MUCH of America was built by religious exiles. Utah was founded by exiles from the United States. After leading his disciples from Ohio, Illinois and Missouri in 1847, Brigham Young, the polygamist leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, chose a plain fringed by the snow-capped Wasatch mountains deep in the desert West as the place to found his Zion, Salt Lake City.
For the next 40 years the Mormons’ insistence on polygamy stopped their homeland being fully accepted into the United States; only after the practice was formally renounced in 1890 could the Utah Territory become a state.
Utah’s curious history still defines it: the state’s population is nearly two-thirds Mormon. And so it may seem a strange place to look for lessons for the rest of America. Yet in recent years Utah has taken a surprising political path. The state is among the most Republican: in 2012 just 25% of its people voted for Barack Obama. Its governor, both senators and the entire congressional delegation are all Republicans. Yet, oddly, it is not the most conservative state in America. In several...
from The Economist: United States http://ift.tt/1zgEyeL
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