Mormon WikiLeaks (MormonLeaks)

[tooblue]

oh its very likely there are other victims and other incidents but as it relates to this particular incident there was no need to wait for law enforcement to begin to look into it more than a he said she said investigation.

The initial incident did not result in discipline. New evidence could change those conclusions. It may be prudent for the church to wait and see the outcomes. If there are other victims, we all would do well to be appreciative of their rights, and willingness (or lack thereof) to come forward.

[MartyFunkhouser]

The initial incident did not result in discipline. New evidence could change those conclusions. It may be prudent for the church to wait and see the outcomes. If there are other victims, we all would do well to be appreciative of their rights, and willingness (or lack thereof) to come forward.

He admitted to grooming women while in a position of power in the church. He should be ex'd as soon as possible.

[tooblue]

The church claims it has a zero tolerance for abuse policy. I'd like to see the evidence that the policy is more than just a statement and actually a practice. I'm not saying there isn't the evidence out there, but these circumstances call into question if there really is zero tolerance.

If you think protecting the name of the church is a "small consideration" in anything they do, you are not paying attention.

None of what you stated above changes the fact that there is a zero tolerance policy in place and that there are serious legal ramifications if a Bishop does not report abuse—which is an issue of law, in North America.

Your agenda clouds your judgement on the issue—your opinion on the subject is wrong, in contrast to my personal experience.

[ERCougar]

As a victim of child sexual abuse and as a former Bishop, I don't see the wiggle room you are referencing.

That's really awful -- truly. But I'm talking about the wiggle room left by the publicly known facts in drawing your conclusion. You're taking full advantage of that to be very generous to the church. Ask a non Mormon friend what they think about a church that waits two months to take any public action on a taped sexual confession, until it's surreptitiously released, at which point they swiftly cut any public ties with the man. I don't think their guess will be that the church was just biding its time, furiously working behind the scenes to complete a thorough investigation.

[tooblue]

He admitted to grooming women while in a position of power in the church. He should be ex'd as soon as possible.

And the church should also practice Sharia law ... maybe behead him while they're at right.

[ERCougar]

The initial incident did not result in discipline. New evidence could change those conclusions. It may be prudent for the church to wait and see the outcomes. If there are other victims, we all would do well to be appreciative of their rights, and willingness (or lack thereof) to come forward.

This is not a court of law! It's never pretended to be a court of law. The assumption that the same standards of evidence exists is silly.

Anyway, we're not convincing each other so ill move on. Just curious what people were saying.

[Flystripper]

The initial incident did not result in discipline. New evidence could change those conclusions. It may be prudent for the church to wait and see the outcomes. If there are other victims, we all would do well to be appreciative of their rights, and willingness (or lack thereof) to come forward.

Given the recent confession it appears that the discipline investigation in 2010 was not sufficient. I thought the police indicated they were only investigating the threats and not the sexual assault of 30 years ago, if that is correct, then waiting for the authorities is a bit of a cop out. I obviously don't know everything that the church did to investigate in 2010, but i can safely say that given the confession, whatever they did was not enough. People that dropped the ball along the way need to learn from this so that the "no tolerance policy" becomes an actual "no tolerance policy".

[Uncle Ted]

He admitted to grooming women while in a position of power in the church. He should be ex'd as soon as possible.

What if he has already admitted to grooming women in a previous church "court of love", disfellowshipped (or even ex'ed), and came back? I read somewhere that he was currently serving as 2nd counselor in his ward's sunday school. One would think that a former president of the MTC would be at least serving at the stake leadership level. I guess maybe the bishop in his ward was told by the spirit not to call him to anything more than 2nd counselor in the SS.

[tooblue]

That's really awful -- truly. But I'm talking about the wiggle room left by the publicly known facts in drawing your conclusion. You're taking full advantage of that to be very generous to the church. Ask a non Mormon friend what they think about a church that waits two months to take any public action on a taped sexual confession, until it's surreptitiously released, at which point they swiftly cut any public ties with the man. I don't think their guess will be that the church was just biding its time, furiously working behind the scenes to complete a thorough investigation.

To be clear, what you perceive as generosity, is in fact fairness. All any member of the LDS church or non member can ask of anyone else is to be fair.

There is a policy of zero tolerance in place. There is a procedure to be followed. No where have said that mistakes were not made. In this instance, at this time prudence is warranted. He has been "pulled from the ER." The pain isn't exclusively his to bear—it is now bearing on his family as well.

Most importantly, it's worth the time to wait and see if there are other victims. Then more will be known.

[Eddie]

This conversation has progressed so quickly - with so much going on - that it's really hard to respond to everything I've read and wanted to respond to.

This guy needs to be in trouble. I don't know exactly what that looks like - that's for the courts to decide. But depending on other, more recent, victims - I could see it involving criminal, civil, and a court of love.

I've worked with the police when investigating a sex abuse case. More often than not, they didn't want me talking to an "alleged" perpetrator until they'd had a chance to get as much information from as many victims as they could and then talked to him themselves. Once in a while, if they thought I might get a confession out of him, they'd let me go first. But only if they had given me the go-ahead and knew I was recording the conversation. If there is a possibility of other victims, I could see the police telling the church to slow down a little.

Once the information is made public via mormonleaks or any other source, then it's in the open and any response or actions then need to be made a little more public. So that's when you get a press release from the church stating some of what they know and some of what they are doing. Doesn't mean nothing was done up until then, and it doesn't mean that there won't be more. But short of having a victim that needs immediate protection - there's also no need to rush into things when there's time to do things right.

We've got a guy in our ward who has a history I'm not fully aware of. What I do know, is that he isn't allowed to be around any children, ever. He's nearly 90 years old and needs a walker to get around - but leaders have been made aware that he isn't to be with children and he knows this is the rule and follows it as well. About as close as he gets is sitting in Sacrament Meeting with kids there - but he doesn't even get home taught by someone with a youth companion.

It appears to me that there have been some failures here. But I'm not sure where the failures occurred or who is responsible. I'm not sure what or how much of a cover up there was or who was responsible. And that makes it difficult to judge what needs to happen next. It's possible that there was a group of men in leadership positions that made a decision as a group. It's also possible that there was one person who used horrible judgement and didn't pass this along to the right people. So - is it a system failure in which multiple people should've taken action but instead ignored this guys actions? Or is it the failure of an individual who did that on their own? I don't know.

What I DO know is that the church has made a TON of headway in the last 5-10 years to expressly make sure all of their local leaders know that if there is a report of abuse, there is no expectation of some sacred and confidential confessional that cannot be violated. Bishops are to immediately call the church hotline as well as report it to the proper authorities.

And this is a HUGE step forward. About 20 years ago I was doing Child Protective Services intake and spoke with a man who identified himself as a Bishop who was concerned with a family in his congregation. The father had admitted to abuse (he didn't say what kind), and the Bishop was interested in finding out what the process was and what would happen next if he reported it. I went through that with him, then encouraged him to go forward with reporting the incident. His response was that he wasn't sure he was ready to do that yet, and was deciding if he could work with the family himself to address the issues first. Disappointing.

But - the reality is that not 6 months later I was in a social work class up at the U of U graduate school and had my least LDS-like professor (flaming feminist who hated men AND the LDS church) basically say the same thing. If she became aware of an incident of abuse within a family, she would try to work with them on it and only report it to the authorities if she began to see a pattern of repeated abuse.

[smokymountainrain]

the dude should be ex'd. funk is right about that.

[old_gregg]

the dude should be ex'd. funk is right about that.

everybody agrees with that. but this implicates a broader context in which the process of weighing evidence and reaching informed conclusions should be observed, even if for its own sake.

[smokymountainrain]

everybody agrees with that. but this implicates a broader context in which the process of weighing evidence and reaching informed conclusions should be observed, even if for its own sake.

at the very least, tooblue doesn't seem to agree. also appeared to be others, but tbh, I'm likely not keeping up.

[tooblue]

at the very least, tooblue doesn't seem to agree. also appeared to be others, but tbh, I'm likely not keeping up.

No where have I said he should not be excommunicated, neither has anyone else in this thread. You realize he may already have been excommunicated correct? As Jeff has pointed out, we don't know what has happened in the past several years, let alone what actions may have been taken in past couple of months.

I am advocating for fairness and prudence, which is reasonable.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Ask a non Mormon friend what they think about a church that waits two months to take any public action on a taped sexual confession, until it's surreptitiously released, at which point they swiftly cut any public ties with the man. I don't think their guess will be that the church was just biding its time, furiously working behind the scenes to complete a thorough investigation.

That's funny. Not your most compelling argument.