From my long experience at the University of Utah, there is no place on earth which discriminates so overtly against the LDS. I applaud President Young and BYU for hosting the symposium!

To B,

Thank goodness for the University of Utah! Without it, the religious zealot monopoly would be intolerable (and intolerant)!

Go Utes!

To B: Well said. Religious discrimination in Utah is not acceptable unless it is against the "dominant religion." Interchange any ethnic or religious name for "Mormon" and the Department of Justice would close down Utah.

As an LDS student at the U I beg to differ. I'm in a very liberal major and my teachers have taken extremely great care to respect my religion when it obviously is different from their beliefs. I applaud all people who aren't bitter because they are different they learn to love the differences. The only plaec I find animosity is on the comment boards. And for those of you who have witnessed true religious discrimnation that's nothing. True religious discrimination is what happend to our LDS ancestors and what continues to happen all over the world. May we all celebrate the religious freedoms we have here in the USA and fight to keep them in place. May the world experience what we do in religious freedom!

Your standard of religious descrimination is severely myopic. There are many countries in where this is a part of the political system as well as the culture. Even in Western Europe where I live, all organized religion is increasingly viewed less favorably by governments as well as the media.

There is much good religion does in terms of helping the homeless, working in underdeveloped countries and teaching positive societal values. The vocal minority who sit around carping at each other on these blogs do not represent the rest who are out there trying to improve the world.

Hey DN....every reference in a headline with "U." in it refers to the University of Utah. What a misleading headline. The "U." is a foreign university. What a disservice you do to the Utes!!! What a silly and misleading headline. The standards for headline writing have fallen significantly at the News. Get it fixed and let's be consistent! You know better than to lure readers with such misleading stuff. This smacks of a supermarket tabloid level of headline writing.

Religious freedom, you mean like allowing an institution's professor's to speak critically or even freely of its own institution?

Read the article. The "U. President" in the headline refers to M. Young, the President of the University of Utah, who spoke at the symposium.

How about freedom from religion?

Looks like we are going out of our way to promote religious freedom for everyone but the FLDS.

Freedom from religion represents the establishment of aetheism as the official religion - its been tried before with horrendous results. That is waht religious people need protection from.

Lala: Professors may criticise all they want (and vice versa) - it is bias and discrimination that they should not be able to do

I am an LDS senior biochemistry major here at the U, and not once have I ever felt like my professors ever discriminated against me, or my religion. I've taken classes (Evolution and Diversity of Life, Politics of the Middle East, etc) where the material of the course isn't exactly consistent with that in LDS culture/teachings (evolution vs intelligent design, Christianity vs Islam, similarities between the Prophet Mohamed and the Prophet Joseph), and the Professors (most of which are not LDS) took GREAT care to not step on the feet of those in the class (which, I venture to say, is about ~80% LDS). They did a great job presenting the material objectively and academically, leaving biases aside.

B's comment leads me to believe that he hasn't even been on campus, let alone taken a class here (had he ever visited the campus, he would have notice the LARGEST institute building with the largest institute enrollment).

"Freedom from religion represents the establishment of athesim as the official religion." Huh?? I think Anonymous 6:11 means freedom from ALL religions, including athesim- since you seem to think it is a religion as well. I will defend your right to belive in the obsurd and ficticious if you'll defend my right to belive in reality.

Many who oppose a belief structure based on a supreme being trot out the argument that atheism is not a religion. They have no further to go than a 1961 US Supreme Court ruling (Torasco v Watkins) to find that secular humanism (atheism) is indeed a religion. That this is true can be substantiated by looking at later court decisions that relied on it. In 2005, the 7th District Court of Appeals ruled on a Wisconsin prisoner's petition that atheism is a religion and the group the prisoner wanted to start was relious in nature even though it expressly rejected a belief in the existence of a supreme being.

So, anonymous 6:11 and all like minded persons have presented us with a completely circular argument. They wish to be shielded from any exposure to God or those who believe in one. However, their argument (legally) applies equally to those who believe in God and wish to be shielded from exposure to their 'doctrines'.

In the end, we all just need to play nice and tolerate each other. I wonder when the first church-state separation case involving atheism will be brought.

HOW CATHOLICS MASTERED FREEDOM OF RELIGION?

FOR PRACTICAL PURPOSES DURING TWO Millenniums, THE POPE/CATHOLIC CHURCH INTERPRETED AND TRANSLATED THE BIBLE JARGON AND BIBLE BELIEVES INTO (A) SECULAR LAW, (B) CATHOLIC CANNON-LAW, & (C) SECULAR PHILOSOPY, SO THE POPE/CATHOLIC CHURCH CAN COMMUNICATE WITH WORLD LEADERS AND THE ULTRA-SECULAR COURTS.

THE EARLY-LDS CHURCH & FLDS CHURCH:(A) FAILED TO TRANSLATE RELIGIOUS PHRASES/JARGON INTO EQUIVALENT SECULAR WORDS and (B) FAILED TO CATER TO THE ULTRA-SECULAR AUDIENCE IN THE ULTRA-SECULAR COURT SYSTEMS.

CREATE REVERSE DICTIONARY OF RELIGIOUS PHRASES/JARGON AND SECULAR WORDS.

CLAIMERS AND DISCLAIMERS AS PREVIOUSLY STATED.
=

First off, use a little control when throwing down in all caps, it's a little obnoxious.
I am also an LDS student at the U and have seen a bit of all attitudes. I have been in classes (yes, Many) where the professor and students (encouraged by the prof.) openly ridiculed the beliefs of the LDS Church. I have also seen restraint and respect. The difference that I find angering, is that the LDS members are expected to 'Get over it', which we do, and I do think we should give ourselves some credit for that. However, if anyone, anywhere on campus was found to criticize or ridicule any group that wasn't LDS, that person would be close to being dragged to the Dean's office and slapped with a penalty. My point, to put it plainly, if we're going to have a campus of respect, that standard should apply to everyone, if we're going to have a campus of open ridicule and 'Free Speech', this should also apply to everyone. Selective free speech, isn't, it's institutionalized bigotry.

Religious Freedom???? Isn't that an oxymoron? The source of the greatest bigotry, intolerance, hate, terrorism, and oppression on the face of the earth today is RELIGION!