cary@afone.as.arizona.edu (Cary Kittrell) wrote:

In article <ttid02p0rgvpi2dclb1t9qdfuen2k7fhsg@4ax.com>

Anti-Darwin Bill Fails in Utah
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/28/national/28utah.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
New York Times - United States
... matter. A spokesman for Americans United for Separation of Church and
State, Joe Conn, said Utah's vote would resonate. "If the ...

Hmmm....can anyone explain this to me, taken from the article
linked above?:

Some Mormon legislators opposed the bill because they agreed with
Mr. Urquhart that science and religion should remain separate,
others because they thought intelligent design was not in keeping
with traditional Mormon belief.


It's that last part which puzzles me.

Here's blog essay that might help. It starts from an earlier NYT
article by the same reporter:
http://evolutionlist.blogspot.com/2006/02/evolution-measure-splits-state.html

Excerpts
NYT:
<He and other lawmakers say that part of the debate here is in fact
< over what kind of religion would be buttressed by the legislation.
< Although the Origins of Life bill, as it is formally known, does not
< mention an alternative theory to evolution, some legislators say they
< think that voting yes could be tantamount to supporting intelligent
< design, which posits an undefined intelligence lurking behind the
< miracles of life and which differs greatly from the Mormon creation
< story.
<...
<Utah's predominant faith has also made its stance less predictable on
< other issues touching on religion in school ˜ notably school prayer.
< Enthusiasm for the idea has been muted or ambivalent, said Kirk
< Jowers, a professor of political science and director of the Hinckley
< Institute of Politics at the University of Utah. Professor Jowers
< pointed to the awareness among Mormons of their religion's minority
< status in the nation and world.
<
<"It was kind of a realization that if you push to have prayer in
< school, then outside of Utah, the prayer would not typically be a
< Mormon's prayer, so is that road you want go down?" Professor Jowers
< said.

Commentary:
<The Utah case is very special, in the same way that Utah is very
< special: if any state in the US could be considered a “theocracy,”
< it's Utah. Mormons control the state government and legislature and
< virtually all other governmental and social institutions. Despite
< this, they have generally resisted the temptation to intrude religion
< into politics. Voters in the state are generally quite conservative
< (voter registration is overwhelmingly Republican), but it would be
< difficult to pigeonhole them as the kind of conservative that toes
< the fundamentalist/creationist party line. True, one of their state
< senators, D. Chris Buttars (Republican) is clearly a creationist, but
< the Mormon mainstream is definitely not on the side of either
< creationism or “intelligent design.”
< ...
<Furthermore, as is pointed out in the article, Mormon theology
< deviates quite substantially from fundamentalist Christianity. As
< might be expected from the largest and most successful religion
< founded in 19th century America (in upstate New York, just a short
< drive from here, no less), Mormonism is both forward-looking and open
< to “new revelation.” Unlike the fundamentalist creationist
< Christians, therefore, most Mormons don't necessarily view the Bible
< (nor the Book of Mormon) as literal truth, nor do they have the
< innate fear of science and technology shared by most fundamentalists.

Note that the Mormon creation story is quite different from a literal
reading of Genesis. Trying to find it summarized, I found mostly
critiques. This one in particular is entertaining, though probably
rather seriously distorts a couple of the beliefs by the choice of
wording. See especially the mentions of Kolob.
http://www.i4m.com/think/lists/mormon_science.htm