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Sheri L. Dew

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Sheri L. Dew (born November 21, 1953) is an American author and publisher, currently acting as president and chief executive officer of Deseret Book, in Salt Lake City, Utah. Dew has also been a religious leader within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), an inspirational speaker, writer, and acted as a White House delegate to the United Nations. In 2003, she was described as “the most prominent single LDS woman right now”.[1]

Biography

Born in Ulysses, Kansas, Dew grew up on a farm, obtained a degree from Brigham Young University, and quickly moved into the Mormon publishing business. Between 1997 and 2002 she served as a counselor to Mary Ellen W. Smoot in the general presidency of the women’s Relief Society, the first non-married woman called to this position in the LDS Church.

Dew has given many speeches to audiences in the United States and around the world, traveling in Colombia, Africa, the Philippines, Cambodia, Ecuador and Japan. As an author, Dew wrote authorized biographies of two LDS Church presidents, Ezra Taft Benson and Gordon B. Hinckley. She also has written the biography of 1985 Miss America Sharlene Wells and five inspirational volumes: No Doubt About It; No One Can Take Your Place; If Life Were Easy, It Wouldn't Be Hard; and God Wants A Powerful People.

As a White House delegate to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, Dew defended American president George W. Bush’s conservative social agenda[citation needed], proposing sexual abstinence and monogamy as the solution to the AIDS pandemic and other global ills. She often speaks about the sanctity of marriage, motherhood, the family, and the differences in the gender roles of men and women.

After a 1999 trip to Ghana, Dew began to spearhead a humanitarian program to send children’s books to impoverished areas of the world. The first shipment of 6500 books was sent to Ghana and Fiji in July 2005.

Since 2009, Dew has contributed to the Mormon Channel's Conversations program, where she has interviewed some high profile members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. [2]

Controversial speech

See also: Homosexuality and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Sheri Dew was embroiled in controversy resulting from remarks she made in February 2004 at an event sponsored by a conservative religious coalition in Washington, D.C.. Dew showed the audience a picture of a same-sex wedding; the photograph depicted two men getting married at the San Francisco City Hall and holding their adopted infant twin daughters in their arms. “This is hard for me to stomach,” said Dew. “What kind of chance do these girls have being raised in that kind of setting?”

Dew then used this statement derived from a World War II journalist by the name of Dorothy Thomson who wrote for the Saturday Evening Post. In delivering an address in Toronto in 1941, the statement reads: "Before this epic is over, every living human being will have chosen. Every living human being will have lined up with Hitler or against him. Every living human being either will have opposed this onslaught or supported it, for if he tries to make no choice that in itself will be a choice. If he takes no side, he is on Hitler’s side. If he does not act, that is an act—for Hitler.”

Dew then took "the liberty of reading this statement again and changing just a few words, applying it to what I fear we face today." She then said: “Before this era is over, every living human being will have chosen. Every living human being will have lined up in support of the family or against it. Every living human being will have either opposed the onslaught against the family or supported it, for if he tries to make no choice that in itself will be a choice. If we do not act in behalf of the family, that is itself an act of opposition to the family.”

She then stated to clarify: "At first it may seem a bit extreme to imply a comparison between the atrocities of Hitler and what is happening in terms of contemporary threats against the family—but maybe not."

Dew’s speech was posted on the website of Meridian Magazine, but the expression, “This is hard for me to stomach” was changed to “I was, frankly, heartsick.”

In March 2004 Affirmation: Gay & Lesbian Mormons issued a statement expressing their “outrage” at the comments made by Dew. “We agree with LDS Church president Gordon B. Hinckley when he says that families are under attack,” read the statement. “But when we see LDS leaders provoke disgust at our families, spend millions of dollars so that we will never be able to marry, and lobby so that our children will never have two legal parents, we arrive at a different conclusion about who is the aggressor and who are the victims.”

In September 2004 the Human Rights Campaign and the National Black Justice Coalition called on Bush to repudiate Dew for making “deeply offensive comments about GLBT Americans.” The invitation came "out of the blue" for Dew to give the opening prayer at the Republican National Convention of 2004, which was not rescinded. Only days after the letter was sent to Bush, Meridian Magazine pulled Dew’s speech from its website. Stories about the controversy appeared in Utah’s two major newspapers, in Sunstone Magazine, and on several websites.

In April 2005 Dew broke her silence about the controversy during a speaking engagement at Brigham Young University. According to a Deseret Morning News reporter, Dew emphasized that her point had nothing to do with Hitler. “I wasn't comparing anybody to Hitler,” she said. “Hitler is irrelevant to the point I was trying to make.”

“I have friends living an openly gay lifestyle with kids,” she added. “In every instance, they are caring parents who love their kids and their kids love them. They know I feel it's not my prerogative to judge them. It's their right to choose. ... Those that deal with same-sex attraction have my respect.”[3]

Publications

  • Ezra Taft Benson: A Biography. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1987
  • Sharlene Wells, Miss America. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1985
  • God Wants a Powerful People (Compact Disc). Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2004.
  • No One Can Take Your Place. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2004.
  • No Doubt About It. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2001.
  • Go Forward with Faith: The Biography of Gordon B. Hinckley. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1996.
  • If Life Were Easy, It Wouldn't Be Hard: And Other Reassuring Truths. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2005.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Eric Samuelsen, quoted in "Play Examines Singles Stigma", BYU NewsNet, 24 February 2003.
  2. ^ Template:Cite web url=http://mormonchannel.org/programs/conversations-episode-1?lang=eng
  3. ^ Deseret Morning News | Lack of morals called recipe for family disaster

References

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