Despite its advertising claims that it’s a new brand of journalism, free from bias, The Epoch Times published a major unfair and one-sided assault on Utah’s new attempt to decriminalize polygamy, leaving major holes in its reporting.
In a feeble attempt at journalistic balance, Tapscott said Utah’s two Republican Sens. Mike Lee and Mitt Romney didn’t respond to request for information, like they had anything to do with this legislation. Their only tie, like many of us Latter-day Saints, was to note that the senators’ ancestors where polygamists. This legislation originated in Utah’s state house. Why not call the Utah Legislature in Salt Lake City instead of DC Capitol Hill offices?
Furthermore, the article leaves the impression that Utahns are still a bunch of 19th Century polygamist scofflaws. For a news organization that seems to favor religious liberty and has loose ties to members of the religious group Falun Gong, its readers deserve better. There are religious- and morality-based arguments for and against this law. Too bad, readers only got one side.
There is good reason for a change in the law. There are many so-called fundamentalist polygamist families and segments of Utah society who have been stranded in a legal no-man’s land since statehood or at least since bigamy became a felony in the 1930s. There is strong evidence that leaders of these polygamist groups have used legal cover to perpetuate welfare fraud, abuse of underage girls, forced marriages, manipulation of property ownership and the list goes on. Also, the sponsor sees the bill as a way for secretive polygamists to emerge from the shadows and be integrated into society and also correct a law that hasn’t been enforced for generations.
As sponsor Sen. Diedre Henderson, R-Spanish Fork, said during the legislative session, “The wall Utah has built to keep people out of polygamy is the very wall that’s trapping them inside.”
Changing the law allows Utah law enforcement authorities to much better deal with these thorny issues. The day when the state might have stamped out polygamy, even when Latter-day Saints abandoned the practice in 1890, has never come. Let’s grasp reality. This is a practical measure to help real people with real lives. It allows the government to help meet their needs as well as enforce laws related to leaders who might abuse them.
Finally, The Church of Jesus Christ Latter-day Saints (we don’t want to be called Mormons or the Mormon church anymore) hasn’t authorized polygamous marriages since 1890. That fact is central to the story and its absence could easily leave the impression that rank-and-file Latter-day Saints still practice something that ended four generations ago.
The Epoch Times should follow up Tapscott’s reporting with a more balanced effort.
Joel Campbell
