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Mike Larsen I grew up in Ephraim, a small town in central Utah. As is the case in most parts of Utah, the overwhelming majority of people that I knew growing up were staunch Republicans. All of my friends were. All of the people I went to school with were. And most of the adults I knew were, also. The first time I realized that my parents might be different than everyone else was during the 1988 presidential election. Our elementary school held a vote and I voted for George Bush because his was the only name I recognized. I went home that day and told my parents about the vote. I was surprised to learn that they had voted for Dukakis. I think that might have been the first time I had even heard the name. Such is the political environment I grew up in.
I began to develop an interest in politics during the Clinton administration. I was fortunate to have parents who were informed and willing to help me discover my own path in the world of politics. During those years my father and I would often go for long drives and talk about music and religion and politics and anything else. We spent a good amount of time listening to conservative talk radio and discussing what was being said. He also introduced me to books by James Carville and Al Franken. So I was given a good opportunity to hear arguments from both ends of the spectrum. I also began reading the newspaper somewhat regularly. My knowledge of current events grew and I began to form my own opinions about politics. I gradually became more committed to the ideologies of the Democratic Party, and I began to voice my opinions to my friends. That began my experience with the question, “How can you be a democrat if you’re LDS?” I have grown to loathe that question over the years. It is most often voiced by people who seem totally unaware of the ideals that the two parties represent (if any of my old middle and high school friends are reading this, you can rest easy – I am probably speaking of everyone except you). I didn’t understand how people could hear the statements from the First Presidency every election year, the statements that ask us to study and prayerfully consider the issues and the candidates, and assume that somehow that meant *wink, wink* “Vote Republican.” I didn’t understand how, when the Church is so open about its political neutrality, members felt it was righteous to try and persuade people to vote a certain way in the context of a Testimony Meeting, or to talk about the evils of my adopted political party in the context of a Sunday School lesson. And I became increasingly aware of the misinformation about the Democratic Party that was being spread in those particular contexts. It seemed like everyone was dwelling on the surface, without regards to the substance of the arguments. The big debate during those years was, of course, whether or not President Clinton should be impeached. I spent a lot of time talking about that with my friends, who were all for his impeachment. Somehow the myriad of things he had done very right was nullified by one (maybe) stupid act of the flesh. Everybody was willing to cast the first stone in those days.
I left for my mission to Romania on October 31, 2001 – a month and a half after 9/11. I hadn’t voted for Bush, but I was willing to support him in bringing to justice the masterminds of that tragedy (I still am). The beginning of military action in Afghanistan began less than a month before I left. And then I entered the cultural bubble that is the mission. I loved my mission. I loved my companions. But I learned from my first companion that I would have to put any discussion of politics on hold until I had returned home, because that had the potential to drive a huge wedge in any of those relationships. I did learn while I was there that Elder Marlin K. Jensen of the First Quorum of the Seventy (who visited our mission twice in the time I was there) was a democrat. That has been a source of vindication for me ever since.
I returned home less than a half of a year after President Bush’s famous 2003 “Mission Accomplished” speech. I married a bright, active member of the Church who was also beginning to discover that she had more in common with the Democratic Party than the Republican, despite growing up in a Republican home. We currently live in Denton, where we are both pursuing education degrees (music for me and elementary for her) at the University of North Texas. I have realized over the years that both major parties espouse principles of the Church. The big decision we have to make as members is to choose which of those sets of principles are more important to us because, until the millennial reign of the Lord, no governmental party will espouse all of the virtues we hold dear. We give and take with every vote we cast. Neither of the parties is inherently good, or inherently evil (despite what we might hear in Sunday School). As for me, I choose the Democratic Party, and I am not alone.
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