This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

As we all celebrated Thursday the annual holiday set aside for giving thanks for our good fortunes and coming together in peace as a community, we should assess how sincerely those sentiments resonate and why they don't last more than a day.

The most popular version of the origins of Thanksgiving in America tells of a feast to give thanks for a good harvest among Puritans and pilgrims in Plymouth, Mass.

After that solemn celebration filled with Christian overtones and remembrance of the gifts bestowed on them, these immigrants and their descendants spent centuries annihilating the American Indian populace and enslaving blacks kidnapped from their African homelands, then fighting a brutal Civil War over the right to treat our fellow humans that way.

But each year, on the fourth Thursday of November, we pause to give thanks to our creator for our blessings.

Now, it's 2015, and while the barbaric institution of slavery was settled by that bloody war 150 years ago, racism still rages in our so-called Christian country, The Republican presidential front-runner spews xenophobic hysteria almost every day, and he yet grows more popular.

First, he targeted those criminal Mexicans streaming across the border.

Then he took aim at Muslims and now Syrian refugees fleeing for their lives from a vicious dictatorship laced with war-torn anarchy and indiscriminate murder.

Donald Trump can fan the flames of hate by fabricating a story that thousands of Muslims in Jersey City cheered when the Twin Towers came down on 9-11 and, despite no shred of evidence to back that claim, his supporters eat it up.

It gives them demons to fear.

But we were all God's children Thursday.

Most GOP governors and the entire Utah congressional delegation want to close our borders to the refugees escaping Syria and other parts of the Middle East despite assurances they are well-vetted before they are admitted into American society and that most of them are families with small children.

Meanwhile, those same power brokers screech at any attempt to regulate guns to keep them out of the hands crazies because the Second Amendment guarantees unlimited access to guns (forget the "well regulated militia" phrase in that measure) and, according to the more ecclesiastical-leaning folks among us, that amendment was divinely inspired.

They may have given thanks for that Thursday.

They ignore the fact that most killing rampages in this country during the past several years have been carried out by mentally disturbed white Americans with easy access to firearms. But they look like us, so it's OK.

The vitriol between the gay and lesbian community and those who believe that granting LGBT rights tramples on their religious liberties seems to be getting worse since the U.S. Supreme Court made same-sex marriage legal. The argument centers on my rights vs. your rights, not about our rights.

Many of us gorged ourselves with turkey and mashed potatoes after saying grace Thursday, but we can't seem to do much about the thousands of homeless roaming our streets in downtown Salt Lake City and pestering us for a couple of bucks.

In Utah, our Legislature can't figure out a way to extend health care to the needy among us.

Our lawmakers can't even be honest about it, deciding the issue in a closed Republican caucus so constituents don't know how their own representatives voted.

House Speaker Greg Hughes, R-Draper, has defended a trip he and others took to Switzerland recently to learn more about that country's highly touted rail system and how it could be used to enhance Utah's lucrative ski industry.

It's too bad he didn't take the time to study Switzerland's vaunted health-care system, which covers all of its citizens.

But, then, we have Thanksgiving.