It's been almost 20 yrs since living there but is the 24th of July still more celebrated in Utah than the 4th??

That's right. All we do on the 4th of July is burn American flags and secretly plot to avenge the death of Joseph Smith upon the wicked leaders of this wicked country.

One day soon we'll get our man in the White House, and then you'll find out what terror really means. There will be a Danite enforcer in every neighborhood, and all the beer sold in the country will be limited to 3.2% alcohol content by volume.

What do Danite enforcers do, Will?

I moved from Utah to NC in 1993....but when I lived in Utah, the celebrations between July 4th and July 24th were pretty even. Both events were pretty big....parades, fireworks, etc.

My kids thought it was kind of cool that there were two holidays in July where you got to shoot off fireworks.

Oh...this comment is for JG....At the moment, I am typing on my laptop from the comfort of my 5 Star hotel overlooking Wrightsville Beach. I can see them shooting off fireworks from my window, which overlooks the harbor.

*sigh* Too bad we go home Sunday. It's been a nice week.

Oh. Now yer just ASKIN' for it!


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Note the fine print in leather.

Well I'm actually up here at my place in Park City this weekend. Absolutely gorgeous today, and while I don't spend much time in Provo, I do enjoy Utah. Specially the golf, ski and biking. And now that the liquor laws have changed..... I actually preferred the old laws from the 80s when you could brown bag it for just a corkage fee. Made a great bottle of Opus a lot cheaper for dinner!!!

Anyway, did not mean to offend the zealots like WS, but it was very clear, when I lived here full time in my earlier years, the "days of 47" were a lot bigger event than the 4th. I suspect as with most in mormonism that the internet has had an impact on that as well.

But ya'll got some great golf courses up here. Actually went down the hill and played Salt Lake Country Club today with a friend of mine from Zion's Bank. Had no idea that so many prominent church authorities were members there. And it still served liquor!!!

Have a bang tonight!

I'm not a native Utahn, but I don't recall ever noticing that the 24 July celebration was bigger than the 4 July celebration. If anything, it's always seemed a bit smaller to me.

The Stadium of Fire celebration at the BYU football stadium on Independence Day, to say nothing of the overall Freedom Festival of which it's a part, is certainly bigger than anything that Utah Valley does for Pioneer Day.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stadium_of_Fire

http://www.freedomfestival.org/public/stadium

Well its great to see the state of Utah finally came around to recognizing america's greatness. It took them a long time to respect Martin Luther King and womens rights. Recognizing the country's independence over "this is the place" was probably inevitable as well again with a little public pressure. Always seems to move the prophet!

You're seriously trying to suggest that, say, David O. McKay (d. 1970) and Ezra Taft Benson (d. 1994) weren't patriotic Americans?

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 5747711503

Do you know anything about them at all?

What evidence do you have to demonstrate that Utahns, within living memory, have (compared to citizens of other states) failed to recognize "America's greatness"?

Excepting a few two-to-six-month-long sojourns elsewhere, I've lived in Utah pretty much since the fall of 1985, and, prior to that, except for summers, from 1970-1972 and from 1974-1977. Utah has always been seen, during this period, as conservative, Republican, and, if anything, hyper-patriotic.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_suffrage_in_Utah

Women received the right to vote in Utah in 1870. The Nineteenth Amendment granted them the right to vote nationally in 1920.


What "pressure"?

What change?

I think it was Arizona that had the problem with MLK Day.

What do you have in mind, when you say "women's rights"? Passage of the ERA?

DCP wrote:



I don't doubt they were.

What do you think about the leadership circa 1885 or thereabouts (I'm specifically thinking of the conference in Logan.)?

Would you call those apostles who spoke in Logan patriotic Americans?

Come on now Mr Peterson!

You really believe there was no pressure on ur church to do away w polygamy???

You really believe there was no pressure on ur church to acknowledge the equal salvation of God's children born without white skin???

And you really believe that public pressure did not impact ur church's decision to NOT perform temple proxy baptisms on just anyone???

All these changes were made because of public pressure and outrage.

If I'm wrong, most here would love to hear your cup runneth over!

Joey, it's not going to work.

You suggested just above that, within your living memory, Mormons were noticeably indifferent toward patriotism and Independence Day.

Your suggestion was not only wrong, but ludicrous. And it's not going to help you to try to change the subject.


Nineteenth-century Mormon attitudes toward the federal government were, not surprisingly, complex and often negative.

But Joey was alleging a change (under pressure) from indifference (if not hostility) to patriotism since he lived in Utah a couple of decades or so ago.

He's wrong.

I thought you said you hadn't lived in Utah for 20 years?

From the OP:

Last I looked at the map, Park City was still part of Utah.

Technically, u r correct. We bought this place 2 summers ago. But for the few times I use it, I do not consider it home! And this was the first 4th I had spent here since working down in the Beneficial Life tower and living in Sugar House back in the days of the famous flood! (Ah yes, who can forget the Bangerter Pumps in the west deser!)

Actually,what I suggested, based on actual experience, was that the 24th was more celebrated than the 4th when I lived here. Pretty obvious to me then that it was.

What I also stated, and provided factual evidence in support of was that the mormon church and, I suppose, the theocracy of Utah, has always been influenced by public pressure. Hell, even the liquor laws in Utah changed as a result of the pressure!

Deal with the facts and issues of what was said Danny as opposed to always putting up your smoke screens of avoidance!

This ain't the Olivewood Bookstore bro!

Your suggestion was that, twenty years ago, when you lived in Utah (as opposed to having a place in Park City, I guess), the 24th was more celebrated than was the 4th of July. That would be roughly 1989.

Having lived in Utah in 1989, and since 1989, and, off and on, for a total of about nine years prior to 1989, I report my own perception, which is that 24 July was not more heavily celebrated in Utah in 1989 than was 4 July.

Having been informed that 24 July is not now more heavily celebrated in Utah than 4 July, and drawing on your disputed claim that it once was, you announced, as if it were fact, that there has been a change.

You also suggested a reason why 24 July was allegedly once more heavily celebrated in Utah than is 4 July -- a claim that I dispute in the first place: The reason you suggested is that, twenty years or so ago, Mormons didn't much "recognize America's greatness." But this is something that nobody who has really known Utah since at least 1950 would ever suggest, since Utahns in general and Mormons in particular tend to be regarded, and have been regarded since at least 1950, as tending overwhelmingly toward hyperpatriotism.

(That Mormons ever failed to "recognize America's greatness" is not only factually dubious, to put it mildly, but seems extraordinarily unlikely in view of the fact that canonical Mormon scripture announces that it was God himself who "established the Constitution of this land, by the hands of wise men whom I [God] raised up unto this very purpose, and redeemed the land by the shedding of blood" [Doctrine and Covenants 101:80], and that God says that the Constitution "should be maintained for the rights and protection of all flesh, according to just and holy principles" [Doctrine and Covenants 101:77]. "May those principles," prayed Joseph Smith in the canonized 1836 dedicatory prayer for the Kirtland Temple, "which were so honorably and nobly defended, namely, the Constitution of our land, by our fathers, be established forever" [Doctrine and Covenants 109:54]. No other American faith gives the Founding of the United States official status in its canonical scriptures.)


Are you now backing away from your suggestion, specifically, that the dubious change that you assert from supposed Mormon failure to "recognize America's greatness" in 1989 to today's apparent recognition of that greatness came about because of vague, undemonstrated, and undocumented "pressure" from outside?

If so, good.


You've offered no facts.

I haven't avoided your assertions; I've flatly contradicted and refuted them.

All that's really left to you is insults and mockery. Your specialty, it seems.


Quite true. In my experience, events and exchanges there have been both substantive and civil.

Many of the Utah Mormons I've known that have moved out here to NC have been shocked that nobody, including the members here, cares in the slightest about July 24th. Each year the locals get a good laugh at the excitement and subsequent confusion and disappointment at the new move-ins into the ward.

Oh geeeez. How many parades and firework shows in Utah were done on either the 3rd of July or the 5th of July when the 4th landed on a Sunday?????

Hyperpatriotism ???? Perhaps a Provo definition is called for here!!!!



And let's not forget [Doctrine and Covenants 58:21] "Let no man break the laws of the land, for he that keepeth the laws of God hath no need to break the laws of the land." Something that your founding prophet seemed to pay little attention to during his moments of need/desire.

I think there is something about words vs actions here!

Joey wrote:



And we know how much truck the 'law-abiding Mormons' gave to that scripture during the round-up in the late 1880s, don't we.

Weren't they flying the U.S. flag at half mast during this period?

When did the Mormons actually start believing it was a good idea to follow the laws of the land, anyway? Which Prophet got that finally turned around? I'm guessing it took place around the same time they took the 'oath' out of the temple ceremony. Anyone have a better idea?

Watching the Tabernacle Choir singing at Presidential inauguration ceremonies would make one think they always loved their country, but I guess it wasn't always so. Maybe it is a bread and butter thing: which side and all that.