Misconceptions

For my Editing class I had to find an article that was poorly reported. The difficult part was that you had to find an article that means something to you. A poorly reported article that rips at your heart because of the way it portrays you or something you care about? That's no fun.

Naturally, religion was first to come to mind, and finding something that really misconstrued the LDS church was easier than it should have been. The article was terrible, and the stupid thing is that it wouldn't have been hard to fix and make right. It made me sad that the article had been read by an editor and deemed fit for print in one of the most read newspapers on the planet. It made me sad that in this age of technology, a quick run over Mormon.org would have shed light on a lot of these misconceptions.

But, what would have happened had all of these facts been checked and corrected, is that the article wouldn't have really been about much. Her whole focus would have had to shift, instead of making a spectacle of Mormons, it would have had to have been about religion in general.

I read through the article's comments, and many of them were about the overall merits of religion. A few were kind of mean to Mormons. A few defended Mormons, and a few more were by members sticking up for the church. Here are a few I thought were nice:

"No doubt about it, you'd better have thick skin to be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We've never shied away from national attention no matter the source. For over 180 years we've weathered the storm of public scrutiny and opinion; and yet is still one of the fasted growing and most stable churches in the world. It would be highly unlikely that 14 million people of diverse backgrounds, ethnicity and cultures could all be deluded. Questionable facts aside, it is articles like this with their obvious slant of prejudice that keeps our differences in front of the world; and causes more honest and thinking people each year to join with us. Bring it on; we can take it."

"Though not a Mormon, while in Salt Lake City some 20 years ago, I noticed there were few people living on the streets or going hungry. I was led to believe their Church took care of them, which is more than I can say for our society as a whole. But perhaps our latest Depression has changed things there. I hope not."

"I'm an LDS woman and I am quite equal with all the men and women in my faith. It's time to lose the outdated stereotypes."

"I don't really care what the musical, Book of Mormon, is about. I simply don't see the use of someone's sacred text as an entree into ribaldry as appropriate. The problem really goes deeper. Why do we have a fascination in our society to tear down any group of people that are trying to do good in our communities? Ask the victims of Hurricane Katrina, the Indonesian tsunami, or the tsunami in American Samoa that were recipients of the Mormon church's disaster relief system what they think about the Mormons. Of course I can make fun of their quirkiness, but is that really decent in light of the truly significant things that these people do, often anonymously? Do groups such as the Mormons maybe deserve a little better from the rest of us"