He offers numerous examples of bad laws: harboring Jews in Nazi Germany, segregation in the American South, and laws once used to persecute Mormons, such as a notorious "extermination order" issued by Missouri Governor Lilburn Boggs in 1838.
A Republican, Williams said he was leaning toward Gingrich in the primary. He was withering in his assessment of fellow Mormon Romney and his self-deportation plan.
Dave Phillips
Stephen Lemons
A frieze on the LDS temple in Mesa, showing Mexican saints in sombreros as they join other nationalities in the "gathering of Israel."
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"I think a man who holds the office [of president] should have principles," he said. "And I find it inconsistent that he would take a position which is so contrary to this religion that he espouses."
Republican Mormon Kevin Gibbons agrees. Gibbons ran against Pearce in the 2008 primary for state Senator from LD 18.
He believes Romney's stance is an obvious political calculation "to keep him somewhat to the right of Gingrich." And he thinks Romney knows what he's saying on immigration is wrong from a moral and practical stance.
"Self-deportation doesn't make any sense. You ask [12 million] illegals if they'd like to participate in self-deportation, they'll respond much like M.I.A. did during the halftime show at the Super Bowl," he says in reference to pop star's giving the middle finger to a TV camera.
As far as his faith goes, he contends that it does not support Romney's views.
"There is no way in our church you can tell a family to leave [the country]," he said. "And there's no way you can tell just one of them to leave."
The Romney policy of self-deportation would have the effect of depopulating many wards, and it would reverberate throughout Latin America, where the church has experienced exponential growth over the past few decades.
Church sources are quoted as estimating 5 million members in Latin America. And the church confirms that of its more than 14 million members worldwide, most live outside the Unites States: more than 8 million outside the United States versus more than 6 million within.
Though the church once banned African-Americans from the priesthood, it reversed the policy in 1978.
The modern LDS church embraces diversity and has spent millions on a PR effort featuring billboards and television ads promoting the church's revamped website, mormon.org.
In the TV ads, Latinos, Asians and other ethnicities spout the line, "And I'm a Mormon."
A recent Sunday visit to an LDS meetinghouse in Mesa illustrates the reality behind the commercials.
There, members of the English-language Stewart ward and its Spanish-language sister Barrio Liahona II meet around the same time in the same building every Sunday, trading the use of the chapel and other rooms and facilities.
Adult men of both wards exchange information on church activities in a bilingual get-together during the hours-long church session.
Sunday school for kids and teens is taught in English, with brown, black and white kids learning Bible lessons together.
Pablo Felix teaches one of the classes. He hails from Phoenix, was baptized when he was 17, and once served as bishop of Liahona II.
He says his children and other kids of Latino parents participate in church activities with the Anglo kids, including Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts.
"We go camping together. We do everything together," he says. "I like that. You get everybody's perspective."
Felix's Anglo pal Tyler Montague is a lifelong Mormon and attends a nearby ward, where he chaperones a young men's group. He's fluent in Spanish, having served his mission in Chile when he was 19.
It's there where he, like many missionaries to Latin countries, learned to love the culture, food, and people. He's one of the Mormons who helped recruit Lewis to run against Pearce in the recall.
"I'm not an open-borders [advocate]," he says. "But we could totally solve the problem without ripping apart families."
Though not all Mesa Mormons share his views on immigration reform, the Mesa temple — the center of LDS life in the area — reflects the religion's international appeal, both past and present.
At the temple's state-of-the-art visitors center, young women, called "sister missionaries," act as guides and answer questions. They come from all over the world. You're just as likely to meet one from Mongolia or Pakistan as from Virginia or Utah.
One of the displays features an array of copies of the Book of Mormon translated into everything from Thai and French to Russian and Japanese.
Just outside the center's doors is the stately, flat-topped temple itself, which dates to 1927. Before a temple was dedicated in Mexico City in 1983, Mexican saints would make pilgrimages to the Mesa temple to attend holy rites.
The first temple ceremonies performed in another language were in Spanish at the Mesa temple. Non-Mormon visitors cannot enter the building but can walk the scenic gardens that surround it.
Friezes ringing the top of the temple depict various nationalities leaving their homes for the so-called "gathering of Israel," as prophesied in the Old Testament Book of Isaiah.
There are Dutch and Italians, Polynesians and Native Americans. One panel depicts Mexicans in sombreros, making the trek.
This echo from the past doesn't jibe with Romney's harsh immigration stand and illustrates an observation Williams made about his faith:
"The church's vision is truly universal. And I don't think it makes a difference to our heavenly father that you happen to be born in Mexico rather than the United States."
