Posted on 03/28/2006 12:42:20 PM PST by mathprof
"Big Love," HBO's new take on a fictional polygamous family in the suburbs of this city, was on the television. The Viagra-popping Bill Henrickson (Bill Paxton) was thrashing in bed with Margene (Ginnifer Goodwin), the youngest of his three wives. The five women watching the show — covering their eyes during the sex scenes, chiding the competitive wives, urging Bill to take control — were critics with special credentials: a current or past polygamous marriage.
And despite the show's flaws, these women called "Big Love" a cultural benchmark, one with the potential to cast a warmer light on their lives.
"It's a more realistic view of a polygamous family that lives out in society than people have known," said Anne Wilde, a widow who was part of a multiple family for 33 years. "It can be seen as a viable alternative lifestyle between consenting adults."
[snip]
For the women gathered in a hotel room here at the request of The New York Times to talk about the intersection of their lives and popular culture, more is at stake than good ratings. "This is a glimpse of a family that is mainstream," Mary Batchelor, a 37-year-old mother of seven and director of "Principle Voices," a leading polygamy advocacy group, said of the Henricksons. "There are hundreds of these families. It shows an aspect of polygamy nobody ever sees....[snip]
"This is making all of America say 'Why is there a law against polygamy?' " said a 55-year-old woman who wanted to be known only as Doris, because she feared repercussions at her new job after years of staying at home with her 14 children in suburban West Jordan. "This guy is just trying to support his family, and the family is just trying to make it."
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I saw that a couple days ago. Wierd..........
Big Love is not Big Jake.
We've been watching this show since it came on....it's weird, it's kinda like watching a train wreck. My wife says that I'd love to have 3 wives for the....er, benefits. But I think I put up with enough crap from just her! Trust me, one wife is all I can handle.
I'm covering my eyes!
Bring back Deadwood......
And thus we speed down yet another avenue of depravity. We are a sick society. The HBO "documentary" exploring man-boy love simply cannot be far behind.
"This is making all of America say 'Why is there a law against polygamy?' " said a 55-year-old woman
No, it isn't. You might wish it was but it isn't. It's just another attempt from HBO to undermine the very core of American and human existence and disguise it as an "HBO Original". This is ALL about pro-gay marriage and warming Americans to the idea of "non-traditional" families being just like everone else. More liberal propoganda with an anti-family agenda disguised as "entertainment".
Sickening.
Swingen!
man-boy love...did you see the HBO series about the men's prison?
Its on past my bed time.
Same here. I can barely handle one wife
Because it is a deviant lifestyle that is detrimental to society. Because it is a lifestyle choice that leads to the exploitation of women. Because it distributes the allotment of time and resources of the single father to the many offspring and leaves them often poorer and with less resources than their counterparts in traditional two parent relationships (which society has recognized is the ideal).
Ditto!
What I don't understand is why isn't about women with more than one husband?
Makes a heck of a lot more sense to me.
Our stay in Salt Lake City amounted to only two days, and therefore we had no time to make the customary inquisition into the workings of polygamy and get up the usual statistics and deductions preparatory to calling the attention of the nation at large once more to the matter. I had the will to do it. With the gushing self-sufficiency of youth I was feverish to plunge in headlong and achieve a great reform here - until I saw the Mormon women. Then I was touched. My heart was wiser than my head. It warmed toward these poor, ungainly and pathetically "homely" creatures, and as I turned to hide the generous moisture in my eyes, I said, "No - the man that marries one of them has done an act of Christian charity which entitles him to the kindly applause of mankind, not their harsh censure - and the man that marries sixty of them has done a deed of open-handed generosity so sublime that the nations should stand uncovered in his presence and worship in silence."
-- Mark Twain
abortion-------check
gay marriage---check
citizenship----they're working on it
polygamy-------they're working on it
bestiality-----coming soon
Polygamy is STUPID!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.