Letter: Don’t call leader of sect a Mormon
 
Opinion
The Advocate - Baton Rouge, LA
 
After reading your article from The Associated Press on Warren Jeffs, the polygamist (Your headline: "Mormon leader convicted in rape"), I decided you needed a little Religion 101.

Calling this man a Mormon is akin to saying the washing machine repairman is the equivalent of an airplane pilot. If the airlines ever make that leap, I’m giving up flying.

Or let’s make it a little more pertinent: Calling Jeffs a Mormon is like calling The (Baton Rouge) Advocate a gossip tabloid. OUCH!

Relax. It is because I feel you do your best to make your reports as accurate as possible I’ve called this to your attention.

Sometimes the media slide by and call Jeffs a Mormon fundamentalist. Again, false. None of these polygamist sects practice Mormon doctrine; in fact, nothing they believe resembles the Mormon philosophy in the least.

Yes, at one time the Mormons practiced polygamy on a limited scale; so did a number of other religions. Some still do, but for more than 100 years anyone in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who seeks to practice polygamy or even preach it is automatically excommunicated.

I leave you this quote from the International Herald Tribune about the Warren Jeffs case when he was arrested:

"Legal scholars say the crackdown came in part because mainstream Mormons have grown increasingly tired of the lingering association with polygamy."

" ‘Many contemporary Mormons complain that everybody associates them with polygamy, and in fact they’re the most antipolygamy people you could meet,’ said Sarah Barringer Gordon, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School who teaches religious history and the law of church and state." This was published Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2006

So let’s ditch the Mormon part altogether and call Warren Jeffs what he really is, a pimp for pedophiles, a degenerate, a pervert ... but NOT A MORMON.

Nayda Easley
housewife
Baton Rouge
 
2theadvocate.com
Originally published October 1, 2007
 
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