As a gay atheist ex-Mormon who was raised in Utah, I have been proud of my home state this election season. I am proud of my own Mormon values. I am certain that I am a better person for my upbringing.

I have a number of well-educated Republican friends who are refusing to vote for Trump this year. Every single one of them is jealous of me, because of my home state.

I told them that Utah conservatism is different. Utahns, and specifically Utah Mormons, vote for conservative Republicans because they genuinely believe that that is the best thing they can do. I don't always agree with them on everything, but I know that Utah Mormons have charity and love in their hearts. Their motivations are pure.

The rest of the country ought to adopt Mormon values, or at least learn something from them. The world would be a much better place.

Early polling showed that Utahns harbored immediate skepticism for the ill-mannered con artist who somehow won this year's Republican primaries.

As the race went on, Trump continued to forge his way by insult after insult, mocking the disabled, veterans, Latinos, blacks, Iowans, the poor, the rich, the Democrats, the Republicans, the president, Muslims, Mormons, and other religious minorities. The only group of people he managed not to insult? Low-information, rural white nationalists.

Trump casually advocated for the brutal torture and murder of the families of possible terrorists. He talked about irresponsibly starting new wars. He promises a great nation, but he threatens to sacrifice U.S. global hegemony and revert our economy to the Middle Ages through irresponsible isolationism, protectionism and race conflict. He is tearing our country apart and making a mockery of everything that we have worked so hard to build.

But what most terrifies me about a Trump presidency is what it will do to our country to rationalize, normalize and legitimize the culture of misogyny and racism that Trump has extolled. What will our children think if they grow up in a world with Trump as a role model as president of the United States of America? How can we look our children in the eyes after voting for a man who thinks that he has a right to sexually assault women because he is a star, a man who thinks it is OK to be vulgar and selfish, OK to lie, cheat and steal, OK to live a life driven purely by selfishness in the absence of an actual punishment mechanism, a man who routinely cheats subcontractors out of that which he has contracted to pay them?

Understandably, many harbor skepticism of Hillary Clinton. I harbor skepticism about Hillary Clinton. She has been exposed to the public eye for so long that at least some of the scandals surrounding her give off the ring of truth. She clearly does care about money and power. She is clearly willing to tailor her image to maximize public support. She is willing on some occasions to engage in unethical behavior in order to get ahead.

Hillary Clinton has flaws. But we already know what those flaws are. And she is more than just her flaws. Hillary actually protested for civil rights in the 1960s. She has actually pushed for her own brand of feminism over the years — not out of politically motivated self-interest, but because she actually desires to make the world a better place. As first lady, she actually pushed for health care reform for no better reason than that she hoped it would make the country a better place.

How can I know that Hillary Clinton really is motivated by a charitable instinct? Because I've used Wikileaks' publicly available tool and looked at some of her unedited private emails for myself.

They show an aging woman who prefers to read things in print rather than on a computer screen.

They show a woman who watches the news and whose heart yearns to find some way to help a 10-year-old Yemeni girl who is in a bad situation.

Those emails show a woman who is just trying to do her job as best she can, probably not all that much different from those of any prior secretary of state from either party.

Even if you cannot bring yourself to vote for Hillary Clinton, you can vote for Evan McMullin. McMullin is, by all accounts, an outstanding human being who would make an excellent president.

A vote for McMullin is NOT a vote for Clinton, because if McMullin wins Utah and it causes the race to go to the House of Representatives, Trump is still almost certain to win because Republicans control 33 out of 50 congressional delegations. On the off-chance that House Republicans in eight of those delegations buck Trump, McMullin is actually substantially more likely to consolidate sufficient support for a victory than is Clinton. If the House were locked in eternal deadlock, then the newly elected vice president (elected by the Senate if necessary) would become acting president in March.

Vote Republicans into the House and Senate. Democrats may take the Senate, but it is simply unrealistic to think that they could take the House at this point. Wait through four more years of divided government, and then vote for the sane candidate that Republicans will hopefully nominate in 2020. Around the Beltway, at least, I have noticed an almost palpable longing for the return of Mitt Romney, who was an infinitely better candidate than Trump could ever be.

What good could possibly come from a Trump presidency? What will it teach our children if we allow that monster to become a role model? What will future elections look like if we allow a man to win who has based his campaign on feeding and legitimizing racial animus? What will the country look like?

Utah, I have a great deal of respect and affection for my home state, and for the culture that I grew up in. Please do not ignore your conscience. Please do not rally around a con-artist. Please actively strip the partisan filter from your vision and see the world as it is. If Trump wins, please let it not be with the stamp of Utah's vote.

Please do not disappoint me.

Peter Daines is a student at Georgetown University Law Center, studying employee benefits tax law. He was raised in a large LDS family (10 siblings, over 100 first cousins) in Logan, Utah, and Bear Lake, Idaho. He studied political science, sociology, mathematics and foreign languages at Utah State University, where he also participated in Utah State's debate team during the year in which it placed first overall in debate events at a national forensics tournament.