by Zoë Pollock
Jacob Weisberg's recent Huntsman profile examines his religion, among other things:
People tend to see Mormonism as a binary, you-are-or-you-aren’t question, but Jon Huntsman is something more like a Reform Jew, who honors the spirit rather than the letter of his faith. He describes his family on his father’s side as “saloon keepers and rabble rousers,” and his mother’s side as “ministers and proselytizers.” The Huntsman side ran a hotel in Fillmore, Utah’s first capital, where they arrived with the wagon trains in the 1850s. They were mostly what Utahans call “Jack Mormons”—people with positive feelings about the Latter-Day Saints church who don’t follow all of its strictures. “We blend a couple of different cultures in this family,” he says. You’d never hear a phrase like that from Romney, who has raised his sons as Mormons and sent them on missions. Nor would you see Tagg, Matt, Josh, Ben, or Craig Romney in a hotel bar, sipping a glass of wine, as you might see one of Huntsman’s adult children.
A recent Boston Globe piece covered similar territory, but avoided calling him a Jack Mormon. Mark Hemingway dissects why:
It's not a pejorative term, but in some select contexts Jack Mormon is not exactly a compliment. It’s often shorthand for “Mormon who drinks alcohol.” Jack Mormon may refer to fully lapsed or inactive members more often than not, though the definition is highly fungible. Given that [Mormon blogger Joanna Brooks] seems to have a similar Mormon identity as Huntsman, I wonder if there’s not some overt attempt at rebranding going on.
The Dish 