In response to Benson's conference statement that "No true Latter-day Saint can be a socialist or a communist," a University of Utah student from Norway countered that "more than half" of Norwegian Mormons vote for the socialist Labor Party. This student concluded: "I am glad the president of the Church has taken a stand against Communism. But I do not think it is the responsibility of any other speaker in the tabernacle to give his own political opinions regarding welfare states." In equally public responses, other LDS students attacked this Mormon undergraduate for criticizing Benson.
[Kjell Nilsen, letters to the editor, Daily Utah Chronicle, 22 Oct. 1962, 2, and 26 Oct. 1962,2, to which Allen Mickelsen and Jim Wanek responded in Daily Utah Chronicle, 24 Oct. 1962, 2, and 25 Oct. 1962, 2. From D. Michael Quinn, Ezra Taft Benson and Mormon Political Conflicts, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 26:2 (Summer 1992), also in Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power Salt Lake City (Signature Books, 1994), Chapter 3.]
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