One cannot escape the influence of the LDS church when living in Utah. Sometimes that does drive me nuts. Like their annual private breakfasts with the Legislative leadership. Then there are times I'm grateful for their pull. Notwithstanding the amazing efforts of my friend, the late state Senator Frances Farley, if the LDS Church leadership hadn't come out against the MX missile plan in the early 1980s, I'm sure those rockets would be in the Utah and Nevada desert today. And I can't deny that their support of Salt Lake City's anti-bias ordinance helped pave the way for a similar ordinance being adopted in Salt Lake County.
What I've learned is that in nearly every belief system good ideas abound. And long ago I discovered that some times all it takes to adopt those good ideas is to tailor them to fit you.
For example, in Utah you cannot swing a dead cat without hitting a car sporting stick-figure decals telling fellow drivers just who comprises your family. Well, we are as proud of our family as anybody on the I-15. So our car rear window is home to a decal family too. Only, well, ours reflects our family.
It's funny. Cars will race up to catch us and look over. Often the faces we see in the other car are confused - you can almost see them doing the math in their heads...two dad figures, two men in the front seat... Other times we see smiling, laughing faces and people giving us a thumbs up.
The decals seem to be a never ending source of confusion. One of my uncle's friends saw our car parked in my parents' driveway, noticed the decals and called my uncle to ask if I had become LDS!
I hope he never finds out that once a week we have Family Home Evening, only ours usually includes Dad having a beer!
Like I said, the LDS faith has a lot of good ideas: once I've tailored them to fit me.
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