Item Detail
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31786
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1
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4
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English
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Potomac Fever : Continuing Quest for the U. S. Presidency
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Thunder From the Right : Ezra Taft Benson in Mormonism and Politics
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Urbana, IL
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University of Illinois Press
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"In assessing the significance of Ezra Taft Benson as a presidential contender, four facts stand out. First, Benson was, without question, the most politically active Mormon Church president since Joseph Smith. Smith and Benson are the only two Mormon presidents who also aspired to become president of the United States. Like the first Mormon prophet, Benson was both interested and involved in politics throughout his adult life. Second, Benson, in manifesting a strong conservative position on political issues, represented a reaction against the more liberal beliefs and practices manifested within other religious denominations and the larger American society, particularly during the 1960s. The Mormon Church, in eschewing the civil rights movement and other forms of protest, stood in sharp contrast to various other denominations promoting and practicing social activism. Third, Benson’s strong antipathy toward the civil rights movement brought the Mormon Church increased unwelcome attention relative to its controversial policy of black priesthood denial. By the late 1960s and into the early 1970s, Latter-day Saint officials found themselves under increased pressure to repeal this antiblack practice. Finally, Benson, in speaking out on political issues and venturing into the political arena, breached the so-called wall of separation between church and state, considered unassailable by many if not most Americans before 1980. Benson asserted the right, indeed the duty, of the church to speak out on political issues. In a larger sense Benson, in defending his own political activism, anticipated the emergence of the Moral Majority and Religious Right, who would vigorously promote their own agenda in the political arena after 1980." [Author]