BYU Democrats gain ground

Club's membership compares to that of GOP group

By Sheena McFarland
The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 10/24/2008 08:38:07 PM MDT

Posted: 8:18 PM- Apparently, Democratic and Cougar blues are complementary colors.

For the first time in memory, Brigham Young University is boasting as many College Democrats as College Republicans. About 1,200 students have signed up for each of the activist groups sponsored by the Political Science Department.

In September, the Democrats had 700 students, but within the first few weeks of classes, membership had nearly doubled at the private school owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

"Barack Obama is inspiring a lot of youth, and a lot has to do with the last eight years and people being vastly disappointed," said Randal Serr, a senior in political science and president of the club.


Hyrum Salmund, left, and Randal Serr, center, wait inside BYU's Wilkinson Center for students to stop by their College Democrats table. Serr, a senior in political science and president of the club, says Barack Obama's candidacy has boosted membership. (Scott Sommerdorf/The Salt Lake Tribune)

The club also has started getting more politically involved this year. Each weekend, a couple dozen BYU students load into cars and caravan to nearby battleground states such as Colorado and Nevada. They also write opinion articles for local newspapers, staff booths in the student union and participate in service projects.

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This is really good news. Maybe there is hope for our state yet! :bounce:

I'm not joking

I know a ton are. I just don't think all are? I really don't know to be honest.

The extremely high mormon population results in an environment that keeps many others away.
Even the non-mormons have to share a very similar world view to fit in to the policies etc.

a lot of students chafed under the idealized world of BYU. this is a place where you could barely find a fingerprint on the thousands of glass doors around campus, where people only spat on the grass rather than the cement walkways, etc.

yet we were being taught to think there and i met many students and friends for whom that education taught them to notice the difference between ridiculous ideals and reality.

BYU was so weird in so many ways that just being there taught you what irony was.

if you walk past this thing everyday, do you think it might affect you in ways unintended?

as does your statistic in your other post below.

that's what i was getting at.

on the face of it, yeah, it's the happiest part of "Happy Valley", but reality is a lot more complicated.

people are people everywhere you go.

kids get upset because their Bishop yelled at them for not tithing enough. when BYU was kicking professors off campus and excommunicating them for their views, a giant swastica is drawn on the quad and Brigham Young's head is sawed off his statue.

Mountain Dew which you can't buy on campus is about the most popular drink on campus. The Student Review (I'm dating myself here) is anxiously awaited each week, though it is not allowed to be distributed on campus.

The quality and depth of thought on the BYU campus was higher than at most evangelical churches I've attended, by the way. Not only that, the quality of professors was quite good at BYU and that encouraged a lot of students to use their brains in ways not encouraged at Liberty University or Oral Roberts University.

No, it wasn't University of Santa Cruz, but there was a lot more to BYU than meets the eye.

Those are signs of exactly the conditions I was talking about. You have to be willing to put up with the attempts to control etc. or you chose a different school.

By your own numbers that results in almost the entire student body belonging to one small religious group.

None of the rebellion from students etc. changes the absolute fact that the student body is highly self selecting. And regardless of minor rebellion they are willing to submit to an environment that many if not most people are not willing to submit themselves to.

and all I said was that it was more complicated than you made it out to be.

:eyes:

My original post to the question of wither everyone at BYU is Mormon:

"Not all but very close."
This is a fact. Your 95% figure backs it up.

"The extremely high mormon population results in an environment that keeps many others away."
The 95% figure also supports this. Do you disagree with the idea that many people would not go to BYU based on the environment there? It would appear that the student body is highly self selecting.

"Even the non-mormons have to share a very similar world view to fit in to the policies etc."
Is it this that you disagree with? I stand by the statement. Some of the events you cited as causing problems on campus etc. are things that cause some students to never consider the school in the first place.

I am not calling everyone who went to BYU a Mormon. But if you vehemently disagreed with the policies... there ARE other schools. The enrollment numbers, and what they have gotten away with in the past would tend to support the claim that many students do stay away.

i said myself the percentage of LDS was 95%+ and you are here asking me if i disagree with that? :wtf:

the thing i expressed rather clearly was disagreement with your projection onto the students that they all share the worldview that the "policies" (perhaps you mean honor code or "standards") demand of them.

the idea that they all think the same because they sign that honor code once per year...actually, students don't sign it, their bishop or clergy sign it and indicate that the student will adhere to it. want to know how long my interview about that took? 10 minutes the entire time i was there.

i no more thought about that paper as a worldview than i did become a soldier when i registered for selective service.

:rant:

while i was there that most Republican of districts elected a Democrat because the Republican candidate took out a big ad in the paper making fun of the Democrat's bachelor status and lack of "family values" in that he was a single man, although a devout and upstanding Mormon. The Democrat didn't just win, he romped the Republican. it was dirty pool and the voters voted for a Democrat rather than condone it. yeah, they did.

maybe you should think about that.

Um... ok. reading comprehension FTL.

You actually lowered my opinion of the quality of the academic program at BYU with that post given they let you graduate. Something that I did not think possible.

Many if not most college students would not consider BYU based on their policies etc. I don't think you can argue with that statement.
And it follows that the 5% of students who are not Mormon are a self selecting sample of people willing to tolerate such an environment.

You mentioned the results when the administration took action against some professors. Here is a thought for you... some students would never put themselves in the position of attending a school that did that in the first place. Others would transfer and take their money elsewhere.

You obviously took my comment to mean way more than I intended it to.

Give me a break. I was born in Salt Lake City and well acquainted with the exclusion of non-Mormons in every aspect of the life of the community. After I left there, I had to travel their several times a year. Nothing changed in that time. I have since retired and maybe things are getting a little more saner.

was talking about regular students which there were significant numbers that were totally normal and skeptical of what was happening all around them.

that's the point i was making.

BYU is heavily Republican, no doubt, but it was not universal group think either.

and BYU has about 99% LDS students (generally all but sports scholarships are mormon) - or it did when I lived in Provp...

they are amazing. My son who is a field organizer in Utah says the BYU Dems are the most active of any college political group IN THE STATE. He says you can rely on them to come out when they volunteer and they always volunteer. They were great in Colorado. Business like, worked like dogs (we all did). Great kids.

If I didn't see the pic I was gonna call "Nuh-uh". This is one of the signs of the apocalypse, guys amirite?

I should say that the excellent education I got there actually helped me become a Democrat and I'm sure my professors were largely Democrats, some quite the rabble rousers, at least by Utah standards.

The great thing about BYU was how many normal people were there, the quiet ones. The quiet ones would in private tell you how teachers got mistreated with low pay, how women suffered under LDS theology that placed spiritual power in their husband, etc. To exist in Utah, as I discovered, meant having your opinion and keeping it to yourself except in trusted company.

Two years before at Boys' State in Sacramento is where my transition began. As a budding Republican conservative (not so unusual in the late 1980's) from the liberal Bay Area, I never got to spend much time with Republicans.

At Boys' State, I did get to spend that time and I found them so angry, so sexist and so judgemental towards people. I ended up voting for the liberal black kid from Berkeley against the conservative white kid who shared all my views simply because the conservative kid belittled women who got abortions saying "snip, snip and you're done, that's how women think of abortions..." I was aghast that he would say that and that a crowd around him cheered him on for saying it. This is the Republican party we see today and ironically it was those angry kids in my cohort that took over the party and made it the hateful thing it is today.

Very interesting. Makes me realize how lucky I've been growing up in an intellectual liberal area..NEVER EVER EVER was there any doubt that me and my sisters would be anything but liberal to moderate dems....

but i came around, though i had to learn the hard way.

:hi:

Back then, you say Republicans were "so angry, so sexist and so judgmental" - how times haven't changed.

:toast:

for sure. Go BYU Democrats!

when even good Mormon boys and girls cannot even be counted on to be loyal Republicans - we can look up and rejoice and know that the end is near!

There were about 20-25 people there. It's where I picked up me Dukakis for President sticker. :-)

So seriously, a membership of 1200 is big news. That's fantastic!

Back in high school I caught a Mormon friend drinking Dr. Pepper, and he totally flipped when I told him I was going to tell his mom.