Sam Young's Excommunication Notice

[_Jersey Girl]

New York Times article dtd 30 Aug. First time I've seen this.

https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/0 ... ation.html

[_Jersey Girl]

Yeah, this is going around now.

Washington Times

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/20 ... -youth-in/

Utah Herald Journal

https://www.hjnews.com/news/state/man-f ... 582a0.html

[_Jersey Girl]

Yeah.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/mormo ... ar-BBMFO3E

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states ... interviews

Tons of lesser known news places, too.

[_lostindc]

Post all the links you can Jersey Girl, it might make your sh1t posting fade away.

[_Jersey Girl]

Post all the links you can Jersey Girl, it might make your sh1t posting fade away.

Try examining the posts that I just made. I posted the first one because I saw it currently posted on Facebook which is what I've been doing for months now. I posted the petition from that link, because it's a new petition in addition to the petition I posted previously. I posted the news articles as I located them because as I stated previously, I hoped the story would go national.

And now it has.

This thread isn't about me or your opinion of me. It's about Sam Young's upcoming disciplinary meeting.

[_Jersey Girl]

Austria

https://orf.at/stories/2449098/

[_Rosebud]

FTR, when I refer to people who get into public fights as little boys (and sometimes little girls), I'm not meaning some sort of psychologically unaddressed inner child needs manifesting themselves in the present. Nothing like that. I suppose that's true of all people all the time so I don't really give that kind of thinking much credence.

What I mean is that they're fighting for certain issues because they want to see their own side win -- and only their side. They haven't grown out of an "I win - you lose" mentality. I associate fighting for only one side with immaturity -- or with being a little girl or boy.

My viewpoint is that people who have more maturity (or more highly developed levels of consciousness, as this would be called in developmental psychology) and are looking to make the world a better place, strive to do so through taking into account multiple competing perspectives and their resulting systems of human interaction and then developing solutions that affect those systems.

It's not as easy as calling all the believers bad and the unbelievers good or vice versa.

And my beef with the immature way some Mormons are doing this is the manner in which their actions have a negative impact on many people, including many of the people they say they're trying to help.

Are Mormon abuse victims really going to be helped by a hunger strike that proves what we all already know (that the church will ignore it)? And that then elicits a whole gamut of negative Mormon press across the world?

Even when the church's reaction will likely be one of reentrenhment (such as we saw in November of 2015)?

Was McKenna Denson really helped when her tape was leaked without her permission? Will this really make things better for Mormon women? Does it again just demonstrate that men with a mentality of "I win-you lose" were pulling the strings all along and plan to continue doing that in the future?

Really making things better means empowering the victims to speak themselves, not fighting over proving that the other side is hurting the victims more than anyone's own side is. That's just a ridiculous falsehood. Assholes are assholes, no matter whose side they're on. Having an "I win-you lose" fight is also a luxury.... it's the kind of thing people who aren't dealing with the problems that come with victimhood have time and energy to do. People who are on the receiving end of this stuff are usually just trying to survive. And they're downwind from all the influencers.

Anyway, I've been saying this for a long time. The Mormon organizations I ran were based on these principles: on shared values, on bringing people from multiple perspectives together and developing solutions that changed an unhealthy culture. My work wasn't just about winning a fight or about proving the other side wrong. And I did it while I was transparent about which side of the "fight" (that is constantly being stirred up by the apostles and the activists) I'm personally on..... the left. It's lame and immature when activists to lie to Mormons about their personal worthiness while self-promoting as a hero for the purpose of getting the newspapers to shame Mormons.

Of course they'll retaliate.

November 2015 was a retaliation. It shut down the kind of work many of my colleagues and I were doing. And who got hurt? The self-promoters? Nope. The victims. All the people we were trying to help paid the price for the glory of the promoters.

I tried to prevent it, but the narcissists scream too loudly.

http://circlingthewagons.org/standards- ... on-mormon/

Anyway, child abuse is a crime and there is no dearth of narcissistic self-promoters or newspapers looking for stories, so this current system will continue until it fizzles out and we see what's left in the ashes. And aometimes that's okay with me. But I'm not going to lie to Mormons about which side I'm on to try to "influence" them. Over-the-top immature.

[_Jersey Girl]

Digging in his heels...posted today

First Response to Excommunication Summons

Today, I sent the following letter to the stake executive secretary. Instructions have been given that I’m to have no direct communication with the stake president. Only the go-between.
You can view the excommunication summons HERE. It was delivered to me last Wednesday evening. The tribunal will be held on Sunday, September 9th at 6pm in the Sugar Land chapel at 14555 Lexington Blvd, Sugar Land, Texas.

Dear President,

As you know, I’m in receipt of your summons to the church court. Below are questions and concerns that I’d like addressed well before the 9th.

I. Thank you for your heartfelt reassurance of God’s love and Christ’s atonement. That was very meaningful.

II. I will be present at the council.

III. You have leveled 2 charges. In order to plan my response, please forward the evidence against me that you are going to present. Are you going to call witnesses? If so, who are they and what evidence will they present?

IV. Charge #1 is new to me. “Encouraged others to vote opposed to Church leaders.”
We have never discussed this before. According to the Church Handbook, you are supposed to personally call my sinful behavior to my attention well before any disciplinary court proceedings. You have not done that. As a result, I ask that this new and unexpected charge be removed from the allegations to be considered on the 9th.

Last January, we clearly discussed indictment #2. So, it’s fair game. As for #1, if there was any wrong doing on my part, I should have been given the opportunity to repent. Up to this point, you’ve been good at following the handbook dictates. I would expect no less of you in regards to this matter. Charge #1 should be deleted.

V. With regards to not recording the proceedings in any form. As you should know, I have never recorded any of our meetings. I don’t plan to record this one either.

However, it does seem strange that you are requiring every person in attendance to sign a document. This is the Stake Presidency & High Council for heaven sake. It seems odd that you don’t trust this group enough to take them at their word.

Is this a new Handbook dictate? Or are there High Councilors and Stake Presidency members that you don’t trust? Right out of the gate, we seem to be starting out as adversaries with little trust in the room. Not even trust for the 15 men that will be surrounding you. Whatever happened to trusting those who have served with us for years? Whatever happened to the spirit of discernment that you as the Stake President are supposed to have?

I don’t have anything to hide. Hopefully you don’t either. So, I don’t care one wit if you or anyone else records. But, if all 15 tell me they won’t record, that’s just what I’d expect of them, whether in word or in writing.

VI. Please send me a copy of the document you are requiring all to sign. These days, I prefer not to sign anything that I have not seen in advance.

VII. Witnesses!! Oh man, you are killing me on this one. The requirements you have specified are a huge handicap. You are putting me on trial for excommunication. Think about that. What member in good standing is going to risk their membership, temple recommend, livelihood, family relations by being a witness in my behalf? There are many members of my ward and stake who totally support the changes I’ve been calling for. They don’t believe that I’m “expressing opposition to the Church or its leaders.” But they are afraid to state this out in the open. If they did, they would be in the very position that I am. We have such a culture of fear in the church. By calling this court action against me, you are reinforcing that culture of fear and silence.

At this point, I have only found ONE member “in good standing” who might risk being punished for speaking up as a witness. But, even this person’s commitment is tenuous.

It’s my eternal salvation that’s at risk. Nobody else’s. Only I risk being torn away from my family for eternity. Yet, your actions have intimidated the very witnesses that could come to my defense. How is that fair? It’s not. You and the Church culture have bullied credible witnesses into silence. There are many possible witnesses in good standing who live in my ward and in the stake you govern. But you and the Church have filled them to the brim with fear.

I’ve never viewed disciplinary councils as kangaroo courts. The restrictions you have placed on potential witnesses have eliminated the vast majority of my friends from being qualified. Your intimidation has effectively eliminated my friends who ARE ‘members in good standing.’ The way this tribunal is presently constructed IS a kangaroo court. ‘You can call witnesses. But, we have already scared the bejeebers out of all that we consider credible.’

I call on you to change your witness requirement stating that “witnesses must be members of the Church in good standing.” Otherwise, you are belittling & making a mockery of the Plan of Salvation. I should be given every opportunity to present a compelling defense so that I have at least a small chance at real justice. Not kangaroo justice.

With all that said, I do plan to call witnesses. You have simply made it a really daunting task to search them out. Please change the requirement.

VIII. 45 MINUTE time limit? Is that a new Handbook requirement? How disrespectful of the plan of salvation is that? I have put my entire heart and soul into serving Christ, my fellow members and the Church for almost 5 decades. And what do I get in return? 45 MINUTES! 45 MINUTES to defend my right to eternal salvation. 45 MINUTES to defend my right to spend eternity with my loved ones. Is that the value the Church places on my eternity? How sad is that? We spend 3 hours every week in church services. Just think how much accumulated time that is over the decades that I have dedicated to the Church. Yet, when push comes to shove, my eternal family ties are only worth 45 MINUTES?
Even the church toilets are worth more than salvation. I have spent hours and hours cleaning them and the rest of the church building. The defense of my eternal destiny isn’t even worth 1 hour. What kind of a time limit is that?

Here’s my request. Give me at least as much time as we dedicate to cleaning the church building. In my ward that’s 2 hours. Certainly, my years of dedicated service, my family and my eternity are worth as much time as the Church toilets.

IX. Option to request that my name be removed: I want to make it clear that this is not my desire. I value my church membership and am confident that the Stake Presidency and High Council will come to realize that there is no legitimate reason to excommunicate.

Your quick response will be very much appreciated.
Until Sept 9th, all my best wishes,
Sam Young

PLEASE SHARE AND COMMENT. The church has graciously provided us with another opportunity to bring greater and greater awareness.

https://invisiblescubit.wordpress.com/2 ... n-summons/

[_cwald]

Thanks for this post Lemmie. It is an articulate summary of what is happening on this board.

To be fair, Rosebud did admit her post insinuating all exmo men were basically slime, was unfair and too broad. She rescinded that comment. I give her some credit for that. It's important I think to acknowledge that kind of effort and progress in a discussion.

I do agree with your last comment, 100%, and wish this would end and stop being the catalyst of so many thread derails.

Rosebud is engaging in her usual tactic of interpreting every thread through the lens of her negative experience with Dehlin: men have power and are bad, and weak and powerless women get hurt. It is her interpretation, and it is based on her damage, and continuing to impose her interpretation onto Sam Young in this thread is baseless.

For example, here is her interpretation of the policy regarding baptizing children of gay people:

That's what NOvember 2015 was all about: egocentric men wanting to be heroes in history and pushing so hard for their place in time that the vulnerable people got retaliated against.
viewtopic.php?p=1141279#p1141279

and here is her interpretation regarding, of all things, grindael's historical research!

... the male apologist vs. male ex-Mormon historian fight over the facts is a shadowed repeat of the fight between Smith and Law -- both sides wanting their guy to be the hero and both sides still forgetting that the point is that human beings with less power and influence were severely hurt in the crossfire.viewtopic.php?p=1140339#p1140339

Even in this thread, she has randomly pulled in another story of a vulnerable woman falling prey to another Mormon man:

A friend of mine from junior high died by suicide soon after Richard G. Scott's death. She was clear on her Facebook page that his death had been devastating to her. She couldn't go on. Evidently Scott had been a close friend. She was unmarried. She didn't have many friends. Turns out she had high-functioning autism. Very smart, very vulnerable.

I know there's no evidence in any of this, but I can't help but wonder.....

No evidence, but she still sees a link, because to her, every story is the same as her story.

IN this thread she continues this projection by irrelevantly comparing Hales to Sam Young, again defining the issue in terms of her past problems:

The way out of the cult thinking is to accept that whether or not a protester or Hales has a TR means nothing. As soon as all these competing men realize that none of them win the "I'm the most righteous" prize, life will get better for the people downwind of their dramas. viewtopic.php?p=1141296#p1141296

She has also linked to a post that is full of innuendo and unsupported gossip about Sam Young, because it sounds like her story and her interpretation of how men behave:

And, the linked blogpost has a point. Its comments are representative of many Mormon voices. (https://www.millennialstar.org/guest-po ... lly-after/)

She even drags in posters here, as she again notes that, in her opinion, men are powerful and the helpless are crushed:

Look at what all these Mormon men are doing: Hales, Dehlin, Young, Craig Paxton, Shulem..... they're all trying to win some stupid prize. Watch them. As Mormon kids the importance of making it to the top of the righteous superiority and worthiness chain was entrenched in our minds. Getting out of the cult means really leaving the whole TR paradigm behind.... and leaving behind the need to crush the people who are judging you for not being as superior as they are.

And eventually, she extends her opinion to the entire group of ex-mo men:

The ex-Mormon men don't care if Young or Dehln or anyone else is "choosing the right." They care about whether or not their side wins the superiority fight.

And of course our resident misogynist here who has viciously attacked female posters for the past decade picks right up on this and concludes that yes, Sam Young must be exactly the Dehlin look-alike that she sees in every Mormon male she encounters. He writes: "I do think Rosebud is onto something here."

No, she's not. It's an inappropriate characterization of Sam Young that is fueled entirely by Rosebud's biased view of how men and women interact. It needs to stop.

[_boris]

Digging in his heels...posted today

First Response to Excommunication Summons

Today, I sent the following letter to the stake executive secretary. Instructions have been given that I’m to have no direct communication with the stake president. Only the go-between.
You can view the excommunication summons HERE. It was delivered to me last Wednesday evening. The tribunal will be held on Sunday, September 9th at 6pm in the Sugar Land chapel at 14555 Lexington Blvd, Sugar Land, Texas.

Dear President,

As you know, I’m in receipt of your summons to the church court. Below are questions and concerns that I’d like addressed well before the 9th.

I. Thank you for your heartfelt reassurance of God’s love and Christ’s atonement. That was very meaningful.

II. I will be present at the council.

III. You have leveled 2 charges. In order to plan my response, please forward the evidence against me that you are going to present. Are you going to call witnesses? If so, who are they and what evidence will they present?

IV. Charge #1 is new to me. “Encouraged others to vote opposed to Church leaders.”
We have never discussed this before. According to the Church Handbook, you are supposed to personally call my sinful behavior to my attention well before any disciplinary court proceedings. You have not done that. As a result, I ask that this new and unexpected charge be removed from the allegations to be considered on the 9th.

Last January, we clearly discussed indictment #2. So, it’s fair game. As for #1, if there was any wrong doing on my part, I should have been given the opportunity to repent. Up to this point, you’ve been good at following the handbook dictates. I would expect no less of you in regards to this matter. Charge #1 should be deleted.

V. With regards to not recording the proceedings in any form. As you should know, I have never recorded any of our meetings. I don’t plan to record this one either.

However, it does seem strange that you are requiring every person in attendance to sign a document. This is the Stake Presidency & High Council for heaven sake. It seems odd that you don’t trust this group enough to take them at their word.

Is this a new Handbook dictate? Or are there High Councilors and Stake Presidency members that you don’t trust? Right out of the gate, we seem to be starting out as adversaries with little trust in the room. Not even trust for the 15 men that will be surrounding you. Whatever happened to trusting those who have served with us for years? Whatever happened to the spirit of discernment that you as the Stake President are supposed to have?

I don’t have anything to hide. Hopefully you don’t either. So, I don’t care one wit if you or anyone else records. But, if all 15 tell me they won’t record, that’s just what I’d expect of them, whether in word or in writing.

VI. Please send me a copy of the document you are requiring all to sign. These days, I prefer not to sign anything that I have not seen in advance.

VII. Witnesses!! Oh man, you are killing me on this one. The requirements you have specified are a huge handicap. You are putting me on trial for excommunication. Think about that. What member in good standing is going to risk their membership, temple recommend, livelihood, family relations by being a witness in my behalf? There are many members of my ward and stake who totally support the changes I’ve been calling for. They don’t believe that I’m “expressing opposition to the Church or its leaders.” But they are afraid to state this out in the open. If they did, they would be in the very position that I am. We have such a culture of fear in the church. By calling this court action against me, you are reinforcing that culture of fear and silence.

At this point, I have only found ONE member “in good standing” who might risk being punished for speaking up as a witness. But, even this person’s commitment is tenuous.

It’s my eternal salvation that’s at risk. Nobody else’s. Only I risk being torn away from my family for eternity. Yet, your actions have intimidated the very witnesses that could come to my defense. How is that fair? It’s not. You and the Church culture have bullied credible witnesses into silence. There are many possible witnesses in good standing who live in my ward and in the stake you govern. But you and the Church have filled them to the brim with fear.

I’ve never viewed disciplinary councils as kangaroo courts. The restrictions you have placed on potential witnesses have eliminated the vast majority of my friends from being qualified. Your intimidation has effectively eliminated my friends who ARE ‘members in good standing.’ The way this tribunal is presently constructed IS a kangaroo court. ‘You can call witnesses. But, we have already scared the bejeebers out of all that we consider credible.’

I call on you to change your witness requirement stating that “witnesses must be members of the Church in good standing.” Otherwise, you are belittling & making a mockery of the Plan of Salvation. I should be given every opportunity to present a compelling defense so that I have at least a small chance at real justice. Not kangaroo justice.

With all that said, I do plan to call witnesses. You have simply made it a really daunting task to search them out. Please change the requirement.

VIII. 45 MINUTE time limit? Is that a new Handbook requirement? How disrespectful of the plan of salvation is that? I have put my entire heart and soul into serving Christ, my fellow members and the Church for almost 5 decades. And what do I get in return? 45 MINUTES! 45 MINUTES to defend my right to eternal salvation. 45 MINUTES to defend my right to spend eternity with my loved ones. Is that the value the Church places on my eternity? How sad is that? We spend 3 hours every week in church services. Just think how much accumulated time that is over the decades that I have dedicated to the Church. Yet, when push comes to shove, my eternal family ties are only worth 45 MINUTES?
Even the church toilets are worth more than salvation. I have spent hours and hours cleaning them and the rest of the church building. The defense of my eternal destiny isn’t even worth 1 hour. What kind of a time limit is that?

Here’s my request. Give me at least as much time as we dedicate to cleaning the church building. In my ward that’s 2 hours. Certainly, my years of dedicated service, my family and my eternity are worth as much time as the Church toilets.

IX. Option to request that my name be removed: I want to make it clear that this is not my desire. I value my church membership and am confident that the Stake Presidency and High Council will come to realize that there is no legitimate reason to excommunicate.

Your quick response will be very much appreciated.
Until Sept 9th, all my best wishes,
Sam Young

PLEASE SHARE AND COMMENT. The church has graciously provided us with another opportunity to bring greater and greater awareness.

https://invisiblescubit.wordpress.com/2 ... n-summons/

He is facing excommunication, so what does he do, he ridicules and directly insults, and make demands. Quite honestly I am suprised his SP didn't hold the council last year.