I know Big Love is sexy.  If it bleeds it leads.  Lives led astray, people and families failing in the most fundamental ways.  Sex, Murder, Bigamy, Greed, Gambling, and enough old men going for young women to rival any whorehouse in Nevada.  It's coming like a freight trian, before too long, Bill will be sitting in jail, waiting for a trail, while his wives sit in other cells, and his children are in the foster care system.

I live in Utah, and am not a member.  I don't agree with Polygamy, but it is evil that to make something that you don't understand entertaining. 

 The lives that these men, women and children lead is one of fear and reprisals, often blood reprisals. They are ruled by greedy and viscious men who call themselves prophets.  No one made an entertaining series about Jim Jones and Guyana, but the conditions of Polygamy are just as alarming.  They live in shacks and mobile homes, not the lovely Hollywood triplet homes with a Brady Bunch backyard that is depicted in BIG LOVE.  If  you can find Polygamists living in Sandy, Utah in three 400 thousand dollar homes, I'll eat my hat with Sheldon the Wonderhorse.   Most of these families live in Southern Utah in communities that are more like Indian Reservations than suburbs.  They are isolated in the desert, they live very marginal lifestyles, are poorly educated, if at all, and forget medical treatment.   Dancing and the wrong words or glance at another member can bring  retributions that are only described as Draconian.  At the whim of a madman,  children and mothers are separated and discarded to other men and the husbands are thrown out of the community or giving up to blood retribution.   There was a crematorium unearthed in Colorado City, Utah. There are not only the heartbreak of Lost Boys who are told to leave so that the older men can "have" the young girls, but there is no dancing, basketball, football, bicycles.  These children have lost childhoods. 

I like Tom Hanks as an actor, but I believe that he has not only made light of the horror of Polygamy, focusing on ratings and high drama. " If it bleeds it leads", but he has also gone as far as making a mockery of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints while he digs away at Polygamy.  His portrayal of the "Block Party" where Bill's family was ostracized is high fiction.  His portrayal of active Mormons as petty, unchristian in their charity towards others, and a beehive of self-righteous behavior is a cruel characature of a culture and a religion that has done a great deal of good for people throughout this world.  I also resent that most of the Mormons that Bill associate with are known as "Jack Mormons"..."Well, were just putting gambling machines in the Bar, it is not like we are drinking the alchohol, why look how successful the Marriots are!"  Again, the writers and Mr. Hanks focus on the exception to the rule in the church, and choose to display the bad apples because they are more entertaining.  

 How entertaining can it be to sit with your son and convince him to leave home at age 19 and serve a mission on his own dime in another country to serve others.  Not just prosletyzing, but teaching trades and languages to those who live on the edge.  Not sexy enough, Mr. Hanks.  And what about the mother of three whose husband fell off a cliff in Southern Utah and the next week she recieved an anynomous note that her mortgage had been paid in full by a member who cared not to be recognized.

I challenge Mr. Hanks, Playtone Records, and his stable of ex-Mormon writers to come back to Salt Lake City.  And I challenge Mr. Hanks to meet with President Monson and learn of the great work of this world-wide church. "You will know by the fruit of the tree."  For a man who lauded the exploits and sacrifices of young men in WWII, he is quick to dismiss the work of 19 and 20 year olds in a different front that he doesn't understand.  If you want to expose and treat Polygamy as entertainment, then please don't throw the baby out with the bathwater and smear the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  Broaden your reach, and you might even broaden your audience.  After all, it is easier for a rich man to pass through the eye of a needle than to gain entrance to heaven.  Step out of LA and into the heart of the matter.

http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=e419fb40e21cef00VgnVCM1000001f5e340aRCRD

http://www.lds.org/humanitarianservices/0,19749,6208,00.html