| No Images? Click here   We were in Provo, Utah, today. While there, Samantha Tomaszewski met Jody England Hansen. Jody has been an activist her whole life. Raised by Mormon parents in the Bay Area of California, she now lives in Salt Lake City and is involved in two Mormon-based activist groups.One, Mama Dragons, works with Mormon parents and their children who come out as LGBTQ. It provides support, resources and even housing to people who may be initially rejected by their family or faith community.Jody said she has a child who identifies as LGBTQ."My whole life has been one of embracing people in the face of the differences and that includes things that are so essential to life, which is really having a place for everybody," she said. The other group Jody is involved with is called Mormon Women For Ethical Government. Six Mormon women started the organization on the day after Donald Trump’s inauguration, and it now has thousands of members across the country. They're guided by a phrase: "I will not be complicit by being complacent.”The group participates in such activities as knocking on doors for local elections, calling elected officials and attending demonstrations."It is because of that ground in a faith community that I feel this is important to be involved," Jody said. "Other people see it as a contradiction."  For millennials in Utah, one of the most conservative states in the nation, it’s long been undesirable to call yourself a Democrat. Now, almost nine months into Donald Trump’s presidency, it’s increasingly taboo to identify as a Republican as well.“I don’t even feel comfortable saying that I’m in the middle,” said Riley Mattson, a 20-year-old nursing student at Brigham Young University. “Only the people who don’t give a crap about what anybody else says are very vocal about their politics at this time.”HuffPost partnered with The Daily Universe to interview students in Utah about their political beliefs, social media and disagreeing with some of their parents’ conservative values.
 DenisTangneyJr via Getty ImagesSContributor Megan Conley writes about her experience in Utah:
  A new HuffPost podcast called “I’m Still Here” is taking a look at communities that were once under the spotlight of the news cycles — and finding out what it’s like for people when the news crews leave. (Subscribe here!) This week, we talked to a family whose 6-year-old identifies as trans and struggled to be accepted at school.
 Join us virtually on the bus! Ride along with our editor-in-chief, Lydia Polgreen, as she dispatches news from the road via Facebook Messenger.  Learn more about what it really means to be an American by signing up for our morning news brief.Did a friend send you this? Subscribe here. For more politics news, check out our HuffPost Politics email.©2017 HuffPost | 770 Broadway, New York, NY 10003 |
 |  |  |  |
-
-
0 comments:
Post a Comment
Click to see the code!
To insert emoticon you must added at least one space before the code.