So you've mentioned LDS and such a few times. I was just wondering if you've seen the show Big Love and what your thoughts were, hate it - like it .. whatever.

I haven’t seen the show, and when I first heard about it, I was trepidatious. We LDS are a little sensitive about negative attitudes towards us. Might have something to do with the time it was actually legal to kill us (“Missouri: Come for the good BBQ, stay for the legal right to murder someone based on their religion!”) Anywho, the polygamy thing is another thing that is oft misunderstood and it’s difficult to get anyone to recognize that it’s not a part of our religion and hasn’t been in over 100 years because there’s always something wrong out there perpetuating false information about it.

Yes, I know there is a disclaimer at the beginning of the show saying that it has nothing to do with the LDS religion, but hiring former members of our church to detail our sacred temple ceremonies and use LDS terminology in regular dialouge blur the line between “We’re not trying to hurt the LDS religion” and “We’ll say we’re sorry if you get offended, but we’ll do whatever we want anyway because we believe ‘sacred’ things are just archaic.” And, aside, we’re not secretive. Anyone can go to the temple, it’s open to everyone, you just have to go through the process like anyone else of being baptized and preparing themselves spiritually for it. Being held to a higher standard? The world doesn’t do that much anymore, or treat things sacred, but we do, so we don’t go plastering those things all over the place. Yeah, I still have to work to obey all of those 10 commandments. Even keeping the Sabbath day holy and using the Lord’s name in vain (that’s #4 and #3 if you’re interested). Case in point, when the whole cartoon of Mohammed in the Danish newspaper got all heated, there were papers all over the world that decided not to print it because they knew the prophet Mohammed was sacred to the Muslims and they didn’t want to offend them… for a multitude of reasons there. The Danish newspaper felt differently, and I think a little r-e-s-p-e-c-t for keeping sacred things sacred would have gone a long way in that situation. (I’m not arguing against free speech here - but some things don’t need to be said if they are going to hurt someone and are not necessary).

I’m not a big fan of polygamy. But that’s not anything I have against the show. Maybe someone digs it for the storylines, that’s their perogative. But executive producer Tom Hanks (arguably, nice looking gent) isn’t a fan of the church, and I can’t help but think it’s disregard for us in that light. Whatever. So no, I don’t watch it and don’t want to. I’m not going to blow up a building about it, but I will do my darndest to show a little more respect to people of other faiths to counteract the lack in the cosmos.

Also, Missouri is a lovely place. I was born there. Husband grew up there. And it hasn’t been legal to murder a Mormon there since 1976! Woohoo, just in time for me to be born! :)

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