Utah is not a part of the United States. I lived there 5 yrs and it was freaking strange. Yes the south is different than the north and Atlanta is different than New York and Los Angelos and Las Vegas and St. Petersburg Fla... but nothing is like Utah. I can personally attest to the fact that polygamy is alive and thriving, 14 yr old girls in long cotton dresses and bows in their hair walk the malls at 12 noon on Wednesday, with baby's in a stroller, instead of themselves sitting in a classroom somewhere. July 4th, Independence day, forget it, barely gets a blink in Utah. But July 24th, some LDS holiday, that's the day a big hoopla is made with fireworks and parades and stores are closed. They have their strange undergarments and any department store has a huge section set aside for these garments, unlike those same stores around the country. They have malls and book stores and everything else that appears normal, but any controversy surrounding the Mormon religion, and/or church, scandals involving kidnappings, incest, and murders.. those books are strangely absent from any bookstore, and you must go out of state to find them.
IMHO, Mormons are zombies, they adhere faithfully to everything their church/cult tells them to think or do. This is why the state is 99% republican (I'm guessing it's 99%).
So recently we've heard of a mayor in the Salt Lake City area who has denounced this war with protests. Now we hear of BYU, located in Provo, a highly conservative, religious area of the state has some of the community up in arms that Cheney was planning on giving a speech at the college. Is it possible? really? they may dislike this guy as much as the rest of us!! OH PRAISE THE LORD!. Article and more
BYU in Provo is approx an 1 hour drive south of Salt Lake City and in the basic area of Robert Redford's (liberal) Sundance Ranch. I've driven the 40 minute ride up the icey mountain to Sundance. It's a beautiful area but scary to slide around in.
Another topic of interest at BYU is the Professor who was removed because of his questions on the physics of how the Twin Towers could have possibly fallen on 9/11.
I've seen some of the long video of his speeches on Google. He had several renouned physicists at this conference and it was interesting to watch though long and boring. It wasn't surprising to see BYU trying to shut him up. They are after all part of the Bush sheeple. LDS's Newspaper, Deseret News coverage of Professor Jones and his conference. Article at Infowars