Dawn O'Porter Talks Polygamy

Dawn O'Porter

This morning, in the Independent in the UK, Dawn O'Porter spoke a bit about polygamy:

"Polygamy is not as harmful as tabloids make us believe I did a documentary on polygamy and I visited this affluent family in Utah with three wives and 16 very happy, bright, socialised and interesting kids. Though I'm anti-religion, I admired the way they were bringing up the children within the family unit and I thought, they're making this work. We must stop this tabloid-level judgement of alternative groups of society. We need to look at the good and the bad and try to have a balanced argument."


She was referring to the family she interviewed in Centennial Park.  I am a but disappointed that she didn't mention her interview with me or my family.  Perhaps because we are not "affluent".  But I was VERY pleased with her comments - her open-mindedness and positive outlook.

Thank you, Dawn O'Porter!  You rock!

More Feedback in 2010

A few days ago, I didn't think there would be any more feedback from the TLC show. After the re-run on New Year's Eve, I was wrong.

Check out what this lady Cristina said on a message board:

"Comments: I'm watching Forbidden Love: Polygamy as a "re-run" tonight, and I feel so sorry for the "wives" who, at least in comparison to the reporter who is visiting their home, look so plain,tired,worn-out,and as though they have no individualism what-so-ever... This is just a case of a man who is intimidated when tossed into a population of other men...therefore, he creates a sort of "sub-culture" where HE is the one and only male for miles...making him MUCH more appealing! The wives are women who know nothing else but to be followers....ugh...just a shame that these women are missing out on so much LIFE...and the men are being made to feel as though they are much more significant than they REALLY are!"

I shared this with Martha. She shrugged. "We spent all day cleaning for the shoot. And then we had the cameras in our faces from sun-up to sun-down. Of COURSE I looked plain and worn-out."

I also shared it with Temple. As expected, she flared up, "How would they know how we are? They cut out all of oour interviews! And I looked plain?? Did they see the shirt I wore the first day of the shoot? Was it plain? No, it was pretty stylish and colorful. But I don't think they WANTED to show a plural wife looking like that."

On the same message board, there was a message by a guy named Nighthawk that I've known for a while on several discussion groups. He said:

"I had to look this up on Google to find out exactly what everyone is talking about. I have already seen some pieces of it.I have personally corresponded with Moroni, the man who lives out in the desert with his wives. He chose that lifestyle after his family was subject to persecution in various ways. He is a very gentle man and well educated. His wives are also well educated.He and his wives were disappointed in the way Dawn Porter edited and presented her two or three days with them. His wives were especially upset that Ms. Porter failed to include any of their comments about how happy they were with their lives.The History Channel also did a segment on Moroni and his wives, at the same time. It sounds like that show was much more honest about their work.Moroni has written quite a lot about his family's experience participating in this show on his blog. He has also been involved in some other, similar, situations.So, while making your judgments (along with the condemnations I have already read here), you might want to see what the people involved actually had to say."

Both Martha and Temple likes his response. It was nice to be defended after much of the crap that I have seen out there.

Surprisingly, I found an article I had missed written by Dawn Porter on September 28, 2008 for NOW Magazine. Here is an excerpt:

"To me, however, this quest for perfection seemed pointless when the sacrifices you have to make along the way are so painful. I needed to meet a polygamous man. So I traveled hundreds of miles across the desert to meet Moroni Jessop, 46, who lives in a four-bedroom trailer with his wives Martha 42, and temple, 38, and their nine children. I was nervous meeting him face-to-face, but with his baggy jeans and scruffy hair, Moroni happily answered my questions.
Like the previous family, Moroni views polygamy as a way of bettering himself by having more people to love. He insists that it’s improved the way he treats women. Like Ruth, Moroni had a family history of polygamy. He says ‘When I first entered it, I didn’t have a good time. There were so many demands, and both my wives were angry. But, in time, we all just started laughing more and I realized then I was happy. It takes a lot of work and understanding to deal with the concerns of more than one woman.’

"Like the previous family, Moroni views polygamy as a way of bettering himself by having more people to love. He insists that it’s improved the way he treats women. Like Ruth, Moroni had a family history of polygamy. He says ‘When I first entered it, I didn’t have a good time. There were so many demands, and both my wives were angry. But, in time, we all just started laughing more and I realized then I was happy. It takes a lot of work and understanding to deal with the concerns of more than one woman.’

"So how does he spread himself among his wives? ‘It’s up to me to decide that’ he grins. ‘The women have their own rooms and I try to be fair. Half of my battle is ensuring they both feel loved.’ Now Moroni’s on the hunt for wife number three –he believes a man cannot get to heaven unless he has at least three wives."

Okay, the article is fair, and mostly reflects the content of the show. I have only two objections:

1. The belief that a man must have three wives to attain to the Celestial Kingdom is an old fundamentalist belief. But they did not hear this tidbit from me, because it is not my personal belief. I wouldn't say that in an interview, because I am not sure how I believe in that respect. They just threw that in there to support their fiction that I'm searching for another wife.

2. I'm 46? Martha is 42? Temple is 38?? Heloooo!! Do we look that old?? I'm not sure where they came up with the ages. But at the time of the shoot, I was BARELY 38. Martha was 35, and Temple was 28. Temple is 2 years YOUNGER than Dawn Porter! LOL! Sheesh!

Anyway, I have not found any feedback on the History Channel show yet, but you can bet I will post what I find.

In closing, I will will leave you with my favorite YouTube comment (There are over 145 of them):

"The guy sounds absolutely full of himself. AND he has a nasty pot belly. How on earth is he managing to keep all those women satisfied? Do they just feel they can do no better? I mean, if you've gotta share the guy, at least let him be Johnny Depp or Brad Pitt. Or filthy rich"

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History Channel's "Strange Rituals: Forbidden Sex" on TV Last Night; Also the TLC Show

So it was ironic that I was commenting yesterday on doing the TV show for TLC as a significant part of the last decade. I posted a link to the blog on my Facebook.

Later in the evening, an old friend from high school said they saw me on TV. I was confused and made some inquiries. TLC was showing a Forbidden Love marathon – exactly like they did last New Year, including the episode with my family. Twice.

We were sitting down to a ham dinner for New Year’s Eve when we found out. It was strange to realize that as we were sitting there, people all across the nation were watching us on TV while we ate.

Temple shook her head. “It’s like beating a dead horse!” she said. “How many times can they show that program? They need to come up with some new material.”

My daughter Sophie was out babysitting for the night. We looked at each other. It has only been recently since she has stopped being angry about being on the show (and so prominently featured). What would she think about being on again?

Several of my friends watched the show and commented about it to me. A high school friend said this about it:

“So Holy Hell Moroni - I hid the remote and would not let my husband surf during commercials lest I miss your segment and my husband says "um, you're really into this polygamy show, uuuh, do you want another woman in this house?", with this total look of confusion and a little bit of terror. I laughed soooooo hard, I almost peed myself, so thanks for that :) Guess I forgot to mention that I knew you hehe...”

To make matters more interesting, Temple got a text from her sister-in-law. There was a show called “Strange Rituals: Forbidden Sex” starting on History Channel within a few minutes. In the description of the show, it said (among other things): “In modern Arizona, the Jessop family continues to practice Mormon polygamy, at the constant risk of arrest.”

I knew what this was about. After Dawn left, Pascal – the director – stayed for an extra day, along with the cameraman and the sound guy. When Pascal was asked to shoot the show for Dawn Porter, he had a conflicting project he was working on. The compromise was that he could shoot an extra day worth of footage for a project he was working on for History Channel.

He told me that it would air sometime in January, 2009, and when it didn’t, I thought that the project had died. Apparently not. It aired twice last night as well.

I liked the way that shoot went. I was asked a lot of the same questions, but I felt like I answered them a lot better. It was also a lot more relaxed.

I didn’t get a chance to see it, but I was on the phone with my good friend Becca in Texas while she watched it. I could hear most of it on the phone. For the first segment, they focused on interviewing Martha and Temple. This pleased them, because they were none too pleased when their interviews got cut from the TLC show.

The second segment showed a little bit with me. And then they showed the infamous confrontation between me and my neighbor when he came up the hill and started yelling at me! They blurred out his face, and they kind of put an incorrect spin on it, that he was a neighbor with a chip on his shoulder because we are polygamists.

Becca commented: “BTW, they didn't mention what you told me about the neighbor... just showed him asking what you were doing up there while you walked down the hill reminding him he was actually on your property… *snicker* They blurred out his face and made him seem like a paranoid neighbor in general…”

There was a time when I was embarrassed by this exchange. Now I think it is kind of funny.

I only hope I have a chance to see this show. Just when you think it’s over…

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Ice Storms, South Carolina & Super Bowl

Okay, sorry I have been offline for so long. I have been in kind of a funk lately. But I will repent of that.

Anyway, to give you an update, I was offered a job in Columbia, South Carlolina, remodeling a hotel.

It is always hard for me to leave my family, but the way the economy is going, I said goodbye to my wives and children and left last week for "Back East" with some relatives.

The problem is - we decided to travel right at the time when one of the worst ice storms in the past 100 years hit the Midwest.

We hit Amarillo at the tail of the storm, and the roads were ice for the rest of the way. The photo above is Checotah, Oklahoma (home of Carrie Underwood.) Oklahoma was totally unprepared for the storm. I live in a part of Arizona that gets snow occasionally. When we get a skiff of snow, we have a fleet of snow plows patroling the highways. I saw three snowplows in Oklahoma - three! There was three inches of ice on the roads, and we counted 16 cars that slid off the highway.

By the time we got to Kentucky, the roads were pretty clear, but the trees were so laden with ice that most of them were bending at the trunk, literally. It looked like icicle hell. The storm took down 8,000 power lines across the state, leaving most of the state in darkness. It was eerie driving down the Bluegrass Parkway, seeing entire towns without lights. The only light was the glow of Cincinatti in the distance.

I stayed with some friends in the Appalachians of eastern Kentucky. Then on Sunday morning, my brother came to pick me up, and we went to South Carolina. It was a beautiful road. We took some back roads through the mountains (talk about switchbacks!)

We arrived in Columbia just in time to watch the Super Bowl. I like Pittsburgh, since I worked there for several months in 2007. But I live in Arizona, so I had to root for the Cardinals! What a close game!

The ironic thing - I competed with the Super Bowl. "Forbidden Love: Polygamy" aired at 7PM on TLC - at the same time as the Super Bowl! So I doubt that very many people saw it. I didn't find out until this evening.

Dawn Porter also posted on her site that the episode is available on iTunes, for any interested. Just type in "Dawn Porter", and the show should come up.

So, if anyone wants to talk to me, I will be in South Carolina for the next month, or so. So far, I have discovered Bojangles. They love their fried chicken here in the South.

(I will be finishing my "Our Living Conditions" bit this week. )



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