The Mormon majority
Brooks Marshall is a normal guy, with normal features – longer, dark brown hair, average height, weight and a typical t-shirt-and-jeans fashion sense. He probably wouldn’t stand out in a crowd, but he feels like people at USU look at him differently.
Why?
Brooks Marshall, unlike the majority of the students at USU, is not a Mormon.
“You’re different,” said Marshall, a freshman majoring in chemistry. “Everybody looks at you like you are wearing clothes that don’t match, but other than that it’s not a big deal…They don’t look down at you, they just look weird at you.”
Meredith Brown, a December 2006 graduate from USU in English, would agree – somewhat.
“(Non-Mormons) are not looked down on, at least not intentionally,” said Brown, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Because it’s such an LDS culture here, (non-Mormons) are just misunderstood … (Mormons) just don’t understand not being Mormon.”
But not all LDS people feel the same way. Blake Ure, a sophomore majoring in American Studies, is one such person.
“People are always like, ‘Oh they aren’t Mormon so we should go convert them, come join the Mormon Church,'” he said. “I hate to say it, but it’s not great for everybody. It’s a lifestyle choice.”
This lifestyle choice can create tension between those who made the choice and those who didn’t.
“On a fundamental level you believe different things, so that’s always going to be a little bit of a conflict, but it’s nothing serious,” Marshall said.
Brown sees the tension in a different way.
“A lot of people are raised with a belief that people that aren’t LDS are bad or wrong, they do bad things,” she said. “And those non-LDS people feel that tension, so when they get together there’s like a bad vibe until they get to know each other.”
The bad vibe can push some non-Mormons away.
“I just try to distance myself from the hardcore religious people,” said Ashley Lopez, a sophomore majoring in deaf education. “I don’t think there are just hardcore Mormons; there are also hardcore Catholics, hardcore Baptists and hardcore Lutherans.”
Ashley Keogh also is not a Mormon, but it’s harder for her to distance herself.
“You ride the bus and all you hear is, ‘FHE this, or at church the other day,'” Keogh, a USU graduate in marketing, said. “Tension lies with the LDS people trying to convert and let everyone know about their religion.”
Proselytizing seems to be somewhat of a thorn in the side of many non-Mormons.
“The LDS religion is more hardcore. They come out really strong,” Lopez said. “When I come into contact with them, it’s like all they feel like they need to do is convert me. They just can’t be my friend and me be another religion, and that irritates me the most.”
Marshall has had similar experiences. He recounted: “They say, ‘Oh, well have you heard the good news,’ or whatever. I’ll say, ‘Fancy that, I have and I’m not real interested.’ That doesn’t bother me. It’s when they come back the next time and the next time. And not everybody does it, but some people do, and that will stick in your craw.”
Katie Steuri’s conversion experiences have been of a different ilk.
“People would not invite me … just because they didn’t want me to think I was trying to be converted,” Steuri, a 2006 graduate in education, said. “And they would worry too much about trying not to step over boundaries like that.”
Steuri grew up in Salt Lake City with Mormon friends, but there are still things about the Mormon majority that bother her.
“I think a lot of times, not in an intentional way, but I think a lot of people just forget that not everybody is LDS,” she said. “So they would just do things like, say different terminology that the average person doesn’t know, if they haven’t been around it and aren’t LDS, or forget that other people do shop on Sundays, and that kind of thing.”
Keogh is also bothered by some things certain LDS people do.
“Well besides their closed-mindedness…well I can’t say all, because there’s a difference between Mormons up here,” she said. “I think there’s the Utah Mormons and non-Utah Mormons, and I feel like there’s a difference in how each of those different sets treats people.”
Mark Snyder, a non-Mormon, is also bothered by some of the LDS influences around campus, and he knows where that influence comes from.
“Right next to the TSC where they have their Institute building that is off campus, but everything next to, and around it, is on campus,” Snyder, an undeclared senior, said. “That’s where you get the dirty looks from.”
The LDS influence may be more apparent to those from out of state. Marshall grew up in a college town, Laramie, Wyo., and he said he can clearly see the LDS influence.
“There’s all this morality that you don’t get otherwise in a college town,” he said. “Everybody here just behaves. My high school partied harder than Utah State University.”
Morality is seen as one of the things that separates Mormons from non-Mormons.
“It’s kind of that whole question, do you go to the Scream or do you go to the Howl?” Ure said. “There is a separation for those who are extremists. Although on campus, I think we are thrown together in a lifestyle. College students by nature are such solitary beasts and we only really come together in class. So I would say there’s tolerance in classes, but off of campus I would say not so much. I think people stick with what’s comfortable.”
Like Ure, Karli Jenkins is LDS, and also like Ure, she sees the separation as a matter of comfort.
“People that are LDS tend to go together,” said Jenkins, a freshman majoring in nutrition and food science. “They group themselves because they feel more comfortable, maybe … I don’t think (Mormons) try to be better than (non-Mormons) at all.”
Brown sees it a bit differently. She was a part of the Greek system, which has a mix of Mormons and non-Mormons.
“I think there is a segregation if you want a segregation, but you can unify if you want to,” she said.
Brown’s experiences as a Greek, and her upbringing in New York and Ohio, give her a different perspective than some Mormons.
“Once you get to college and you get older, you become friends with people that are Mormon and not Mormon, and you realize they’re just good people and you get along,” she said.
But not everyone has such a rosy view of socializing across religious lines.
“To be honest,” Lopez said. “I don’t like to go to the activities and stuff that they have on campus just because you go there and they know you’re not Mormon, and all those Mormon people are there, and you just feel even more left out.”
Keogh agrees, but sees hope for non-Mormons.
“Most of the problem lies in your first few years of school,” she said. “I would say that when I lived on campus, I didn’t have much of a social life. I wasn’t very social because I felt like I couldn’t make friends with the Mormons. But once I moved off campus and made better friends with non-LDS people, I have a social life.”
Marshall agrees. “You end up running in a different circle with the other minorities,” he said.
However, every individual has a different experience.
“It depends on the level of openness,” Ure said. “It’s the same in any social group. The more closed-mined people are about being LDS, the more likely they are to stick with LDS culture, because that’s what’s safe for them.”
The reality is Mormons and non-Mormons do co-exist, but still some non-Mormons wonder how USU would be different without the Mormon majority.
Lopez, who grew up in Utah, finds it hard to think about life without a Mormon majority. “I don’t know. If I went out to another campus out of state, I think I would have total cultural shock.”
Steuri thinks the changes would be quite drastic. “Because they are such a majority, things get geared towards them just be
cause they’re the majority, not really just because they are Mormon.”
Keogh envisions a more open environment. “People could feel more comfortable discussing their own opinion without feeling like they’re going to get mobbed by the majority.”
Snyder is uncertain about the loss of the Mormon majority. “Depends on who replaced them. If you have another religion come in, in the same sense, it could be the exact same – it could be worse. For the most part, they live a good life.”
For Marshall, the change also may not be totally beneficial. “Mormons, as a general rule, are just nice people. You’d run into more theft. You’d run into more assholes.”