The Church practiced polygamy for some 70 years and for the next 110 it still can’t get rid of the stereotype. But there’s progress.
While most U.S. media has been pretty good at covering the Texas polygamy seige, the Church is not well pleased with a lot of the international coverage.
Elder M. Russell Ballard, an apostle of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who oversees public affairs, said that the Church had noticed “a marked improvement” in the past few years in the way the news media has reported on the Church’s historical connection with polygamy. . .
But Elder Ballard said that Latter-day Saints are still offended when elementary mistakes are made in the news media or when printed or posted photographs fail to make the distinction between the Church and the polygamous groups.
“You would think that after over 100 years, media organizations would understand the difference,” he said. “You can’t blame the public for being confused when some of those reporting on these stories keep getting them wrong.”
Reuters notices this as well.
The Mormon faith — or Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as it is officially called — has a “fundamental” PR problem.
It may have renounced polygamy over a century ago but the breakaway sects which continue to practice plural marriage are the ones that often catch the public eye, leading to the popular misconception that all Mormon men have, or strive to have, more than one (often underage) wife.
It’s a good sign that the media is recognizing the problem, but how likely will the confusion ever go away?
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The Roman Catholic Church practiced plenary indulgences in exchange for monetary donations for a couple centuries, and hasn’t done so for nearly half a millennium–why should we expect that 110 years would be enough to get rid of the memory of polygyny?
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I don’t seriously expect the issue to go away but it so overwhelmigly defines our outside identities. I don’t think indulgences is the best example as I never hear discussed except in historical terms.
As far as I can tell it doesn’t define Catholocism as polygamy does Mormonism. I haven’t seen an HBO series on it yet at least.
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I see your point on indulgences, except that i’m thinking from the point of view of someone who’s spent a decent amount of time in Europe–in Europe (at least the parts i know), it certainly *is* thought of by a decent chunk of people as a reason the Roman church is bad.
The Mormon church simply has the disadvantage of having come of age at the dawn of the era of easy international communication.
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