Let's not pull any punches here. Dawn Porter is no journalist and cable channel TLC is beyond irresponsible to air her laughably bad program about polygamy.

"Forbidden Love" (Sunday, 11 p.m., TLC) is rather ridiculous to begin with. Porter tells viewers that she's been single for four years and she's looking for love. But first she plans to "experience some of the most extreme ways that women find love and live with men."

Next week: geishas!

But first up: polygamists! And, apparently incapable of spending 30 seconds doing research on the Internet, Porter is also incapable of understanding that Mormons do not practice polygamy. That it was abandoned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1896.

"Polygamy means one husband and lots of wives. It's a basic tenet of the Mormon Church," Porter intones. "Now it's outlawed, but many fundamentalist Mormons hide out in the middle of nowhere in Utah and the states around it."

Again, 30 seconds of research and Porter would have discovered that it hasn't been a basic tenet of the Mormon Church in 118 years.

Porter traveled to Centennial Park, Ariz., to visit a family of polygamists at the time Texas authorities were raiding the FLDS compound. "I couldn't have chosen a worse moment to try and get into a Mormon household," she incorrectly states.

And, reading a headline in the Cedar City Spectrum, she tells viewers about the "400 children taken away from a polygamous Mormon family in Texas. Basically, allegations of child abuse and underage marriage."

So, she not only misinforms viewers because there is no such thing as a "polygamous Mormon family," but she ties the Mormon Church to "allegations of child abuse and underage marriage."

It's flabbergasting.

There are examples throughout the hour of Porter's incompetence. Multiple uses of phrases like "Mormon polygamists" and raising polygamist children to have "true Mormon values."

The show itself is a bore. Porter meets and talks to polygamists and, through a series of interviews, reveals ... pretty much nothing. And, if her "reporting" weren't so amateurish and misleading, it would be almost funny.

It's not so much about the people she's "reporting" on, it's about Porter herself. How she feels about the prospects of entering a polygamous marriage. About how she'd be uncomfortable if her husband was sleeping with another wife.

Oh, and there's dramatic/eerie music playing in the background just to take this from cheesy to cheesiest.

There are moments that are so ludicrous you almost have to wonder if Porter is putting us on. It plays like a parody from "Saturday Night Live."

When she visits a polygamist and his two wives, Porter opines, "So Martha and Temple make house, while Moroni makes whoopee. Sounds like a good deal for a man. Time to take Moroni for a little walk."

Her analysis of the situation at Moroni's house?

"That was nuts. That was properly nuts," Porter says.

And, after discussing religious beliefs with one of the polygamist women, she actually says, "So there it is. The elephant in the room. God."

Profound and analytical she's not.

All of this would be laughable if Porter and TLC weren't so irresponsible. If this is the best TLC can come up with in the way of programming, just shut down the operation right now.

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E-mail: pierce@desnews.com