Religion: Mormons & Civil Rights

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Whatever they may do or leave undone about their Negro brethren, most U.S. churches hold that all men are equal before God. One notable exception: the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Book of Mormon teaches that the colored races are descendants of the evil children of Laman and Lemuel, who impiously warred against the good children of Nephi and received their pigmented skin as punishment. Last week a Utah State Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights drew on this Mormon scripture in a scathing report on the state of the tiny nonwhite minority in Utah.

"The Indian in Salt Lake City or Ogden is lost, friendless" and generally out of a job, according to the report. The same is true of the Mexican-American, and the extent of mistreatment of the Negro in employment, restaurant and hotel service, higher education, housing, "is almost impossible to ascertain.

"The Mormon interpretation of the curse of Canaan . . . together with unauthorized, but widely accepted statements by [Mormon] leaders in years past, has led to the view among many Mormon adherents that birth into any race other than white is a result of inferior performance in pre-earth life, and that by righteous living dark-skinned races may again become 'white and delightsome.'. . ."