My interpretation is “You’ve been heard and we’re acting like we believe you…what more do you want?”
Especially as there isn’t any particular training and its leadership roulette as to how creepy the bishop gets, leaving aside the actual predators. One fellow ex-Mormon said her bishop asked her detailed, explicit questions when she was 12!
Yup, when I was 12-13 the Bishop had an extensive conversation with me about masturbation. Alone, in his office, behind a closed door. This was the '70s/early '80s, I hope this horrifying practice has been modified. As you write, very few of these yahoos have any professional training.
I think you’re an ex-Mormon as well?? The Church gave up tracking me down about ten years ago, thank Goddess, Sketti Monsters, et al.
Actually I’ve noticed in churches here public statements on the walls regarding the duty of care towards children, which I thought odd, because for all the ancient jokes about dodgy vicars going back to the Middle Ages, most Anglican clerics are very proper and too circumspect to entertain the kiddies alone.
Plus we are a brutish people, and any man who discussed masturbation with the wee ones would get his lights clocked out by an angry parent. Including, alas, the female ones.
So I thought it a reaction to the overblown RC affair of recent decades; but maybe this Mormon practice disturbed them also.
What would you say about a judge that was follow the law in regards to that very situation setting aside his expressed beliefs and following the law as required to the letter (as in this case)? Are you suggesting he should go beyond what the law requires and decide additional punishment? If you do and your kids were raped by him I understand you wish to have him slowly, painfully put to death in a way that ensures he will be Satan’s bitch for eternity, but that’s not what the law requires in this situation. The Judge even sentenced this man to consecutive terms, not concurrent.
The only difference is the judge expressed his feelings about it yet sentenced as the law required. Perhaps the judge should remain quite about how he really feels.
Yes, I think that’s what we’re saying. He had no business sharing his feelings about how “good” the bishop is in light of his actions.
If the victims here were boys instead of girls, I wonder if it would be more obvious why the judge was out of line.
So do you think a gay judge would find it easy to sentence another gay person?
Would a black judge have trouble sentencing another black person?
Yes, at times. Maybe no other times. I dont think any judge can be totally unbiased.
No one is expecting anyone to be totally unbiased. We’re expecting them to keep a lid on their bias and not start crying in court for the guilty party. Important difference.
I do find it find it interesting that you’d think bias can be counted to split along demographic lines. Are you saying a white male judge is going to have trouble sentencing another white male simply because they are both white males? C’est la vie, as it were? Because if we can assume this bias exists, then that’s pretty sucky for non white males, ain’t it? I don’t know why we’d be so blasé about it either. If a white man assaulted me, I’ve had a major problem with any judge shedding a tear over putting him in jail.
Once we go down the road of accepting that a Mormon judge will have trouble sentencing a Mormon bishop, then where does it stop? If I were a Mormon, I’d be offended at what is being implied about my impartiality simply on the basis of my religion.
Can’t see why any casual link or similarity should sway a judge in the slightest.
IME Mormons do little to hide their partiality when they think they’re in exclusively Mormon company.
Disagree. If I filled out a complaint that John Smith robbed me around six years ago (but might have been eight), but I’m not sure what day, what time, what year, what he was wearing, what I was wearing, how much money he took, or how many times he hit me, you would look at me like I was crazy and tell me that there was really not a case to pursue.
If a child says the same thing about her father molesting her, the allegation is treated far differently.
Czarcasm nailed it.
Yep. Sixth generation, all the way back to Kirkland days. Polygamous ancestors and all.
Mormon was founded on abusing women and girls. Look at Joseph Smith and the large number of teenage wives, some as young of 14. (Or as the LDS spin department puts it “almost 15.”)
You really should read correct.ly. Part of the question is that he sentenced the man to concurrent not consecutive sentences. So no, we don’t know if the judge’s judgment was influenced or not
It certainly does bring into question his bias when he calls a man “great,” then gives him a lighter sentence, possibly because of the man’s position in the judge’s religion when there isn’t any indication of greatness outside of that.
The other point raised in the thread is the question if the man really deserves to be called “great” then he’s raping a minor in his protection and under his ecclesiastical authority.
And since we have to spell it out, it wouldn’t matter if he were Jesus Christ himself (which his brother tried to draw an analogy with in a letter of support), if he rapes girls, send his ass to prison.
One thing which really turns me off to Christianity are the people who talk about mercy, only when one of them does something bad, and yet who are the first to complain about persecution. Not all Christians are like that, but I know too many.
Many churches have prudent measures to ensure the safety of the children. Unfortunately, the Mormon church really lags society in this aspect as well.
Not so much, to the accused.
Unless the accused had actually committed the crime, but there wasn’t sufficient evidence to bring charges.
Yop, here too. My gr-gr-grandparents were polygamists; gr-gr-grandma was the “head wife.”
In my experience you are as wrong as can be. Barring the statute of limitations problems in your reductio ad absurdum example all cases have the same burden of proof and evidence if is pursued in the same manner. An allegation with no specifics or evidence ends up the same place regardless of what crime we are talking about.
We had several in our family, including one who had 22 children. There’s a huge family organization and many, many distant cousins. No Mormon royalty – no Smiths, Youngs, Kimballs, Et al, so no clout or privileges.
Father’s side was too poor to be polygamous. Dirt farmers of central Utah. G-g-g-g mother lost her legs on the fated Willie and Martin handcart companies and still raised a bunch of kids. Mormon handcart pioneers - Wikipedia
Old time Mormonism was really different than the packaging they started in the 70s and 80s but I grew up with very traditional Mormon parents who were both raised on farms in little communities of Mormons and no one else.
We grew up waiting for the Second Coming, with polygamy right around the corner, as well as knowing that Blacks were second class citizens because of their lackluster performance in the Preexistance.
I’d like to give him a different reason to cry.
In watching ‘Nobody Knows: The Untold Story of Black Mormons’ (trailer linked), I was especially struck by the story of a black woman whose white friend asked her how she’d recognize her in the Eternal Kingdom since the black woman would then be white (perfected).
Kirtland. It’s Kirtland. (Exmo from Ohio checking in – I hate it when people call Kirtland “Kirkland.”)
Anyway, just weighing in to share my experience with rape and mormons. I was molested when I was 15 by my 30-year-old stepbrother. He was excommunicated but I also was put through a Bishop’s Court and subsequently punished. For letting myself get raped. I was put on probation, which amounted to a public shunning, for nearly a year. My “sentence” was six months, but the bishop forgot to reinstate me. When I asked him about it, he told me I had to repent. For being raped.
That, btw, was the moment I decided the church was bullshit and I was leaving the minute I turned 18, which happened.
This happened back in the 80s, so Spencer W. Kimball was the prophet and the “protect your virtue or die trying because you are otherwise worthless” was pretty much the message we heard in every single meeting. I would also like to note that Elizabeth Smart’s bishop publicly forgave her on CNN. I was infuriated. Not because she was forgiven but because there is obviously no consistency wrt how rape/abuse is treated in the mormon church. One bishop says on CNN that you’re still pure in the eyes of god and another one tells you to repent behind closed doors.
I am never surprised when I read about things like this, or the honor code issue at BYU. It’s systemic and also rape is pretty much advocated in the bible and even if you think that interpretation is a stretch, it’s also not explicitly mentioned as a sin so… I don’t look to any religion for handling matters of justice and the law, but Utah, apparently, has other ideas about that.