Journalists Writing About Mormonism

Being part of an often marginalized, minority religion is hard.  Not because of the religious beliefs themselves, but because of the ignorance, misunderstanding, and skepticism that surrounds it from the outsider’s perspective.

“The Media” (whatever that is) often writes stories about my religion that I have a problem with.  What is my problem?  They seem to treat my faith different from every other nutty religious sect.  Can’t they see that all religion is equally nutty?

How come I rarely see an article about Christianity say “a guy name Jesus was purported to have died on the cross, and then rose from the dead 3 days later.”  That would offend Christians the world over.

And yet they can write this about my faith:

Mormons believe in a version of Christianity that stems from a new chapter of the Bible, the Book of Mormon, allegedly recorded on gold tablets by inhabitants of North America shortly after the time of Christ.

The tablets were discovered in the 1820s – or so the story goes – by the religion’s founder, Joseph Smith. Smith’s own standing as a polygamist has laced the argument over gay versus “traditional” marriage with a heavy dose of irony.

* emphasis added

So… aside from the factual errors of the article, which are many, it’s the tone of the piece that bothers me.  My religion is always “alleged” and “purported” and “so the story goes.” Why does other religions get an assumption of truth while mine is always assumed untrue?

The journalist pre-disposes the reader to not believe the story either.  (Which in this case is, of course, revealing their bias against our stance on Prop 8 in California)

It kind of sucks.