[OT] HBO's Big Love Is Crossing the Line

[Brandon Stout]

I heard some disturbing news the other day. Now, I don't usually send
forwards, and I'm not doing so this time. I'm taking some personal time
aside to write about an important issue. Whether or not you agree
with the church, I think many of you will agree with what I have to say
here.

Here's the problem: The HBO show called Big Love is going to show parts
of an LDS temple ceremony, complete with temple clothing. I took the
time to verify this is real. I found an article on http://ksl.com as
well as the official LDS news site.

I believe all of us should care about this issue because any religion
should have its sacred things remain sacred, except perhaps if 'sacred'
means harming another human being. Putting this on TV is casual
disregard for what millions of people hold sacred. Muslims have a whole
city to which non-members are not allowed. It's called Mecca. Having
sacred ceremonies is nothing new, and I suppose that casually
disregarding sacred things isn't anything new either. I think that
started with Cain...

Here's what you can do about it: Take a few seconds to read this
article and digg it when you're done:

http://digg.com/television/HBO_s_Big_Love_becomes_the_latest_to_attack_offend_Mormons

At least that will make it more likely that people will find this
article after the next Big Love episode airs when they do an internet
search. That article on Digg.com links to the original official church
press release. For the record, here's the one from KSL:

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=5803281

Brandon Stout

[Jesse Stay]

The church's advice is to just leave it alone:

http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/commentary/the-publicity-dilemma

I think it's sound advice.

--Jesse

[Brandon Stout]

Jesse Stay wrote:

> The church's advice is to just leave it alone:
>
> http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/commentary/the-publicity-dilemma
>
> I think it's sound advice.
>
> --Jesse

Right. I'm not calling for a boycott or anything. Nor am I organizing
a passive resistance movement. I'm merely hoping that this will make it
so that when people search the internet for information about the things
they will see on TV, they will be more likely to find reliable
information showing what we believe.

Brandon

[Bryan Murdock]

On Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 10:40 PM, Jesse Stay <jess...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The church's advice is to just leave it alone:
> http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/commentary/the-publicity-dilemma
> I think it's sound advice.

Exactly. Don't feed the trolls!!!

Here's what I wrote to a friend that forwarded my wife and I this
story and a picture from TV Guide:

The article from the LDS Newsroom that you linked to is a very good
read. I think in the spirit of what they suggest, this picture and
story should not be forwarded on, nor should anyone bother sending
annoying attention seekers like this feedback.

To keep things in perspective, I did some quick internet research.
Big Love only has 5 million viewers (by optimistic estimates):

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/173949-_Big_Love_Sees_Big_Growth.php

The United States has 305 million people:

http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html

So that 5 million is only 1.6% of the US population. TV Guide
optimistically estimates that they have a readership of 20 million,
but realistically they have a base subscriber rate of only 2.9
million:

http://www.tvguidemagsales.com/Magazine/Overview/overview.asp

You can guess most people don't pick up TV Guide and read it cover to
cover, so I think it's pretty safe to say that the vast majority of
people in th US (let alone the world) are never going to come close to
encountering this disrespectful treatment of our religion, *unless we
help spread the news ourselves* by forwarding emails and bombarding
HBO's feedback page. Like the LDS Newsroom article says, "Such a step
would simply generate the kind of controversy that the media loves and
in the end would increase audiences for the series."

Denying annoying attention seekers by ignoring them is the best way to
punish them and make them go away.

Bryan

[Timothy-Allen Albertson]

irony is that, as I understand, the character receiving Endowments
in this show, at least because of  her affiliation or sympathy for apostates,
would not have been able to get a Recommend if she had been honest
in the requisite interviews

--
Timothy-Allen Albertson
Registered Linux User  No. 482284
Registered Ubuntu User No. 25839
Amateur Radio Station KG6IRH/0-
Technician Class License Since 2001
Echolink Node No. 48255
Latitude: 41.254887 (41° 15' 17'' N)
Longitude: -95.852753 (95° 51' 9'' W)
Grid Square: EN21bg
12  ...In memory of our God, our religion, and freedom, and our peace, our wives, and our children...  Book of Mormon--Alma 46:12

[Brandon Stout]

Bryan Murdock wrote:

Remember, my intent was not to illicit a stream of forwards, to picket,
to inundate HBO with forwards, to promote hateful feelings toward.
Nope, I wasn't even trying to organize a group of crusaders to march on
the gates of HBO headquarters. I just want to make it more likely that
some of those optimistically 5 million people or 1.6% of our national
population might find better results when doing an Internet search for
more information. Perhaps the dig article wasn't the best since it was
more negative than the church article it references (I didn't write
it). Also, some of the comments posted there are a little off color,
and maybe we don't want people reading the comments there either. I
hope I didn't annoy too many people.

Again, my intent: I just want to spread awareness about the church's
official position. I'm grateful that Jesse Stay made that a little more
clear. Thank you Bryan also for helping to clear that up. Who knows,
maybe the posts on Google Groups that link back to the church article
will help boost its rating as well.

Brandon

[Dave Wormell]

I understood the Church's advice was the Church will not call for a boycott but as members we have the right to remove our selves from a business that offends our believes. Here is an excerpt from the article. Thank you Brandon and Jesse for the information.




"Certainly Church members are offended when their most sacred practices are misrepresented or presented without context or understanding. Last week some Church members began e-mail chains calling for cancellations of subscriptions to AOL, which, like HBO, is owned by Time Warner. Certainly such a boycott by hundreds of thousands of computer-savvy Latter-day Saints could have an economic impact on the company. Individual Latter-day Saints have the right to take such actions if they choose."






\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\////////////////////
Dave Wormell





> Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 23:49:32 -0600
> From: brando...@gmail.com
> To: lds...@googlegroups.com
> Subject: [LDSOSS] Re: [OT] HBO's Big Love Is Crossing the Line

[Bill Pringle]

But the article goes on to say that such actions might give HBO exactly what they want - publicity, which is most likely the only reason they included the ceremony.  They are hoping on a controversy, which will end up getting people who have never seen the show to tune in to see what all the fuss is about (as well as seeing the secret Mormon ceremony.)

--
Bill Pringle
Bi...@BillPringle.com
http://BillPringle.com http://CherylWheeler.com

[Jesse Stay]

The Church recently released this - I think it's better to spread things like this, than things like boycott e-mails and blog posts:

http://ldsmediatalk.com/2009/03/12/church-video-on-purpose-of-temples/

Let's share what we'd like people to see about us, not what we don't.

Jesse