But why? Why would Romney give the Church equity stakes in bad fast-food chains, second-rate pizza chains, and other such holdings?[fn1]

Taxes. Sure, there may be other reasons, too, but there’s a significant tax advantage to donating appreciated assets to charities.[fn2]

Remember, certain donors to 501(c)(3) organizations, including churches, can take a deduction for donations they make to that organization. An example of how it works: assume that in 2011 I itemized my deductions, that I earned $100,000[fn3], that my marginal tax rate was 25%, and that I wrote a check to the Church for $10,000. As a result of my charitable contribution, I can deduct the $10,000, which lowers my tax bill by $2,500.

And, it turns out, I get the same deduction if, instead of writing a check for $10,000, I donate, for example, stock worth $10,000. I get a deduction for the fair market value of property donated.

But that stock donation may save me more than $2,500 in taxes. Because we don’t know right now what I paid for the stock. Assume, for example, that I paid $1,000 for the stock I donate. If I wanted to get access to its $10,000 of value, I would have to sell the stock. I would realize a gain of $9,000, which would currently be taxed at a 15% rate, so I would owe $1,350 of taxes. In fact, if I sold the stock for $10,000 cash, and took those bills and gave them to my bishop, I would still owe $1,350 in taxes on my gain.

But the gain is not triggered when I donate the stock to the Church. So now I have a $10,000 deduction that saves me $2,500 in taxes, and I have a potential tax liability of $1,350 that will never materialize. And, because money is fungible, by fulfilling my tithing liability with property, I’ve freed up $10,000 of liquid assets to do with as I please.

And what does the Church do with Burger King stock? It has two options: it can put the stock in its investment portfolio, or it can sell the stock and use the $10,000 it realizes (and doesn’t pay taxes on—remember, the Church, like all 501(c)(3)s, doesn’t pay taxes on its investment income) to do whatever it would have done with the $10,000 in cash that I could have donated. I suspect, in general, that the Church (and, frankly, most charities) takes the second route.

—

[fn1] It may be that Romney didn’t donate all of those stocks, but his campaign acknowledges that he donated at least some.

[fn2] Note that, from this point on, any motive I suggest for Romney or the Church is pure conjecture: I don’t know Mitt Romney personally. It is within the realm of possibility that he had substantive non-tax reasons for giving the Church a share of Burger King. That said, I kind of doubt it.

[fn3] I should note that the amount of money I earn is something other than $100,000. But, for the sake of mathematical simplicity, every hypothetical person I deal with earns $100,000.

Am I Siamese?  How many conjoin me? How many compose me? How many do I host? How many have I colonized? How wide does my cheesecloth interviduality spread?

It’s pretty clear, I think, that my “individual” self is largely a story I’m selling myself. Jesus wants me to lose this self and get on with life, but it’s hard. I find that I love this story more than life. At least, I choose the one over the other again and again.

My “self” is a shadow that my multitude casts. The shadow is simple, clean, flat, and black. That simplicity is a fiction. Given where my multitude stands, the cant of the sun, the shape I’m bodying, my shadow may give an accurate adumbration – but the adumbration hides more than it shows.

There’s nothing wrong with shadows. Shadows are real shadows. The trouble starts when, instead of just casting a shadow, I try to identify with it. (O’ that I were my shadow!) The trouble starts when I try to bottle its simplicity, its clean-cut individuality, as the truth about what I really am. Sin is this compulsive attempt to forget the unruly multitudes that compose me and to finally, successfully sync with my shadow. Hell is succeeding.

The main characters in Steven Peck‘s novel, The Scholar of Moab, all display this kind of messy irreducibility. (Read BHodges excellent BCC review here). Here’s the book’s official synopsis:

What happens when a two-headed cowboy, a high school dropout who longs to be a scholar, and a poet who claims to have been abducted by aliens come together in 1970’s Moab, Utah? The Scholar of Moab, a dark-comedy perambulating murder, affairs, and cowboy mysteries in the shadow of the La Sal Mountains.

Young Hyrum Thane, unrefined geological surveyor, steals a massive dictionary out of the Grand County library in a midnight raid, startling the people of Moab into believing a nefarious band of Book of Mormon assassins, the Gadianton Robbers, has arisen again.

Making matters worse, Hyrum’s illicit affair with Dora Tanner, a local poet thought to be mad, ends in the delivery of a premature baby boy who vanishes the night of its birth. Righteous Moabites accuse Dora of its murder, but who really killed their child? Did a coyote dingo the baby? Was it an alien abduction as Dora claims? Was it Hyrum? Or could it have been the only witness to the crime, one of a pair of Oxford-educated conjoined twins who cowboy in the La Sals on sabbatical?

How many is a two-headed cowboy? Riding under the open sun, the cowboy and his horse cast just one (three-headed) shadow.

At one point, early in the novel, the Oxford-educated conjoined twins are in Paris attending a lecture given by the brilliant French obscurantist Gilles Deleuze. Deleuze, working to explain what he calls the Virtual, spots the twins and seizes the illustration:

Suddenly, Delueze pointed at us with his long-nailed finger and said, “There! There is repetition caught in the moment between virtuality and actuality, between possibility and the unification of multiplicity, between the qualitative and the quantitative. There! There is ‘différance’ screaming towards existence, existence sluicing through potentiality, and potential itself skating unforgivingly toward emergent unity.” Thom called us a topological manifold of singularity, a “projection” resisting reduction in complementary planes of asymmetry. (32-33)

Conjoined twins are an easy target if you’re talking about “a topological manifold of singularity” or a “projection resisting reduction in complementary planes of asymmetry,” but Peck’s novel presses the point that the twins are not unique in this respect. Rather, they dramatize for us a general truth about the human condition. To be a human being is to exist simultaneously on complementary but asymmetrical planes. Who doesn’t feel like a repetition caught between virtuality and actuality?

The human way of being is split, composite, spread, distributed, and open-ended. The human way of being is to be of two minds, to depend on bodies we can influence but not control, to think thoughts we don’t understand, to repeat words that are not our own, and to pursue goals we’re not sure we want.

For the conjoined twins, things are even more complex than Deleuze imagined. Doctors discover that the twins have a “third mind” – affectionately referred to by the twins as Marcel – a “neural mass” that is at once a hub, a relay, and something independent of either of its heads. An abstract of the doctor’s report indicates that

at times, the neural mass acts according to the desires of neither twin – e.g., to run from ambiguous danger (one, say, that neither twin has noticed) or to seek out sexual activity. Some activities require coordination of both the neural mass and the twins. For example, bathroom functions require the integration of all three personalities with the neural mass alone detecting, for instance, the need of urination. . . . However, the mass can make decisions independent of either. What this implies about the nature of consciousness is discussed, including whether this neural mass is an independent and separate consciousness. Thoughts on what this means for personhood are explored. (58-59)

What have you named your neural mass? Your third mind? Your fourth one? What New Year’s resolutions have you made to better integrate the assemblage that you are? What rogue parts of you probably need more compassion rather than more discipline?

Hyrum Thane, the novel’s main character, suffers a more subtle version of interviduality than the conjoined twins. Fresh from the trailer park, he works as a hired-hand for geology PhDs surveying desert strata and he feels pretty keenly his “ignorance” in relation to them. One day, the butt of a joke, one of them says to Hyrum: “Man! What a Dickensian life you lead” (19). Hyrum, however, doesn’t know what this means and, as a result, it drives him crazy. This comment, Hyrum says, “got under my skin & started Itching so bad it wouldn’t go away until I got it Scratched” (25).

Here, rather than having two heads, Hyrum gets something stuck in his head, a unknown word, a foreign phrase, that lodges itself there, takes root, colonizes his mind, and hacks his attention. It shapes him and compels him. He can’t stop repeating it back to himself and ends up with a big pile of rocks. That first day, he says,

I started counting & every time I thought it I threw a rock at a tree. When it was time to head down I just walked over to the tree & counted up the rocks. That is exactly how many times I thought it between the time I ate my lunch & the time we packed up to go back to the base camp. I wanted to let you get a feel for my afternoon ruminations. (19)

To give you a feel for the force of it’s self-replication, Peck then fills five pages with “Man! What a Dickensian life you lead. Man! What a Dickensian life you lead. Man! What a Dickensian life you lead,” to the exact number of rocks (118!) Hyrum counted himself as having thrown that first afternoon.

I am Hyrum, except that rather than a foreign phrase colonizing my mind, I’ve got a whole book. The Book of Mormon, lodged like an eccentric body between my ears, spools in an endless loop. Like Hyrum, I didn’t ask for it,  suspect it may be an insult, and don’t know what it means.

Still, it composes me, conjoins me, compels me, and overwrites me as literally as any third-wheel neural mass could. The Book of Mormon is a life-sized brain hack spanning my years, itching under my skin, interrupting my story, deforming my shadow. The Book of Mormon exists in a complementary but asymmetrical plane. It’s an irrational number, a tangent reorienting my bundle of divergent lines.

What the Book of Mormon is meant to do or mean, I am not sure. But to what it does do, I can attest: it keeps me up at night, it wakes me early in the morning, it keeps me from folding in on myself, from coinciding with the shadow I work to project, from imploding into a vacuum-packed hell where my “self” and my life become one and the same.

This is a little bit crazy, but it saves me from being completely sane.

Over the summer, the Bloomberg administration announced that, for the first time in two decades, public school students in New York would be required to take sex-ed. The curriculum the administration recommended—HealthSmart (middle school and high school) and Reducing the Risk—include, among other things, lessons on abstinence and birth control.

Not surprisingly, the proposal has been controversial. It seems like sex-ed is one of the culture-wars topics that never gets old. But I’m not really a culture-wars person, and the real or purported controversy of New York’s most recent foray into sex education wouldn’t have really interested me except for one thing: the Bloomberg administration’s purpose for making this move. Specifically, the move was part of its strategy to “improve the lives of black and Latino teenagers.”

Sex-ed isn’t usually justified, in my experience, as a tool to achieve social justice, or an anti-poverty measure. New York, though, tied its sex-ed to improving kids’ economic potential.

How? In Creating an Opportunity Society (which I’ve mentioned before), Haskins and Sawhill say that families headed by a person who (1) graduated from high school, (2) works full-time, and (3) doesn’t have children out of wedlock has a 98% chance of escaping poverty.[fn1]

And comprehensive sex education seems to be fairly effective at achieving (3). And not just because it teaches kids how to have consequence-free[fn2] sex. Recent research suggests that teenagers who receive comprehensive sex education are 60% less likely to become pregnant or impregnate somebody than teenagers who receive no sex education.[fn3] Moreover, comprehensive sex education slightly reduced the the likelihood of teenagers having sex in the first place.[fn4]

So what does this mean to us as Mormons? The Handbook of Instructions says that parents are responsible for their kids’ sex education. But it doesn’t end there: it says that, if sex-ed is offered in the schools, parents should ensure that the instruction is consistent with “sound moral and ethical values.”

So we’ve got a moral responsibility to engage with schools’ sex education. And, I’d argue, our sound moral and ethical values at least force us to consider supporting comprehensive sex-ed. Note that I don’t mean this as a blanket endorsement of anything that flies under the rubric of comprehensive sex-ed.[fn5] But the numbers indicate that including information on contraception in a well-designed curriculum substantially reduces teen pregnancy, marginally reduces teen sex, and doesn’t cause kids who wouldn’t have had sex to suddenly have it. Even if we’re convinced our kids won’t have premarital sex (and I think that assuming that all kids will have premarital sex is condescending; some certainly will, but my personal experience suggests that it’s far from inevitable), supporting good instruction can potentially improve the economic and spiritual and emotional lives of the teenagers around them.

—

* I know that the phrase “social justice” riles some people up; I assume sex-ed gets a different group. If I included tax here, I’d have the perfect storm.

[fn1] Haskins & Sawhill p. 70.

[fn2] I don’t, of course, mean “consequence-free”; among other things, there are emotional and spiritual consequences to sex. But using contraception can significantly decrease the risk of pregnancy and, in some cases, STDs.

[fn3] Teens who received abstinence-only sex-ed were 30% less likely to become pregnant or impregnate somebody, but, apparently, this number was statistically insignificant.

[fn4] I should note that this makes some intuitive sense to me: I can’t imagine anything making sex seem less sexy to a teenager than a required high school class. I also can’t fathom how teaching about how to use contraception could possibly be useful to anybody: using a condom, for example, isn’t rocket science. But, on the other hand, I was once helping a home teachee move and, in the course of packing, we saw a couple wood phalluses on her shelf. Sheepishly, she explained that, in the course of her job as a social worker in prisons, she taught prisoners how to use a condom. So maybe condom use is not as intuitive as it seems.

[fn5] Although, frankly, from looking at the websites, the curricular subjects aren’t nearly as offensive as the HealthSmart website; seriously, what is it about public schools and horrible web design?

***

In the Church, we’re suspicious of debt. Sure, we get a pass on student loans, a modest house, a first car, but, as a general rule, our leaders discourage incurring consumer debt, and celebrate those who have escaped debt’s clutches. Having grown up a member of the Church, and having heard the various talks and lessons, I suspect most members would say that Alex made the better decision;Alex has the Fire and no debt. Pat, on the other hand, has both the Fire and the debt.

***

Assuming you agree with my intuition that, in general, Mormons would think that Alex made the better decision, I want to push that intuition a little:

(1) Let’s suppose, first, that Alex bought with cash because he has $200 just lying around. Pat, on the other hand, doesn’t, and the only way she can afford a Kindle is by borrowing. But assume Pat has a steady, if low-paying, job with amazing job security, while Alex, though making more money,has a 70% chance of losing his job in the next three months, with an uncertain outlook for getting another job in the foreseeable future. Does that change your (Mormon) intuition?

(2) Or what if Alex leaves all of his money in a checking account that doesn’t pay any interest, while Pat borrows at a low 3% rate, while she earns a 10% return on her money, which has all been wisely invested?[fn5]

(3) Or what if Pat isn’t just paying a low interest rate, but no (or a negative) interest rate?

***

What I’m trying to get at is the underlying why of our discomfort with debt. I understand for financial purposes why consumer debt is often a bad idea. Even in a (2) situation, most people don’t invest their unborrowed money; they just leave it in their checking accounts, so the fact that they could earn a higher return in theory doesn’t mean anything in practice.

And maybe our discomfort is purely a practical one, borne out of speculative investing in Kirtland and several generations of General Authorities who lived through the Depression.[fn6] But is there a religious explanation? Like we don’t like consumerism/worldliness? (But didn’t both Alex and Pat buy a Kindle Fire?) We’re theologically opposed to risk? Interest (at least its payment) is spiritually harmful?

***

Even if the avoidance of consumer debt is purely a practical consideration, we can see better today why it’s a good idea than we’ve seen in 80 years or so. But I’m interested in your take on whether it might be something more.

—

[fn1] Note that it’s exam season, so I’m kind of in exam  mode. Oh, and good luck to all of the T&S-reading students on your finals!

[fn2] Actually, they both want an iPad, but it’s priced way out of their league, and they figure a Kindle Fire is good enough.

[fn3] ;)

[fn4] Yes, I’m asking you to judge Alex and Pat, without knowing their hearts or their genders. If it makes you feel any better, they’re fictional, anyway: this is just a thought experiment.

[fn5] FWIW, Pres. Hinckley wouldn’t have changed his mind.

[fn6] It’s probably also worth noting that the Law prohibited charging interest. For those of you who know the Hebrew Bible better than I, was there any underlying reason that interest would be prohibited, or is it solely because God said?

I remember the day and time and place that I stopped believing in God, but not the date.The date may be missing because I both believed in God long after this and stopped believing in God long before it.

The story goes like this.

I’m in Orem for a conference. It’s late Saturday afternoon, the sun is low, and I’m alone in my hotel room. I spent the afternoon with a doubting friend. We skipped whole panels of papers. It’s something like ten years ago. Now I’m kneeling bedside, my pose classic, my face wet, my one dependable quality on display. I pray overearnestly.

I explain to God that I can’t be responsible for his existence. That’s not a burden I can bear.  And then, as if in answer to my prayer, it occurs to me that I’m right: God’s existence is not my responsibility. It’s his. If God wants to exist, that’s up to him.

Relief comes in like the tide. I wash my face and go back to the conference, my prayer answered. From then on I stop believing in God.

I don’t tell my Mom, but I don’t stop going to church either. I don’t stop praying or reading or doing my home teaching. I don’t stop going to the temple. I don’t go away. I stay. I’m relieved. I sit in the pew and hold my wife’s hand and color with our children and over years and years a great stillness settles.

This stillness is a door.

I walk through the door backwards. I start to read scriptures and hear talks and give lessons literally. That baptism of fire is no metaphor. That rest of the Lord is no pie in the sky. I know less about Jesus than I ever did, but the kingdom keeps taking on weight and definition and solidity. Without any supernatural recourse, without any fuel in the rocket of belief, Jesus’ words have no place to go and they just stay where, with a thump, they land: at my feet, at the end of my nose, ringing in my ears, knocking at my red, red front door.

Unable to substitute for what’s given a belief in what isn’t, I’m saved. Something is happening to me – something redemptive and penetrating and difficult and not entirely welcome – but it’s nothing like belief. And its happening here and now and in this Mormon pew.

You, work out your own salvation. Undergo your own ascesis. God’s ways are not my ways. He is free to exist as he will (or won’t) and do with me as he wishes.

We’re probably all aware of the LDS Political Neutrality statement; periodically, we hear it read across the pulpit, and we can also read it here. It’s a fairly brief document, creating a skeleton of dos and don’ts. Essentially, the statement does two things: (1) it reminds us that the Church doesn’t endorse candidates (which position is likely a result, in part, of its desire to remain tax-exempt); and (2) encourages members to participate (through voting and running for elective office) in our communities.[fn1]

Ours is not the only viable model for a church’s addressing its congregants’ political life. The Catholic Bishops of the United States have also produced a document on the political responsibilities of Catholics; at 31 pages, I doubt it will be read at Mass, but it creates an interesting counterpoint to our Political Neutrality statement.

Though I’m not going to go through the whole document, on page 4, the Bishops describe their view of the duties of Catholics with regard to how their religious and political beliefs should interact:

As Catholics, we should be guided more by our moral convictions than by our attachment to a political party or interest group. When necessary, our participation should help transform the party to which we belong; we should not let the party transform us in such a way that we neglect or deny fundamental moral truths. We are called to bring together our principles and our political choices, our values and our votes, to help build a better world.

I like the idea of using our religion to transform the party, and not allowing the party to transform us. Moreover, on page 7, the Bishops grant that Catholics may use a diversity of methods to achieve their goals, as long as these methods address some essential goals:

Catholics may choose different ways to respond to compelling social problems, but we cannot differ on our moral obligation to help build a more just and peaceful world through morally acceptable means, so that the weak and vulnerable are protected and human rights and dignity are defended.

A couple issues that the Bishops seem to find essential within this realm of human rights and dignity include abortion, racism, and genocide.[fn2] Ultimately, though, Catholics are to be guided by a “well-formed conscience” (p. 8) as they make their judgments in the political realm.

I agree with some of the aims that the Bishops promote and disagree with others, but I like the idea that we have a religious duty to create a more just and peaceful world, and that we need to be guided by a well-formed conscience as we figure out how to do so.

—

[fn1] They’ve also added a section about General Authorities not participating in political campaigns; I suspect, though, that the pulpit-letter won’t include this section, irrelevant as it is in most wards. I could, however, be wrong: we’ll see next year, I assume.

[fn2] I also like that the Bishops explicitly endorse the earned income tax credit and the child tax credit (23).

A couple caveats before I go any further: first, “Utah” and “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” are not coterminous by any means. I’ve spent a lot of energy arguing, for example, that funeral potatoes are a Utah dish, not a Mormon dish.[fn1] About 60% of Utah’s population is Mormon; although the Church seems to have significantly influenced Utah culture, it cannot be the only influence. Still, people equate “Utah” and “Mormon,” so an analysis of Utah will generally at least imply Mormon as well.

Second, I’m not trying to flame the infamous Mommy Wars. I’m not arguing that it’s better for mothers to stay home with their children, or that it’s better for them to work outside the home. I suspect that the right answer varies from family to family and from woman to woman in any event; still, the data I’m referring to talks about women employed outside of their homes, so that’s what I’m going with. Which is to say, please, if you comment, don’t argue that working women are sinners, or that stay-at-home moms are wasting their lives. Because both arguments are stupid.

Now, on to the articles:

Working Women Generally

This article deals with women in the workforce generally. Some interesting findings: Utah has the lowest percentage of women in the workforce, at 45%. (The highest percentage is in D.C., with 52.6% but, as the article points out, D.C. is an outlier: it’s all urban, rather than a mix of urban and rural like the states. As such, from here on out, I’ll ignore D.C. which <SPOILER ALERT> across basically all of the categories tops the list for working women. Washington, Rhode Island, and Mississippi tie at 50.2% for the states with the largest percentage of women in the workforce.)

Utah also has the fifth-lowest average wages for women, at $24,830. Below Utah are Montana, Idaho, South Dakota, and Virginia. Maryland has the highest average wages for women, at $42,164.

Utah’s also at the bottom of the list for the percentage of total wages earned by women (which, based on the previous two numbers, makes sense): in Utah, women account for less than 30% of the total wages earned.

Women in the Creative Class

Richard Florida then moves on to what he calls the “creative class.” He lists professions that he includes as creative class professions here, but basically he’s talking about the jobs held by about one-third of the U.S. population that pay significantly better than the average salary and have weathered the recession better.

Before we get to Utah’s performance, I want to note that, even in this creative class (where they make up more than half the workforce), women get the short end of the economic stick. Creative class men earn, on average, about $82,000, while creative class women earn just over $48,000.[fn2]

So how do Utah creative class women do in comparison with the rest of the country? In terms of percentage of the creative class, Mississippi tops the list: 58.9% of the creative class are women. Utah is at the bottom, with 45.7% (and, in fact, is the only state in which women make up less than 50% of the creative class workers).

And, as with women in general, Utah creative class women have the fifth lowest average salary, at $35,872. This time, Montana, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Idaho come in lower. By way of comparison (again, excluding D.C.), creative class women in New Mexico top the list, with $59,476.

And percentage of creative class wages? Again, Utah is the only state where the percentage is below 30%.

Using Florida’s criteria, Utah ranks last in the nation for creative class women; for women in general, though, it ranks 47th (coming in ahead of Wyoming, Idaho, and Virginia).[fn3]

What to make of this? I’m not entirely sure. I’m not as concerned about Utah women’s lower participation in the labor market; at least, I’m not convinced that we should try to push them into the formal labor market (although maybe we should discourage them less from entering it: in recent years, general authorities seem to have become less opposed to women’s working,[fn4] and it may be good for us, as a body of Saints, to follow their lead).

I think the wage disparity is bad, though. It isn’t just a Utah thing, of course, but it seems significant in Utah (that is, women make up about 45% of both the general workforce and the creative class workforce, but only earn something less than 30% of the income). Whatever we think about women in the workforce (and again, remember, please don’t rehash stale Mommy War arguments), we don’t have any religious incentive for paying women less than men. At the very least, I think this means we should be working to determine where this disparity comes from and, to the extent possible, fixing it.

—

[fn1] That’s not, of course, to make any normative judgment about the worth of funeral potatoes. It’s just to say, they weren’t part of my California heritage–the first time I ever ate them was post-law school in New York.

[fn2] I’ve heard all sorts of explanations for these wage disparities, from the idea that women earn lower wages because they leave the workforce for some period of time to have children, to women earn lower wages because they take different types of jobs than men, to women earn lower wages because of discrimination. I suspect that all play parts, and I suspect that none fully capture the causes of these wage disparities.

[fn3] Note that I realize that just wage numbers don’t account for everything: it’s possible that in Utah, you make less money, period. And Richard Florida is aware of that, too: he assigns a location premium to each location, etc. I’ve summarized numbers that I found interesting, but I haven’t given you his full run-down. For that, it really is worth clicking over to his articles; among other things, they have colored maps, and it was really the yellow Utah in a sea of orange and red in so many of the maps that first grabbed my attention.

[fn4] Before you find the Conference talk that totally shoots me down, let me say this: I have no doubt that there are such statements, even made recently. I’m talking about a more holistic impression that I get. I could be wrong, of course, but I don’t think I am.

 It’s sad to me that so many Mormons (like Americans in general) have negative and badly stereotyped views of Muslims. As adherents ourselves to a religion that often seems to get more than its share of unfair and unfounded criticism, we can afford a deeper look. During the time I’ve spent in Muslim countries (and with Muslims in this country), I have noticed quite a few points in which Mormons and Muslims have more in common than either group does with other denominations of Christians.

One of the first that seems to come up is alcohol. If you go out to a restaurant and decline to order wine, your American waiter will think you’re cheap, your Italian waiter will think you’re crazy, and your Tunisian waiter will light up in pleasure and disbelief, commend you for your temperance,  and tell you this is the first time he’s ever seen a non-Muslim who doesn’t drink.

Another fairly obvious similarity is our emphasis on modest dress. When I lived in Damascus, I never saw form-fitting or revealing clothing—except in the Christian quarter of the city, where cleavage was as ubiquitous as crosses, and jeans were worn as tight as humanly possible. The Muslims, on the other hand, whether they wore head-scarves or not, generally dressed modestly. My Muslim friends who wear the hijab (the general term for a Muslim head covering of any sort) say they view it as a way of respecting both themselves and Deity. They typically describe it as an outward expression of their inner commitment to God. Sound familiar?

It is true that in some countries and cultures the hijab has become a tool of repression, used to keep women within limited, pre-determined roles and force them to take responsibility for curtailing male lust. Unfortunately, I’d have to cite this as another similarity between our culture and theirs, considering the number of lessons I heard in Young Women’s about dressing modestly so I didn’t give the boys bad thoughts. 

Interestingly enough, during the ten months since the peaceful revolution in Tunisia, usage of the hijab has increased dramatically. For the past fifty-odd years, wearing it had been discouraged. One dictator infamously called it a “dirty rag.” Those who wore it could be barred from universities, intimidated, and even arrested.  Now many Tunisian women, especially the young, are exercising their newfound freedom to practice their religion as they see fit, and wearing the hijab.

It has been suggested that the increase is a mere fashion trend, devoid of real religious commitment, and inspired by glamorous new styles available via the internet from the Emirates, which may be partially true. (Yes, I admit, I can see the fascination of the hijab myself.) Still, when a sixteen-year-old decides on her own (or in concert with her friends) that “modest is hottest,” I’m not going to be the one to discourage her.

Another fascinating area of convergence is our veneration for a founding prophet. No, we Mormons don’t worship Joseph Smith, but our Christian friends can perhaps be forgiven for thinking we do, especially when we sing songs like Praise to the Man, quote scripture originating with him much more often than the Bible, and even claim that he “has done more, save Jesus only, for the salvation of men in this world, than any other man that ever lived in it.”

For centuries, Muslims were referred to by outsiders as “Mohammedans,” and accused of worshiping their prophet. It is certainly true that they put as much emphasis on him as we do on our prophet. Their declaration of faith, the honest recitation of which is more or less the equivalent to a Christian baptism, states, “there is no God but God, and Muhammad is the messenger of God.”

 It was common, especially in the 19^th century, for detractors of our church to compare Joseph Smith to Muhammad, and accuse him of planning to enforce “Mormonism” with the sword. The similarities between the two are striking. Both Joseph and Muhammad had seminal visions, spoke with previous prophets, and married multiple wives. Both envisioned and created physical as well as spiritual communities of believers. Each produced a famous holy book that became what we call a “keystone” of the new faith, although our Doctrine and Covenants is more similar in form to the Qur’an than is the Book of Mormon.

When I see my Muslim friends wash their hands before they touch their holy book, keep it on the top shelf above all other books, and hang beautiful quotes from it on their walls, I feel a renewed appreciation for the sacredness of the word of God, and I revere my own holy books a little more.

Another area in which Muslims inspire me is the practice of fasting. I was fortunate enough to spend Ramadan in a Muslim country this year. I’ve always been impressed by the idea that Muslims fast for an entire month, but the actual reality of it staggered me. Especially when that month was August, and the country was mostly composed of desert.

My Tunisian neighbors would find the New Testament injunction of “appearing not unto men to fast” quite odd. For Muslims, fasting is a community affair. Everyone knows that everyone else is fasting, and they all do what they can to help each other out. Talking about how hungry you are is both acceptable and common. Work slows down everywhere. People spend much more time with their families. It’s like a month-long holiday, in the original sense of “holy day.” Both families and communities draw closer together as they experience the trials and joys of Ramadan together. And I can only imagine the spiritual power that results from such sustained, communal devotion.

Last but not least, Muslims make great member missionaries. I’ve been invited to embrace Islam by both close friends and random internet acquaintances. The Muslims I know always seem happy to discuss their religion at the slightest provocation. I enjoy the novelty of being on the receiving end of an invitation to read a book and pray about it. I appreciate their candid willingness to share how their religion blesses their life, and how happy they (and I) would be if I converted. And I’m both amused and touched to see myself through their eyes as the “golden contact” I must appear.

photo credits: prayer, hijab, Qur’an, minarets

On October 22, 1986, President Ronald Reagan signed into law the Tax Reform Act of 1986, a bipartisan bill. That law, signed 25 years ago today, was the last fundamental tax reform in which the U.S. has engaged. Among other things, it broadened the tax base, reduced the number of tax brackets, and reduced the highest tax bracket from 50 percent to 28 percent. It vastly simplified the monster that the tax code had become.

Since 1986, of course, the number of tax brackets has crept up, top marginal rates have crept up, and plenty of loopholes and special exceptions have been reintroduced into the tax law; we are arguable at a point where we again need to fundamentally rethink the tax law.

The politics of the Tax Reform Act of 1986 are absolutely fascinating. If you want to peer into the political machinations of D.C., you could do worse than reading Birnbaum and Murray’s Showdown at Gucci Gulch, a comprehensive (and fascinating) look at the people who shepherded tax reform through the process.

If you don’t have time for the book,[fn1] there are a couple great articles around the web summarizing what the Act meant and how it came through. You could read this article for a taste of the process. Or you could read any or all of these articles, if you’re really into tax reform.[fn2]

So is there any Mormon connection here? Not really; mostly, I just wanted to highlight an important, if generally forgotten, anniversary. But there were Mormons in Congress at the time. And it’s really hard, on an internet connection at home, to find voting records from 1986, but I finally did. And how did Mormons vote on the Tax Reform Act of 1986?

• Senator Orrin Hatch, R-UT: Nay.
• Senator Edwin Garn, R-UT: Didn’t vote.
• Rep. Harry Reid, D-NV: Aye.
• Rep. James Hansen, R-UT: Nay.
• Rep. David Monson, R-UT: Nay.
• Rep. Howard Nielson, R-UT: Nay.

I may well be missing Mormon votes here: I basically just grabbed Reid and Utah politicians. So feel free, in the comments, to tell me what other Mormons voted on the Tax Reform Act. And, given that it had broad bipartisan support (including from Pres. Reagan), why so little love from Utah?

Oh, and happy Tax Reform Act Day!

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[fn1] But seriously, you have time. Read it.

[fn2] Note that I haven’t read the Forbes articles yet, but I like a lot of the authors listed; the articles should all be thought-provoking, and, I assume, pretty good.