No love lost
 
By Matthew Benson, Amanda J. Crawford and Mary Jo Pitzl
The Arizona Republic
 
For more than a year, Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard has resisted the temptation to watch the HBO sitcom Big Love, the polygamy spoof in which a man and his three wives try to make their unusual relationship work in suburbia.

It's not been easy. While Goddard doesn't have HBO at home, a staff member has dutifully taped every episode and placed it on his desk.

Still, Goddard has resisted on principle: "Anything that is trying to make what I consider to be a tragic situation for most of the families I've had to interact with in Colorado City and turn it into a sitcom, I find offensive," he says.

But while channel surfing at a hotel in Flagstaff recently, Goddard's clicker lingered a moment on HBO before he realized what he was watching. He caught about 10 minutes of the show, including the previews for the next episode. Did the snippet win him over? Not a chance.

"I have seen a great deal of the human tragedy that has resulted from the tyranny of Warren Jeffs, and I don't think it is something to be trivialized," he told the Insider. "I don't expect to watch again. I was not won over to the show. They've had their shot, and it didn't take. I saw nothing amusing or even interesting."

The Insider understands others in the office do watch the show regularly, even if does make light of the fundamentalist sect as well as Jeffs, its now incarcerated, allegedly underage-bride-pushing prophet.

Ironically, the AG's office has contributed to the show: A guidebook about polygamous culture produced for child welfare authorities by his office in collaboration with the office of Utah Attorney General has been used by the show's producers as a reference, Goddard said.
 
azcentral.com
Originally published July 22, 2007
 
Back