SALT LAKE CITY — This must be how New Jersey felt.
On the eve of the premiere of HBO's new Sunday night drama, "Big Love," about a Utah man with three wives, the Beehive State is buzzing.
Everyone from practicing polygamists to the Mormon church — which shunned the practice more than a century ago — are anxiously anticipating the cultural fallout from the show about one man and his sometimes-desperate housewives.
There are worries the series will perpetuate stereotypes from which the state and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have long sought to distance themselves. Others fear it will diminish the serious crimes, such as child abuse, reported in some of the state's secretive polygamous sects.
And polygamists say they're sure the series won't accurately portray the "boring" reality of their lives, because who would watch that?
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The program debuts at 8 tonight in Tucson after the season premiere of HBO's "The Sopranos," which spawned bus tours of the show's locations in the Garden State and backlash from some Italian-American groups.
John Daniel Kingston, who admits to one legal wife but is believed to have more than 100 children with 13 other women, said he was approached by someone at HBO probably looking for research material.
"They tried to contact me through my sister," Kingston said as he left court after a hearing involving some of the 11 children he has with a woman not his legal wife, Heidi Mattingly.
"I don't think they are capable of relating the realities of this kind of life to the screen," Kingston said. "It will be interesting to see how it will be received."
Mattingly said she wants to see an episode of the show.
Public perceptions are a concern of the LDS church, which claims 12 million members worldwide.
In 1843, church founder Joseph Smith said he had a revelation from God allowing the practice of plural marriage. In 1890, a subsequent church president, Wilford Woodruff, made public a revelation declaring that church members should stop the practicing polygamy. The federal government had required that the Utah Territory end its endorsement of polygamy as a condition of statehood. Utah became a state in 1896.
Polygamy isn't an issue for modern-day Mormons, said LDS spokesman Michael Otterson. Members understand the process of revelation in their faith, which leaves no confusion as to why polygamy is no longer practiced.
What concerns the church is anything that might make light of the alleged abuse of women and children in some polygamist communities.
"To make polygamy, given those circumstances, the subject of television entertainment is not only a bad idea, but it's going to add to the pain of those victims," Otterson said.
He is also worried that the church could lose some of the ground it has gained in educating the public about the differences between the mainstream LDS church and splinter fundamentalists who practice polygamy.
Otterson said HBO has "gone out of their way to call journalists who got it wrong." And an epilogue statement, which is scheduled to air after the first episode, is inadequate, he said.
The statement says: "According to a joint report issued by the Utah and Arizona attorney general's offices, July 2005, 'approximately 20,000 to 40,000 or more people currently practice polygamy in the United States.' The Mormon church officially banned the practice of polygamy in 1890."
