Murder on a Summer Day

In May 1835, after a six day trial, five men were acquitted of murder. These weren't random thugs but important members of the community. They included Thomas Sharp a newspaper editor, Colonel Levi Williams of the local militia, Jacob Davis an attorney and state senator, Mark Aldrich a land agent, and William Grover another lawyer. They were the only five men ever brought to trial for a double murder and a double attempted murder that took place on June 27, 1844, 166 years today.

Who were they accused of murdering and trying to kill? None other than the Mormon leaders Joseph Smith Jr. and Hyrum Smith. John Taylor was shot several times but Willard Richards was lucky to walk away uninjured. The five men put on trial were selected out of a list of sixty-five known participants that gathered at Carthage Jail to finally do away with the Mormon prophet. The vast number of those involved in the double homicide was exactly why these men got away with the murder. After all, how could it be proved a specific man fired the fatal bullets?

But that's beside the point. I keep going back to the same question. How did these five intelligent, educated, and sophisticated men ever get involved in what was essentially a 19th century hate crime? These men were "pillars of the community" not the local ruffians. The best I can come up with is the simplest but most likely answer. These normally good and reasonable men were confronted with something different than them, they felt threatened and overreacted.

So, how about today? I can't help but wonder if we Mormons fail to remember this important lesson. It is simply wrong to treat those that are different poorly. We were (and continue to be) victims of intolerance but some days I get the feeling were guilty of perpetrating the same un-Christian behavior. Here are a few examples I have seen:

One of the first type of jokes I remember learning were "Jew jokes." Can you believe that? And this wasn't just a relic from my childhood. I remember being stunned after my mission to hear some of these jokes from other returned missionaries. I was hardly innocent, I was guilty of telling these type of jokes until I joined the army and I actually met a Jew for the first time.

Or I remember the story from a fellow missionary from Washington state. Apparently before his mission he went to BYU and was embarrassed by the homophobic undertone he encountered in the dorms. He told me about an incident when a student journalist wrote an article sympathetic to homosexuals in the university newspaper. According to my fellow missionary his peers were so livid they wanted to hunt this guy down and teach him a lesson. You know, good old mob violence.

And how about the disdain so many Mormons show to Democrats, progressives, and other liberals. It sounds silly but I'm serious. Rory Reid, a Nevada politician, son of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and a BYU grad was asked by a Las Vegas newspaper if he was ever treated poorly by his fellow Mormons for being a Democrat. He shared a story about taking his kids to his local ward house for a Halloween Trunk or Treat only to find in one trunk a cardboard cut out of his father, Senator Reid, hanging by a noose with the word "DEVIL" written across the image's chest. "Try explaining that to your kids," Mr. Reid quipped.

I feel fortunate I no longer live in Utah because when I was there I think I forgot that I belong to a minority group despite said group being the dominant culture in the state. The last thing I want to do is forget that my religious roots are largely established in reaction to intolerance. As one of my college professors explained we can't forget that our people were driven from the United States until we Mormons jumped the border to Mexico to escape persecution. We "jumped" the border? Go figure.