In the 10/17 News of the Weird, one of the lead stories reports that the Utah NOW chapter spoke out in favor of polygamy. Nothing could be further from the truth. As an activist in Capital City NOW, one of the local chapters here in D.C., I checked out this story when it first appeared in one of D.C.’s dailies. As I suspected, comments by Utah NOW activists were misinterpreted and quoted out of context.

At the Utah NOW state conference, one of the presenters discussed polygamy. No one offered resolutions supporting or opposing it. No one argued that NOW take any position. The issue only became big news when the right-wing Independent Women’s Forum (IWF) picked up the story in their continuing efforts to discredit NOW. Rather than report what actually happened during that discussion, IWF attributed the speaker’s opinions to NOW and took one activist’s remarks out of context.

To their credit, the daily followed up with activists in Utah to get the real story related above. Too bad Chuck Shepherd didn’t bother. His isn’t news of the weird, it’s news of the lazy.

Capitol Hill