Richard G. Hovannisian is a professor emeritus in history at University of California, Los Angeles. He has written about and studied the history of Orthodox Christianity.

Alexei D. Krindatch is director for membership growth and research at the Patriarch Athenagoras Orthodox Institute at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, Calif., and a leading researcher on Eastern Orthodox Christianity. The institute is “inter-Orthodox” and describes itself as an independent, not-for-profit teaching and research institution affiliated with the GTU and the University of California.

Lara Medina is an associate professor of Chicano and Chicana studies with an interest in politics and religion at California State University, Northridge. She wrote Las Hermanas: Chicana/Latina Religious-Political Activism in the U.S. Catholic Church.

Patrick Q. Mason holds the Howard W. Hunter Chair of Mormon Studies at Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, Calif., and is author of The Mormon Menace: Violence and Anti-Mormonism in the Postbellum South. Mason is a leading expert on anti-Mormonism.

U.S. Rep. Buck McKeon, a Republican, represents California’s 25th District and is an LDS church member.

Fritz Ridenour is the author of So What’s the Difference, in which he compares Christianity to other world religions, including Mormonism. The book is endorsed by Focus on the Family and declares that Mormonism is not compatible with Christianity. Ridenour lives in Santa Barbara, Calif.

Joe Baca was a U.S. Representative in, D-Calif. He sponsored House Resolution 76 to establish a legal holiday recognizing Native Americans’ contributions.

Read an article about how Berkeley changed the Columbus Day holiday into Indigenous Peoples’ Day in 1992, after the city declared Columbus not a hero. 

Richard L. Bushman is the Howard W. Hunter Visiting Professor of Mormon Studies, an endowed chair at Claremont Graduate University in California, and author of Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling. A prominent scholar of Mormonism, he has given talks on the relationship between Mormonism and American politics.