, he has preached for racial harmony and mutual respect and launched a formal partnership with the NAACP. Nelson, a 96-year-old former heart surgeon, delivered a speech about racism at a church conference in October and echoed those sentiments in a speech to students at church-owned Brigham Young University. Including a strongly worded edict in the handbook gives the message more gravity because the document is considered the law within the church, Mason said. Younger members especially will be thrilled because they want the church to be proactive about addressing racism due to the faith's history, he said. “On the one hand, you should say, ‘Do you really need something in a handbook to tell you to not be prejudiced?’” Mason said. “On the other hand, given not only human history but Mormon history, we do know that these kind of official statements do matter. We do know that racial prejudice and other forms of prejudice are still a problem within the church.” The church grew more diverse in 2018 when it selected the first-ever Latin American and person of Asian ancestry to an all-male top governing panel. But there are still no Black men on the panel. Black members make up a tiny percentage of church membership. The handbook changes also include a new warning to rely on credible information and avoid sources that promote “baseless conspiracy theories.” The new section instructs members to seek out and share only “credible, reliable, and factual sources of information.” It warns against unreliable sources that try to promote “promote anger, contention, fear, or baseless conspiracy theories.” That section appears to be driven by some church members promoting baseless claims about fraud in the presidential election or scoffing at the notion that masks help prevent the spread of COVID-19, Reeve said. “It certainly speaks to the current moment we are in,” Reeve said. Feds: More must be done to protect Colorado River Drought, climate change straining vital water source FELICIA FONSECA Associated Press Studies show that when you buy from an independent, locally owned business, rather than a nationally owned business, significantly more of your money is used to make purchases from other local businesses, service providers and farms continuing to strengthen the economic base of the community. FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — A set of guidelines for managing the Colorado River helped several states through a dry spell, but it's not enough to keep key reservoirs in the American West from plummeting amid persistent drought and climate change, according to a U.S. report released Friday. Millions of people in seven states and Mexico rely on the river for drinking water and growing crops. The 2007 guidelines were meant to lessen the blow of any future cuts in the water supply for growing areas, giving states an idea of what to expect each year and ways to manage the risks. The report by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation found that the guidelines provided stability, along with other agreements among the states and with Mexico, but they won't be enough to sustain a region that's getting warmer and drier and has demanded more from the Colorado River. The guidelines and an overlapping drought contingency plan expire in 2026. Officials in Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, California and Nevada told the Interior Department on Thursday that they have started talking about what comes next. Tom Buschatzke, director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources, said it won't be easy. “People dig in,” he said. “The further you go, the more they find a way to get out of that hole they've dug, and that's just kind of how it works.” The Bureau of Reclamation was tasked with reviewing the effectiveness of the 2007 guidelines before year's end to help with a baseline for the new negotiations. The guidelines spelled out the operations of the nation's two largest manmade lakes — Lake Powell along the Arizona-Utah border and Lake Mead along the Arizona-Nevada border — outlining what happens when the river can't supply the water that states were promised in the 1920s. The guidelines allow water to be stored in Lake Mead, the reservoir created by the Hoover Dam. They set marks for the lake that would trigger water cuts to Nevada and Arizona. California and Mexico have been looped in on possible cuts in other plans. The guidelines were meant to be flexible and encourage consensus among states, rather than the federal government dictating management of the river, and to avoid litigation because states were required to consult with each other before suing. “As Westerners, we were all too familiar with the negative consequences of lawsuits challenging water operations in basins across the West,” Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Brenda Burman wrote in the report's foreword. “Once litigation starts, flexibility, innovation and problem solving often give way to rigid positioning and protection of positions.” In comments before the report was finalized, Native American tribes said they largely were left out of the discussions that led to the guidelines and want a bigger role in the next round of talks, with recognition of their sovereign status. They hold the rights to 3.4 million acre-feet of water annually in the Colorado River basin. Not all tribes, including the Navajo Nation and Hopi Tribe in northwestern Arizona, have secured the legal right to the water they claim in the basin. Burman said the Bureau of Reclamation, states, tribes and others will focus in the weeks ahead on creating timelines for the negotiations. “We all will need to work more efficiently and faster than we typically have in the past,” she said Friday in a virtual meeting of Colorado River water users. This year “has taught us, if we know anything, that we cannot take time for granted.” When the 2007 guidelines took effect, Lake Powell and Lake Mead together were about half full. Conservation, delayed water deliveries, a balancing act and other measures have kept them hovering at that level. States, tribes, cities and other water users are expected to use the Bureau of Reclamation report as a resource for deciding what will replace the guidelines. Southern Nevada gets about 90% of its water from the Colorado River. The entity that manages it, the Southern Nevada Water Authority, said conservation has been a key part of weathering the drought. That includes a program that provides financial incentives for residents and businesses to get rid of lawns. Arizona got a head-start on the work this year when it reassembled a group that worked on the state's drought contingency plan. It has set some principles including not leasing water to other states or users, which some tribes want to do. “Of course, one of the huge principles is we want to share the benefits of the system but also the risks of the system equitably across all the states and in Mexico,” Buschatzke said. |