Wilderness Holy War Splits the Faithful

The fight over wilderness has turned into a holy war in Utah. The battle over how much wild land to set aside for eternity has split the saints, as the Mormons whose ancestors came here to escape religious persecution, call themselves. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has not weighed in officially. But the issue came to a public head during hearings on a wilderness bill sponsored by Utah's congressional delegation. Supporters of wilderness suggested that 10 percent of the state's land should be tithed to God, just as good Mormons tithe 10 percent of their wealth to the church.

"I would suggest that ten percent of the land in Utah is sacred enough for tithing back to God for his handicraft," Ted Wilson, the former mayor of Salt Lake City, pronounced at a public hearing. "I hope you'll think about it, ponder and maybe even pray for it."

Soon Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, felt compelled to respond in an open letter to the Salt Lake Tribune. "Some who would like to see more land designated wilderness have framed their rallying cry in religious terms, alluding to the Biblical injunction to tithe," he wrote. "While our bills may not meet the letter of the Biblical law, they certainly are consistent with the law's spirit."

As in most holy wars over land, the bottom line in this debate was acreage. Hatch added up national parks and wilderness under his proposal and counted 4.6 million acres or 8 percent of Utah. Wilderness advocates said preserving 5.7 million acres of wilderness would be the right thing to do.

"We should set aside 10 percent," says author Terry Tempest Williams, who stumped for more wilderness. "I believe a region settled on spiritual grounds should be preserved on spiritual grounds. We should have spiritual ties to the land."

"The 10 percent tithe really struck a nerve," says Ken Rait of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, the main force behind the 5.7 million acre proposal. "Hatch and the other members of our congressional delegation must have felt it really meant something. They don't want to see wilderness supporters gaining an edge with the Mormon community. They see that as a big threat."

"This has become such a war cry for both sides," Bill Heddon a county council member in Moab, a hot spot in the redrock wildlands of southern Utah, told Salt Lake City magazine in a story headlined "Holy War in the Desert." "I don't see much rationality about it," said Heddon. "It's become a religious issue, and not anything you can discuss sensibly."

"This has become an issue like abortion," Wilson told the magazine. "Environmentalists would say it's a litmus test to see whether you respect nature at all, and the other side says it's a litmus test to see whether you care about the economic well being of rural Utah. That's a very destructive thing on both sides."