I was raised Mormon. In the 1800's Mormons fled religious persecution (citation needed) and traveled west through Mexican territory to the Utah valley. They established a religious theocracy there. They sent settlers to found towns in the surrounding areas that would become Colorado, Idaho, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and California. Their Prophet came to be the head of the territory when the US came calling as well as the first governor when this place became a state in the Union. But before that happened, there was Deseret. The Mormons petitioned the US government to allow the church to create a nation in the west, encompassing an enormous portion of the newly acquired Mexican territory, to be run under the doctrines of their religion. Doctrines that included such horrors as blood atonement for apostates, racist and genocidal views against indians in the area, and polygamist fundamentalism. The idea of Deseret never bore fruit, but there are revelations in the Mormon religion saying that Deseret is a place set aside for God's people, destined for the Mormons. "This is the place". Today, there are only a few, strange fundamentalist Mormons who believe in a Mormon homeland, they are religious extremists called Deseret Nationalists, or DesNats. I wonder what would the world have been like if the United States had allowed the religion to form that nation. If they had funded them. Armed them for the Indian Wars of the 1800's. Would there be a theocratic country in Utah today? I don't know. But this post isn't really about Mormons or Deseret. It's about something else. The Mormons call Deseret, and Utah today, Zion. This post is about the dangers of tying religion to the possession of land. This post is about Zionism.
