At the Boston Globe, journalist Michael Paulson reports on a recent conference held at Utah Valley University on “Mormonism in the Public Mind.” The talks Paulson summarized were largely about Mormonism and politics.

One speaker who ran for office in Utah related the frustrations of being both a Mormon and a Democrat. He labels himself a “progressive Mormon.” That probably comes across to some as a suggestion that those who are both Republican and Mormon are somehow regressive, which might explain why he didn’t get elected in largely Republican Utah (some Democrats do get elected there).

A Mormon legal historian who publicly opposed Proposition 8 talked about his difficult experience. On the other hand, Mormons who disagreed with him didn’t picket outside his house. Here are his comments on the Prop 8 campaign:

“It would be difficult to understate the effectiveness of the LDS campaign,” he said, citing doorbelling efforts, sign-holding, and election day efforts to get voters to the polls in support of Proposition 8. By contrast, he said, “the organizers of ‘No on 8’ came across as rank amateurs.”

The last speaker (other than Paulson himself) addressed the question of whether Mitt Romney’s Mormonism cost him the Republican nomination. I’ve seen arguments going both ways; this scholar’s opinion is that “there’s a great argument to be made that he lost Iowa due to his religion,” which put Romney on the defensive for the balance of the nomination race.