Team members of the Brigham Young University Cougars face the Colorado Buffaloes during the first quarter of a college football game at Folsom Field in Boulder, Colorado on Sept. 27, 2025.
Flowers rest at a road block on McCandlish Road in Grand Blanc Township on Sept. 29, 2025, near the scene where a mass shooting occurred at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Grand Blanc Township on Sunday.

A day before a shooter killed four people and set fire to a church in Michigan, students at a football game in Colorado chanted vulgar anti-Mormon slurs against the same religious organization.

The two events spurred sweeping conversations about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and lingering anti-Mormonism against its members.

The University of Colorado's chancellor and athletic director quickly condemned the students' behavior, but it was at least the third time in the past year when chanting by student fans at college ball games with Brigham Young University took on a darker tone against members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which owns and operates BYU.

Less than 24 hours later, police say Thomas Jacob Sanford drove his silver pickup truck into the wall of a large room in the Michigan meetinghouse where more than 100 members had gathered for Sunday services. The church's members are often called Mormons, or Latter-day Saints.

Eyewitnesses told authorities Sanford got out of his truck shooting at members with an assault rifle then set off an inferno as terrified members rushed to get everyone out of the building. The assault left four members dead and numerous others physically injured, some from gunshots, others by smoke inhalation and still others gashed and bleeding from shrapnel and shards of glass.

Within hours, news emerged that Sanford had previously ranted against the church, after a failed relationship with a devout member of the faith in Utah more than a decade earlier.

Anti-Mormon slurs at college sporting events or the heckling that often takes place on street corners when thousands of members meet for conferences – like the one taking place on Oct. 4 and 5 in Salt Lake City – can not be equated to Sunday’s violent attack, said Patrick Mason, chair of Mormon History at Utah State University and member of the church. However, Mason said, sometimes hate speech can ultimately lead to acts of violence.

He and other scholars who study religion and culture, told USA TODAY the two events illustrate a spectrum of discrimination that still plagues not only Latter-day Saints, but members of other minority religions across a nation founded nearly 250 years ago on principles of religious liberty.

Religious minorities have long faced discrimination

As minority religious groups in the United States, Muslims and Jews face the greatest religious discrimination in the United States, but Mormons are right up there in the U.S. and globally, said Elaine Howard Ecklund, a sociologist, who directs Rice University's Boniuk Institute for the Study and Advancement of Religious Tolerance.

In research a decade ago, about 46% of Mormons, compared with about 60% to 70% of Muslims, said they experience "a lot of" discrimination, said Ecklund. She added that Sikhs and Jehovah’s Witnesses also experience discrimination because of their beliefs.

Scholars cite several reasons for continuing religious discrimination, particularly against the Latter-day Saints. They include unfamiliarity with religions considered minorities in the U.S., doctrinal differences and "significant stereotypes” about Mormonism from the past, for example its 1800s-era practice of men having multiple wives, Ecklund said.

People who identify as Latter-day Saints make up about 2% of the U.S. population. The same is true for Jews. Together, with Muslims, Sikhs and Jehovah's Witnesses, the five religions comprise less than 7%.

When people are unfamiliar with religions and their members, it contributes to ignorance and prejudice, Mason said. While Latter-day Saints are highly visible in Utah, and some other areas of the west, that's not the case elsewhere.

"Most people don’t actually personally know a member of the church, let alone are related to one, which is different than, say, Catholics," he said. "It’s easier to chant slurs in a college stadium if you don’t know a Mormon."

A history of violence and persecution

Anti-Mormonism has been a part of the Latter-day Saint experience since the church was founded in western New York in the early 1800s, said Benjamin Park, author of American Zion: A New History of Mormonism. From the earliest days, evangelicals saw Mormons “as cultists who do not really belong,” said Park, a historian, scholar and member of the church.

There was “all kinds” of animosity among different denominations in early 19th century America, Mason said. “But what's striking about the Latter-day Saint experience is the way that opposition translated into violence very, very quickly.”

Violent anti-Mormon attacks began before the church was officially founded in Palmyra, New York, then followed the members as they grew in numbers and moved first to Ohio, then Missouri, Mason said. There, the state’s governor grew so concerned about conflicts between the existing settlers and new arrivals that he ordered the state militia to “exterminate” or drive away the Latter-day Saints.

In Carthage, Illinois, the church’s founder and prophet, Joseph Smith Jr., and his brother Hyrum were fatally shot by a mob in 1844 while incarcerated in the Carthage Jail. From Illinois, the Mormons made their way west to Utah’s Salt Lake Valley.

A culture of religious violence continued in the U.S. through the 19th century, particularly in the South where the church was just getting started and vigilante violence was not uncommon, Mason said. “This is the era of the Ku Klux Klan and other vigilante groups that were using terrorist violence against African-Americans, also Jews and Catholics."

The scholars couldn't recall an incident carried out against Latter-day Saints with the extreme harm seen Sunday in 140 years, since a mob attacked and killed four people during a church service in Tennessee. Park said the incident was seen as a "Christian act" by people who wanted to "kick out these heretics."

But overall, mass violence in churches has become more common in this century, a Voice of America report concluded.

Modern anti-Mormonism

Pew Research Center studies show animosity toward the LDS church lingers, and “plenty of cases” of rhetoric denouncing the church for its religious beliefs, Park said. For example Mitt Romney, who campaigned for president in 2008 and 2012 as a Republican, was repeatedly faced with prejudice against his Mormon faith.

But the animosity has “largely subsided,” he said. “You don’t see the evangelical anti-Mormonism as much as you used to."

"That’s in part because evangelicals and Mormons have proven to be such useful collaborators on social, political and cultural issues," he said. After natural disasters, members of other faiths and Latter-day Saints often work side by side on community clean ups and volunteer efforts.

The weekend events unleashed a wave of animosity on social media by some who took exception to people – such as President Donald Trump – referring to church members as Christians. Ecklund said many mainstream Christian religions still do not consider members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to be Christians.

Park said President Trump's post labeling the incident as anti-Christian violence shows how "integrated and assimilated Latter-day Saints have become."

The outpouring of negative comments prompted some of the church's members to post comments sharing their beliefs. In general, Ecklund said, members of the church are more likely to talk about their faith than other groups.

In Colorado, the Big 12 college athletic conference announced a $50,000 fine against the University of Colorado. The university's athletics director, Rick George, said it would accept the fine and review its policies to prevent a recurrence of the "appalling" behavior. Once implemented, patrons who violate the new code of conduct will face "a series of consequences up to and including a ban from future home games."

Ecklund would like to see greater efforts to expand religious tolerance and reduce religious discrimination across the nation, for all people, she said. "We should try to decrease that behavior, just as we want to decrease religious discrimination for Jewish people and for Muslims."

"The weekend events clearly demonstrated the need," she said. "Trying to have a thoughtful approach to religion, both nationally and internationally, has never been more important."

Dinah Voyles Pulver, a national correspondent for USA TODAY, covers climate change, wildlife and the environment. Reach her at dpulver@usatoday.com or @dinahvp on Bluesky or X or dinahvp.77 on Signal.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Slurs, stereotypes and violence have long plagued members of the Mormon faith

Reporting by Dinah Voyles Pulver, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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