J. David Woodard is a professor of political science at Clemson University in Clemson, S.C., and author of The New Southern Politics.

Ferrel Guillory is a professor of journalism and director of the Program on Public Life at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, N.C.

Walton Brown-Foster teaches a course on religion and politics at Central Connecticut State University in New Britain.

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich is a professor of early American history at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., and a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

C. Brid Nicholson is an assistant professor of American history at Kean University in New Jersey who has studied Mormonism.

The Rev. Patrick Lynch is chair of the religious studies department at Canisius College in Buffalo, N.Y. He is a Jesuit priest and has taught courses on Catholic social ethics, religion & politics and the Jesuits.

Bob Bennett is a former U.S. senator from Utah, as was his father, and is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Bennett is now chairman of the Bennett Group, a consulting group for corporations in Washington, D.C.

In Oklahoma a bill was introduced in 2005 that would have replaced Columbus Day with Native American Day. The bill did not receive a committee hearing.

James R. Spencer is a minister and author of seven books on cults, the occult and secularism. He wrote an article about Mormonism and Christianity for the Assemblies of God magazine, Today’s Pentecostal Evangel. He runs the website Maze Ministry. He lives in Boise, Idaho.