The Salt Lake Tribune Commentary: Why this conservative LDS member didn’t vote Republican

As a lifelong member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I’ve always considered myself conservative. I believed the Republican Party best promoted the values of family and faith that define my moral core. Yet, during this last election, I did something I never thought I would do: I broke ranks and refused to vote for any of their candidates. My values hadn’t changed. My party’s had.

Standing at the ballot box this November in Provo, I cast my vote for candidates who stood up against President Donald Trump’s family separation policy and his lack of compassion for Dreamers, the 800,000 undocumented immigrants who came to this country as children.

And I wasn’t alone. Across the country, Democrats flipped 40 seats in the House. In many of these districts, the Republican candidates had stoked racist, anti-immigrant fears on the campaign trail. Although Republican John Curtis eventually won the House seat in my congressional district, backlash to two anti-immigrant ads that were posted on Facebook was so swift that he had to take them down. One argued: “It’s time to end illegal immigration once and for all,” and the other claimed that sanctuary cities put us in “harm’s way.”

Read the complete opinion piece at stltrib.com.