Mormon Twit/ Journalist Writing For Mormon Churched-Owned Tabloid Calls Me Non-Mormon Because Mormon Church Paid Him to Say So

Okay, so the Deseret News wrote a review of tonight’s “Forbidden Love: Polygamy”. You can read it for yourself:

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,705263055,00.html


Polygamy show stinks
By Scott D. Pierce
Deseret News
Published: Saturday, Nov. 15, 2008 12:08 a.m. MST

Let's not pull any punches here. Dawn Porter is no journalist and cable channel TLC is beyond irresponsible to air her laughably bad program about polygamy.

"Forbidden Love" (Sunday, 11 p.m., TLC) is rather ridiculous to begin with. Porter tells viewers that she's been single for four years and she's looking for love. But first she plans to "experience some of the most extreme ways that women find love and live with men."

Next week: geishas!

But first up: polygamists! And, apparently incapable of spending 30 seconds doing research on the Internet, Porter is also incapable of understanding that Mormons do not practice polygamy. That it was abandoned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1896.

"Polygamy means one husband and lots of wives. It's a basic tenet of the Mormon Church," Porter intones. "Now it's outlawed, but many fundamentalist Mormons hide out in the middle of nowhere in Utah and the states around it."

Again, 30 seconds of research and Porter would have discovered that it hasn't been a basic tenet of the Mormon Church in 118 years.

Porter traveled to Centennial Park, Ariz., to visit a family of polygamists at the time Texas authorities were raiding the FLDS compound. "I couldn't have chosen a worse moment to try and get into a Mormon household," she incorrectly states.

And, reading a headline in the Cedar City Spectrum, she tells viewers about the "400 children taken away from a polygamous Mormon family in Texas. Basically, allegations of child abuse and underage marriage."

So, she not only misinforms viewers because there is no such thing as a "polygamous Mormon family," but she ties the Mormon Church to "allegations of child abuse and underage marriage."

It's flabbergasting.

There are examples throughout the hour of Porter's incompetence. Multiple uses of phrases like "Mormon polygamists" and raising polygamist children to have "true Mormon values."

The show itself is a bore. Porter meets and talks to polygamists and, through a series of interviews, reveals ... pretty much nothing. And, if her "reporting" weren't so amateurish and misleading, it would be almost funny.

It's not so much about the people she's "reporting" on, it's about Porter herself. How she feels about the prospects of entering a polygamous marriage. About how she'd be uncomfortable if her husband was sleeping with another wife.

Oh, and there's dramatic/eerie music playing in the background just to take this from cheesy to cheesiest.

There are moments that are so ludicrous you almost have to wonder if Porter is putting us on. It plays like a parody from "Saturday Night Live."

When she visits a polygamist and his two wives, Porter opines, "So Martha and Temple make house, while Moroni makes whoopee. Sounds like a good deal for a man. Time to take Moroni for a little walk."

Her analysis of the situation at Moroni's house?

"That was nuts. That was properly nuts," Porter says.

And, after discussing religious beliefs with one of the polygamist women, she actually says, "So there it is. The elephant in the room. God."

Profound and analytical she's not.

All of this would be laughable if Porter and TLC weren't so irresponsible. If this is the best TLC can come up with in the way of programming, just shut down the operation right now.


Okay, where do I start with this blatant piece of LDS propaganda other than to *expletive deleted*? Did you see that?? The whole basis for his criticism was that Dawn called us “Mormons”. Well, maybe Dawn called us Mormons, because WE call ourselves Mormons. Arguably, we have more right to call ourselves “Mormons” than the ever-morphing LDS Church. We claim and teach all the old foundational teachings of the early founders of the Mormon church whereas the LDS Church has compromised their tenets to appear more mainstream and palatable to society.

A decade ago, the LDS Church was trying to distance itself from the term “Mormon”. They came out with statements discouraging their members from using the word “Mormon” too often to describe themselves and to emphasize that they are Christians. Why? Because most people associate “Mormons” with practices deemed as bizarre according to modern standards – such as polygamy. And the LDS Church has been on a PR campaign for a while to “clean up its image” and distance itself from its controversial past. One way of doing that was to disassociate themselves from the appellation of “Mormon”.

Then a few years ago, “Big Love” comes out, and the LDS Church is mortified that the modern practice of polygamy is being associated with the Church – even though “Big Love” accurately depicted the current division between polygamist Mormons and mainstream LDS. They even show the discrimination and hostility that many (most) good Latter-Day Saints show to polygamists.

(Last night, my brother-in-law related to me that one of his good LDS neighbors in Utah told him that he wished their prophet would give the okay to kill polygamists, and then he would stock up on his ammunition.)

The LDS Church again issued further statements when the fiasco worsened in Texas this spring. This was due to the fact that polls revealed that most people assumed that the inhabitants of the YFZ Ranch had some connection to the Mormon Church. So in a move that made them look even more stupid, the LDS Church came out with press release after frickin’ press release stating that those who live polygamy today ARE NOT MORMON.

My question to the LDS Church is this: SO WHICH IS IT??? You don’t want to call yourselves “Mormons” anymore? But then you don’t want us to call ourselves “Mormons” either?? You can’t have it both ways. You can’t have your proverbial cake and then not expect me to have mine, too.

I have a couple of objections in the article:

“So, she not only misinforms viewers because there is no such thing as a ‘polygamous Mormon family,’ but she ties the Mormon Church to ‘allegations of child abuse and underage marriage.’”

There’s no such thing as a “polygamous Mormon family”? Dude! WE are a polygamous Mormon family!! We baptize our children. We study from the Book of Mormon. We may not have official manuals on what we are or aren’t allowed to teach, but at least we have the pure endowment with all the signs, tokens AND penalties still intact. If that’s not being Mormon, then I don’t know what is.

I was amazed at the level of support that the LDS Church gave to Arizona’s Proposition 102 and California’s Proposition 8. I was just speaking last week to a disaffected LDS man who said that the LDS Church TOLD their members how to vote, and that campaigning for it would count as a church calling. Conversely, those who campaigned AGAINST these propositions found that the Church took punitive action against them by revoking their temple recommends.

Why?? Is it because the Church is against gay marriages? Not so much as they are against polygamy. Proposition 102 put wording in the Arizona Constitution that defined marriage as between “ONE MAN AND ONE WOMAN”. This is a definition that is intended to take away right from polygamists, and 90% of the campaign funds came from Mormons. Even though polygamy was once a practice of the Mormon Church, they now fight against those who practice it today, to the point that they are willing to campaign to have our rights taken away.

“Again, 30 seconds of research and Porter would have discovered that it hasn't been a basic tenet of the Mormon Church in 118 years.”

If it is not a tenet of the Mormon Church then why is Section 132 still in the Doctrine & Covenants. Take it out! Get rid of it! It teaches that polygamy is legal in the sight of God.

And the Church hasn’t practiced polygamy in 118 years? That is not true! Modern historians have shown that the Manifesto of 1890 that forbade the LDS from continuing polygamy was a sham, and that Church leaders continued living polygamy for 15 years after the fact. So it is more like 104 years, and they still teach it. I was taught in seminary when I was still in the LDS Church that polygamy was still a correct principle, just not one to be lived today, but in the distant future.

All in all, I would have to say that Dawn Porter is a far superior journalist than Scott Pierce. Dawn had no agenda in her reporting, and she is exactly who she presents herself to be. I respect Dawn and think highly of her for her integrity. Scott Pierce, on the other hand, is a journalist who has his leash and collar tied firmly to the LDS Church. That kind indentured servitude has no place in a free society that deserves unbiased reporting.

As far as whether or not I am a Mormon – I remember the day after my father was excommunicated from the LDS Church, the bishop and his counselors showed up at my house. They told my dad, that since he was no longer a member of the Church that he should take off his temple garments.

My dad looked them in the eye and refused to take off his garments. He told them, “I was a Mormon when I went to bed last night, and I was a Mormon when I got out of bed today.”