Polygamy in Utah Not Remotely Mainstream
News on Yahoo today suggests that polygamy thrives in Utah, but I beg to disagree. Having lived there and observed first hand how most “Mormons” live, I find Yahoo’s article title grossly misleading. http://news.yahoo.com/polygamy-thrives-utah-071640727.html It’s not really William Edwards’ article from Agence France-Presse (AFP), published first on YouTube as a vidnews, that bothers me. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZkRow2BQAE&feature=c4-overview It’s Yahoo’s inaccurate title!
Polygamy has not thrived in Utah since the 1890’s when leaders of the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints denounced the practice of plural marriage and began excommunicating anyone who continued it. Once in a rare moment today such excommunications still occur, but to most of Utah’s Mormons it’s a non-issue, even a peculiar and embarrassing factoid of history. Splinter minority groups rebelled against that strong 1890 denunciation by Mormon leaders and formed their own versions of churches designed primarily to perpetuate the polygamous lifestyle. Those churches never became mainstream, let alone thrive in Utah or elsewhere.
I suggest that news hounds intent on sniffing out current reports about our world go straight to the AFP site instead of bothering with Yahoo’s exploitative twist on both Reuters and AFP reporting. As a predominant American English speaker, I like http://www.afp.com/en/news/ but most other major languages also appear on that AFP site. And Reuters traditionally offers a great line up, too, at http://www.reuters.com/ so don’t let your news become diluted by less than professional reporting.
Of course, if you just want honest news commentary from the heart of America, I invite your review of my blog at http://HamiltonFinanceServices.com, where your comments, too, are always welcome.