This group for Mormon women aims to bring down the temperature of political rhetoric

It’s not much of a stretch to say that America, and Americans, are polarized. Social media, cable TV news, even our day-to-day interactions with other people can be filled with disagreement. And in some cases, that disagreement can be vehement.

There are, though, some efforts to tone that down. Democratic Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly and his colleague from Utah, Republican John Curtis, hosted a bipartisan town hall late last year to talk about political violence. The venue? Utah Valley University, where Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk had been assassinated a couple of months before.

In 2024, Tempe Mayor Corey Woods and then-Mesa Mayor John Giles launched a bipartisan initiative called “Disagree Better Arizona,” in an effort to foster civil discourse. There’s also a national version that includes the governors of Utah, a Republican; and Colorado, a Democrat.

Earlier, The Show sat down to talk about these efforts with Jane Andersen, Arizona director of the non-partisan group Mormon Women for Ethical Government. She made it clear that she wasn’t speaking for the church.

The Show asked Andersen how big of a tenet of her faith it is that people who don’t agree with each other — politically or otherwise — need to find a way to get along with each other.

Amber Victoria Singer

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KJZZ

Full conversation

JANE ANDERSEN: So I would say it’s pretty unique to our faith that there is a part of how we operate to which that doctrine per se is embedded. So if you know anything about our faith, we actually meet based on geography. So you don’t get to decide, “Hey, I really like a 1:00 time slot on Sundays.” You are assigned to go to church with the people that live geographically around you.

Now that means that when you attend church, you might be attending church with someone whose Facebook post the other day you truly, absolutely disagree with. But there’s something beautiful about worshipping together and serving together. And so, you know, embedded in our experience of worship is being with people, maybe for whom we have disagreements.

MARK BRODIE: The reason that we reached out to you in part is because there have been some efforts over the last couple of years to Disagree Better — I think is the name that the Governors Association has given it. And it seems as though at least one of the common denominators is that many of the participants are members of the LDS church.

You think about Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, you think about John Curtis, a Utah senator who recently did an event with Mark Kelly, the Arizona senator. You think about former Mesa Mayor John Giles. Is that a coincidence, do you think, or is that sort of by design?

JANE ANDERSEN: These instances or people absolutely living what prophetic counsel has been to our faith members in recent years. So our recently passed away head of our church, President Nelson, was very keen on focusing on peacemaking.

And peacekeeping is agreeing to disagree and not engage. Peacemaking is incredibly different. It’s leaning into difference. It’s recognizing the power of listening. It’s a recognition that we live in a pluralistic society and that conflict is going to be endemic in all relationships, but that contention is a choice.

We have conflict in the most basic relationships with people whom we love deeply, so we should expect there’s going to be conflict with people we disagree with, but how we engage with people we disagree with is absolutely something that we can stand apart in. And so we’ve been urged over and over by our leaders of our faith to stand out and be distinct in different ways in how we engage.

MARK BRODIE: So how do you think about that sort of thing? Like if you’re in church and you see somebody sitting a row in front or behind you who made a post on social media the other day that you just find abhorrent, how do you handle that? How do you talk to that person?

JANE ANDERSEN: Well, I think the first thing that’s really important is that I don’t make my political opinions the most important thing in my life. And so it’s very easy to dehumanize people based on simply categorizing them by their political party.

So a great example is I have a son that’s 19 years old who’s severely disabled, and there’s a really wonderful program in our church open to the community at large where adults can go and have an activity once a week. And I can tell you that when I take him there and he receives care and attention from these wonderful volunteers that work with him, it absolutely lifts my heart and blesses his life.

I can absolutely tell you there’s people that serve there that I disagree with politically, and I have a choice to make: What is most important? Is being in relationship with other people important, or is my, you know, who I voted for the most important thing? And I will never put a party over a relationship or party over principle. I will always seek to find ways that I agree with someone, find commonality, and that’s what I’m going to focus on.

MARK BRODIE: Do you find that other people are willing and, maybe more importantly, able to do that also with you?

JANE ANDERSEN: I think so. I think peacemaking is a hard choice today. It’s a lot easier to go to our individual media silos. It’s a lot harder to find that commonality and push back maybe some discomfort of knowing that you might not agree with someone on every point, but it’s absolutely worth it.

MARK BRODIE: How do you find that strategy work sort of beyond church activities with people who are not all of the same faith?

JANE ANDERSEN: Well, it’s interesting. For the last almost two years, I’ve been a part of a statewide coalition that’s seeking to reduce political violence in Arizona. And when we first met in that room — and were from across the spectrum politically, across cultures, really very different perspectives on social issues — there was a little hesitation for all of us, but we decided that we were going to be in relationship and that that was the most important thing.

We all knew that we didn’t want political violence in Arizona, and because we had that in common, we built trust based on that. And so I’ve found in my work with MWEG that it’s very easy but it takes a lot of work, because relationships don’t come easily and building trust doesn’t come easily.

MARK BRODIE: How much of this do you think comes down to people not chasing clicks and likes and reposts and everything? Because it seems to me there’s not a lot of glory in saying, “Look, we’re just going to have to agree to disagree, and maybe we move on and talk about something else.”

There is a lot of “online glory” in a really witty one-liner or a potentially mean thing that you say that kind of turns into the bumper sticker line. Do we sort of have to readjust what it is that our goals are here, maybe, in some ways?

JANE ANDERSEN: Yeah, we had, at our last general conference, this is where our church leaders address a worldwide audience, Elder Stevenson talked a lot about specifically online communication and spoke about, what is your goal when you are engaging online? When you say certain things, does that represent your belief in being a disciple of Jesus Christ? Is that something you would say to someone in person?

And too often in society, we make excuses for being able to behave one way in a certain space and another way in another space, and that doesn’t help us. That doesn’t help us live with integrity.

MARK BRODIE: In the goal of trying to disagree without being disagreeable, how much of the responsibility do you think falls on folks in elected office, in politics, and how much do you think falls on those of us who are not?

JANE ANDERSEN: I think there should be responsibility by all parties involved. It certainly does not help when we have elected leaders that do name-calling, that refuse to meet with people from the other party, that don’t make an effort to concede that someone who is on the other side of the aisle had a great point to make. That’s not helpful, so I absolutely call on leaders to stand forward and work on bipartisanship.

But we also can’t just sit on our couches and blame someone in Washington or, or in Phoenix for our own behavior. And if we ourselves could demand more of our elected officials and say, “You’re not representing me when you use that behavior and that language,” that would be wonderful.

And in the end, for me, my biggest motivation is my children. I want my children to know that I love other people, that I want to listen to someone, and I want to learn. And we all have to have that mindset.

MARK BRODIE: How much of an impact do you think these events — things like Sens. Curtis and Kelly or, you know, the governors of Utah and Colorado getting together — how much of an impact can that have, do you think?

JANE ANDERSEN: I think if we can grow that movement, if we can get more people participating in those types of events or what we’re doing, it does make a difference.

MARK BRODIE: All right. That is Jane Andersen, Arizona director for the group Mormon Women for Ethical Government. Jane, thanks for the conversation. I appreciate it.

JANE ANDERSEN: Thanks so much.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This story has been modified to correction the location of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk's assassination.

KJZZ's The Show transcripts are created on deadline. This text is edited for length and clarity, and may not be in its final form. The authoritative record of KJZZ's programming is the audio record.

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