1) The Mormon Church was responsible for the Supreme Court decision in the late 1980s which established that churches are immune from Title VII liability. In other words, the LDS Church took the extraordinary step of seeking a decision from the highest court in the land, giving the church the *right* to discriminate. Here is a useful link:

http://books.google.com/books?id=RZ7rFC6pL0kC&pg=PA206&lpg=PA206&dq=the+Mormon+Church+Title+VII+liability.&source=bl&ots=urXAL-Xc5T&sig=ftSnEpNI5XV7y2GNaiDaMUho8vw&hl=en&ei=2T78Sv-SO4mwsgOR5oWEAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CA8Q6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=&f=false

2) Mormons and the Mormon Church are far more likely to be defendants in discrimination suits that plaintiffs. Here is a website that discusses relevant statistics in that regard:

http://mormonmatters.org/2009/09/12/the-surprising-truth-about-mormon-employment-discrimination/

Here are just two high-profile examples of the Mormon Church fighting for the right to discriminate in hiring:

1) in a 1987 Supreme Court case dealing with Title VII, the Court ruled that a gym operated by the Mormon Church could require its janitor to be a Mormon in good standing. http://openjurist.org/483/us/327

2) Michael Quinn, a professor at BYU, was fired for being Gay. His story: http://www.lds-mormon.com/wsj_quinn.shtml

The LDS Church has suffered some obvious negative publicity lately, with their support for Proposition 8 (which they tried desperately to keep out of the news) and their involvement in the defeat of Gay rights in Main. Their “support” for the SLC non-discrimination law is a thinly veiled attempt at fixing some of that public relations nightmare. If the church was *truly* committed to non-discrimination in hiring and housing, however, they would petition for legislation that requires *all* organizations to abide by the law, instead of arguing (as they did) that the LDS Church should be *immune* from the law.

That is the real story here, and (unfortunately) nobody has covered it.

Duwayne Anderson
Author of “Farewell to Eden: Coming to terms with Mormonism and science”