Sheri L. Dew
Encyclopedia
Sheri L. Dew 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”.
, 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, 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 role
s 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 LDS Church.
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.”
Chief executive officer
A chief executive officer , managing director , Executive Director for non-profit organizations, or chief executive is the highest-ranking corporate officer or administrator in charge of total management of an organization...
of Deseret Book
Deseret Book
Deseret Book is the largest Latter-day Saint book publisher and also owns a chain of LDS bookstores in the western United States. Over 150 people work in its Salt Lake City headquarters...
, in Salt Lake City, Utah
Salt Lake City, Utah
Salt Lake City is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Utah. The name of the city is often shortened to Salt Lake or SLC. With a population of 186,440 as of the 2010 Census, the city lies in the Salt Lake City metropolitan area, which has a total population of 1,124,197...
. 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
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
delegate to the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
. In 2003, she was described as “the most prominent single LDS woman right now”.
Biography
Born in UlyssesUlysses, Kansas
Ulysses is a city in and the county seat of Grant County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 6,161.-Geography:Ulysses is located at...
, Kansas
Kansas
Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...
, Dew grew up on a farm, obtained a degree from Brigham Young University
Brigham Young University
Brigham Young University is a private university located in Provo, Utah. It is owned and operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints , and is the United States' largest religious university and third-largest private university.Approximately 98% of the university's 34,000 students...
, and quickly moved into the Mormon publishing business. Between 1997 and 2002 she served as a counselor to Mary Ellen W. Smoot
Mary Ellen W. Smoot
Mary Ellen Wood Smoot was the thirteenth general president of the Relief Society of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1997 to 2002....
in the general presidency of the women’s Relief Society
Relief Society
The Relief Society is a philanthropic and educational women's organization and an official auxiliary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints . It was founded in 1842 in Nauvoo, Illinois, USA and has approximately 6 million members in over 170 countries and territories...
, the first non-married woman called to this position in the LDS Church.
Dew has given many speeches to audiences in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and around the world, traveling in Colombia
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...
, Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
, the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
, Cambodia
Cambodia
Cambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...
, Ecuador
Ecuador
Ecuador , officially the Republic of Ecuador is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America, along with Chile, that do not have a border...
and Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
. As an author, Dew wrote authorized biographies of two LDS Church presidents, Ezra Taft Benson
Ezra Taft Benson
Ezra Taft Benson was the thirteenth president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1985 until his death and was United States Secretary of Agriculture for both terms of the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower.-Biography:Born on a farm in Whitney, Idaho, Benson was the oldest of...
and Gordon B. Hinckley
Gordon B. Hinckley
Gordon Bitner Hinckley was an American religious leader and author who served as the 15th President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from March 12, 1995 until his death...
. She also has written the biography of 1985 Miss America
Miss America
The Miss America pageant is a long-standing competition which awards scholarships to young women from the 50 states plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands...
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
United Nations Commission on the Status of Women
The Commission on the Status of Women is a functional commission of the United Nations Economic and Social Council , one of the main UN organs within the United Nations.Every year, representatives of Member States gather at United Nations Headquarters in New York to evaluate progress on gender...
, Dew defended American president
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
’s conservative social agenda, proposing sexual abstinence
Sexual abstinence
Sexual abstinence is the practice of refraining from some or all aspects of sexual activity for medical, psychological, legal, social, philosophical or religious reasons.Common reasons for practicing sexual abstinence include:*poor health - medical celibacy...
and monogamy
Monogamy
Monogamy /Gr. μονός+γάμος - one+marriage/ a form of marriage in which an individual has only one spouse at any one time. In current usage monogamy often refers to having one sexual partner irrespective of marriage or reproduction...
as the solution to the AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
pandemic and other global ills. She often speaks about the sanctity of marriage, motherhood, the family, and the differences in the gender role
Gender role
Gender roles refer to the set of social and behavioral norms that are considered to be socially appropriate for individuals of a specific sex in the context of a specific culture, which differ widely between cultures and over time...
s of men and women.
After a 1999 trip to Ghana
Ghana
Ghana , officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country located in West Africa. It is bordered by Côte d'Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south...
, 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
Fiji
Fiji , officially the Republic of Fiji , is an island nation in Melanesia in the South Pacific Ocean about northeast of New Zealand's North Island...
in July 2005.
Since 2009, Dew has contributed to the Mormon Channel
Mormon Channel
Mormon Channel is an over the air and Internet radio station owned and operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints . It is based in Salt Lake City, Utah....
's Conversations program, where she has interviewed some high profile members of the LDS Church.
Controversial speech
Sheri Dew was embroiled in controversy resulting from remarks she made in February 2004 at an event sponsored by a conservative religious coalitionChristian right
Christian right is a term used predominantly in the United States to describe "right-wing" Christian political groups that are characterized by their strong support of socially conservative policies...
in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
. Dew showed the audience a picture of a same-sex wedding; the photograph depicted two men getting married at the San Francisco City Hall
San Francisco City Hall
San Francisco City Hall, re-opened in 1915, in its open space area in the city's Civic Center, is a Beaux-Arts monument to the City Beautiful movement that epitomized the high-minded American Renaissance of the 1880s to 1917. The structure's dome is the fifth largest in the world...
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
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
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
Affirmation: Gay & Lesbian Mormons
Affirmation: Gay & Lesbian Mormons is an international organization for gay, lesbian, transgender, bisexual, and intersex people who identify as members or ex-members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints...
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
Human Rights Campaign
The Human Rights Campaign is the United States' largest LGBT advocacy group and lobbying organization; according to the HRC, it has more than one million members and supporters...
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
Republican National Convention
The Republican National Convention is the presidential nominating convention of the Republican Party of the United States. Convened by the Republican National Committee, the stated purpose of the convocation is to nominate an official candidate in an upcoming U.S...
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
Utah
Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...
’s two major newspapers, in Sunstone Magazine
Sunstone Magazine
Sunstone is a magazine published by the Sunstone Education Foundation, Inc., a 501 nonprofit corporation, that discusses Mormonism through scholarship, art, short fiction, and poetry. The foundation began the publication in 1974 and considers it a vehicle for free and frank exchange in The Church...
, 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
Deseret Morning News
The Deseret News is a newspaper published in Salt Lake City, Utah, and is Utah's oldest continuously published daily newspaper. It has the second largest daily circulation in the state behind The Salt Lake Tribune. The Deseret News is owned by Deseret News Publishing Company, a subsidiary of...
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.”
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.