not looking at the thank is discriminated against and nobody wants to paint mormons as innocent victims just for the sake of being picked on, but still it does not tell us a lot about the american culture and the tensions of american culture. for me it is the tensions of the religion and the public sphere and how should religion function in the public sphere, and mormonism has been a surrogate for the conversation for a very long time. and in part, but a it is the uniquely american religion and we have been talking a about the american exceptionalism, and there is this theory of theology embedded in the latter day of saints theology and we have in the church s articles of faith the literal gathering of israel and the rest roioration of the tribes and that zion, the new jerusalem, will be built upon the american continue nen. so there is a typical space that is so surprising me about the idea that americans know so