By Scott Thompson
Movie star Bill Paxton is moving to Salt Lake City and bringing his three wives and seven kids with him.
On Sunday night, Mar. 12, 2006, HBO will premiere its newest original series, 'Big Love,' which focuses on the life of a fictional modern-day polygamist, Bill Henrickson (Paxton).
The controversial show has been placed in the spotlight by many major news media outlets around the country and is becoming a major cause of concern for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, whose leaders fear the show will lead more people to associate the practice of polygamy with Mormonism.
The church, under an avalanche of phone calls from the press, issued a press release on Monday, Mar. 6, 2006, that condemns the show and its stylized portrayal of polygamy.
'It will be regrettable if this program, by making polygamy the subject of entertainment, minimizes the seriousness of that problem and adds to the suffering of abuse victims,' church officials said in the press release. '''Big Love,'' like so much other television programming, is essentially lazy and indulgent entertainment that does nothing for our society and will never nourish great minds.'
HBO has said the script for 'Big Love' makes it clear the characters are not Mormons, but the church is still concerned.
'Placing the series in Salt Lake City, the international headquarters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is enough to blur the line between the modern church and the program''s subject matter and to reinforce old and long-outdated stereotypes,' the press release also said.
Anti-polygamist activists are also up in arms and fear the show will help turn a blind eye to the often abusive relationships that can be found in polygamist families.
Lorna Craig, an activist living in Utah Valley who has never been a member of the LDS church, recently spoke out about the show in an exclusive email interview with The Daily Universe.
'The show, ''Big Love,'' is written by two men who are domestic partners and I think that they are attempting with this program to change the definition of marriage and are doing damage to the efforts being made to end abuses by showing polygamy as positive and, in their words, ''wholesome,''' Craig said. 'I have written to HBO to encourage them to realistically show the human rights abuses and poverty in polygamy, but the response did not indicate that they would.'
Craig, who has worked on many of the high-profile polygamy abuse cases in recent years and was invited to the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Awards ceremony in Washington D.C. in 2001, also said she fears the incorrect 'Mormons as polygamists' stereotype will be further entrenched in the viewers'' minds.
'I feel that this series ''Big Love'' will show the Mormon church as repressive and not truly show the differences in a way that sheds a positive light on Mormons,' she said.
HBO has agreed to run a disclaimer attached to the show reminding viewers that the characters portrayed are not members of the LDS Church, but Craig said this measure is insufficient.
'Having the program set in Utah with the temple in the background will probably have a greater impact on establishing the relationship between Mormonism and the polygamist than a disclaimer at the end,' Craig said. 'Who reads what''s written at the end of a TV show, especially when it ends at 10 or 11 o''clock?'
The church officially discontinued the practice of polygamy in 1890. Any church member adopting the practice today is excommunicated.
'Big Love' premieres on HBO Sunday night.
(For comments, e-mail Scott Thompson at scottthompson@byu.edu)