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READERS’ REPRESENTATIVE: Multiple churches use the Mormon name
State troopers removed 416 children from the polygamous sect, whose members have been accused of physically and sexually abusing of the youths.
Multiple callers asks why some news reports referred to the congregants as Mormons. The FLDS is emphatically not part of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known informally as the Mormon Church, which has officially outlawed polygamy for more than a century.
However, members of the FLDS call themselves Mormons, and believe that theirs is the one true Mormon faith. So the word is fair and accurate there — but it’s perfectly understandable that many readers wouldn’t appreciate the distinction.
Most recent stories in The Kansas City Star about the church haven’t even mentioned the word Mormon, though one called the group “a Mormon sect.”
Reader Magdalene Olsen liked how another last Wednesday phrased it: “I love the choice of words ‘a renegade Mormon sect.’ It leaves no doubt as to the difference and/or connection between the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.”
An unclear cut
Multiple callers Friday morning pointed me to a wire story that gave the distinct impression of editorializing.
An Associated Press report about Barack Obama’s relationship to William Ayers, a former member of the violently militant Weather Underground, faulted Hillary Clinton for misrepresenting some of Ayers’ statements.
The story was originally written as a “fact check” analysis in partial list form, though The Star’s version was edited into conventional prose.
The problem was its last sentence, as cut: “Clinton’s implication that Ayers made hurtful comments connected with the terrorist attacks is wrong.”
I’m with the readers here: “Huh?” Wrong meaning “inaccurate,” or as in “shameful and improper?”
The original version went on to provide more detail, with the authors concluding that a quote from Clinton purposely conflated some of Ayers’ comments about a Weather Underground bombing in the ‘70s with the attacks of 9/11.
I think that’s a somewhat dubious assumption, as it hinges on Clinton’s use of the pronoun “they.” She may have been referring to the 9/11 strikes, but could also have meant the ‘70s bombings. We can’t get inside her head.
At any rate, the story as it ran in The Star was needlessly confusing, ending things on a befuddling and just plain bad note.