"what the [lds] church misrepresented in the AP article response"

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Marcus
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Re: "what the [lds] church misrepresented in the AP article response"

Post by Marcus »

Morley wrote:
Thu Oct 06, 2022 2:33 pm
JohnW wrote:
Thu Oct 06, 2022 3:04 am
I guess this is pizzagate 2.0? I suppose nothing I say will ever change anyone's mind. That one pizzagate guy broke into the basement of the pizza place thinking he would find a pedophile ring. When he only found crates of pizza-making supplies, he was certain that proved, without a doubt, there was a pedophile ring in the basement. I used to think those were only the crazies, but now I worry we are all crazies at heart.
Forgive me, John, but that you would dismiss discussion and critique of the way known pedophile cases were legally handled--by calling up the pizza gate hoax--is a little stomach churning.
It really is. We have facts detailing horrific pedophilia, not rumors. Dismissing this as "we are all crazies at heart" is really quite heartless. This need to defend one's church has led to some shockingly inappropriate comments here.
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Re: "what the [lds] church misrepresented in the AP article response"

Post by drumdude »

Marcus wrote:
Fri Oct 07, 2022 3:40 am
Morley wrote:
Thu Oct 06, 2022 2:33 pm


Forgive me, John, but that you would dismiss discussion and critique of the way known pedophile cases were legally handled--by calling up the pizza gate hoax--is a little stomach churning.
It really is. We have facts detailing horrific pedophilia, not rumors. Dismissing this as "we are all crazies at heart" is really quite heartless. This need to defend one's church has led to some shockingly inappropriate comments here.
I remember hearing constantly at church "The members aren't perfect, but the church is."

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JohnW
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Re: "what the [lds] church misrepresented in the AP article response"

Post by JohnW »

Let me explain just a little more.

There are two extremes in this situation. One the one extreme, the church can do no wrong and abuse is never the fault of the church. Let's call this position A. On the other extreme, the church's only focus when dealing with abuse is to hide everything and ignore the victim's safety in order to save face. Let's call this position B. The only thing I'm trying to argue is that the truth is neither A nor B. It must be somewhere in the middle. I thought multiple people on this board were way too close to position B, so I gave my personal experience with the abuse hotline. During my very few calls regarding abuse or other instances of member safety, I said everything was taken care of appropriately, including police being involved. To me this should rule out the extreme position B. It doesn't prove position A, but that isn't important to me. I'm trying to argue the truth is somewhere between those extremes.

We as humans often assume people are arguing an extreme position. We just have a hard time being balanced in an augment. If position A is 1 and position B is 10, then it seems to me I'm trying to argue a 3 and everyone else assumes I am at a 1. Although, I am willing to admit the same human weakness happens to me. Others may be arguing a 7, and they look like they are sitting at a 10 to me.
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Re: "what the [lds] church misrepresented in the AP article response"

Post by Dr Exiled »

JohnW wrote:
Fri Oct 07, 2022 7:51 am
Let me explain just a little more.

There are two extremes in this situation. One the one extreme, the church can do no wrong and abuse is never the fault of the church. Let's call this position A. On the other extreme, the church's only focus when dealing with abuse is to hide everything and ignore the victim's safety in order to save face. Let's call this position B. The only thing I'm trying to argue is that the truth is neither A nor B. It must be somewhere in the middle. I thought multiple people on this board were way too close to position B, so I gave my personal experience with the abuse hotline. During my very few calls regarding abuse or other instances of member safety, I said everything was taken care of appropriately, including police being involved. To me this should rule out the extreme position B. It doesn't prove position A, but that isn't important to me. I'm trying to argue the truth is somewhere between those extremes.

We as humans often assume people are arguing an extreme position. We just have a hard time being balanced in an augment. If position A is 1 and position B is 10, then it seems to me I'm trying to argue a 3 and everyone else assumes I am at a 1. Although, I am willing to admit the same human weakness happens to me. Others may be arguing a 7, and they look like they are sitting at a 10 to me.
The problem with wanting to find the truth on this issue is that one cannot look to the Church or continue to trust in the Church to find it. One needs to look critically at the Church, as a prosecutor would, to find out what is going on and continues to go on. The Church has tried to cover up these cases too much in the past to warrant giving it any benefit of the doubt any longer. It just needs to admit the problem, stop with the whitewash attitude and excuses and fix the damn thing.
Myth is misused by the powerful to subjugate the masses all too often.
Marcus
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Re: "what the [lds] church misrepresented in the AP article response"

Post by Marcus »

JohnW wrote:
Fri Oct 07, 2022 7:51 am
... my personal experience with the abuse hotline. During my very few calls regarding abuse or other instances of member safety, I said everything was taken care of appropriately, including police being involved....
"Appropriately"?? According to who? Your obfuscations are irrational.

When you made "calls regarding abuse," were you directed to call the authorities and report the abuse or not?
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Re: "what the [lds] church misrepresented in the AP article response"

Post by Marcus »

I wanted to go back to this:
JohnW wrote:
Tue Oct 04, 2022 3:52 am
I'm not sure if it is as easy as it appears. In reality, the church has training on sexual abuse already in place. This is for all members of the church who interact with children. It covers the basics of spotting abuse and how to report it.
Could you explain more about this training? Because i have never heard of this level of training before, "for all members of the church who interact with children." Really? This training is provided for all members who interact with children?
Bishops deal with situations much more complicated than that, but I'm not sure if further training is needed.
You have GOT to be kidding.
If I were putting together a large organization, would it make sense to train the staff how to handle every single situation of potentially over a hundred possible outcomes? Would they remember their training when situation 143b occurs? Or would it make more sense to have a hotline with experts who can navigate the staff whenever a difficult situation occurs? I don't know the answer to these questions, but I don't think they are simple answers.
Yes. there are! Do both! Or, like almost every other church and organization in the world, provide training! I cannot express how nonsensical your opinion sounds. Especially since above you already stated that "In reality, the church has training on sexual abuse already in place. This is for all members of the church who interact with children. It covers the basics of spotting abuse and how to report it."


So which is it? Does the lds church conclude it makes no "sense to train the staff how to handle every single situation of potentially over a hundred possible outcomes", or do they already have "training on sexual abuse already in place...for all members of the church who interact with children" ?

Are you beginning to see how inconsistent your comments in this thread have been?
dastardly stem
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Re: "what the [lds] church misrepresented in the AP article response"

Post by dastardly stem »

JohnW wrote:
Fri Oct 07, 2022 7:51 am
Let me explain just a little more.

There are two extremes in this situation. One the one extreme, the church can do no wrong and abuse is never the fault of the church. Let's call this position A. On the other extreme, the church's only focus when dealing with abuse is to hide everything and ignore the victim's safety in order to save face. Let's call this position B. The only thing I'm trying to argue is that the truth is neither A nor B. It must be somewhere in the middle. I thought multiple people on this board were way too close to position B, so I gave my personal experience with the abuse hotline. During my very few calls regarding abuse or other instances of member safety, I said everything was taken care of appropriately, including police being involved. To me this should rule out the extreme position B. It doesn't prove position A, but that isn't important to me. I'm trying to argue the truth is somewhere between those extremes.

We as humans often assume people are arguing an extreme position. We just have a hard time being balanced in an augment. If position A is 1 and position B is 10, then it seems to me I'm trying to argue a 3 and everyone else assumes I am at a 1. Although, I am willing to admit the same human weakness happens to me. Others may be arguing a 7, and they look like they are sitting at a 10 to me.
JohnW, this is a complete misrepresentation of what some of us, at least, are saying. Even if your experience includes cases of sexual abuse of children, and even if the Church or the hotline handled it well in the cases you have in mind, that does not mean all cases were handled well. This case, that we've had under scrutiny, is one such case that seems to clearly demonstrate failure in the Church's system. And, unfortunately some of us have knowledge of other suspect cases, including cases found in the link provided by Doc. Therefore this case doesn't appear to be a one off in which the Church failed. If the Church bats 50% should we be all ok with that? What about if it does 90%? I don't know that anyone is giving it an all or nothing thought here.

I can certainly imagine that in some cases of abuse the Church did it's best to help, required the bishop or leader to call the police immediately, and did not at all intend to protect the abuser over the abused. I can imagine that happens and still, yet, see evidence of the opposite in other cases. Are you saying we can only be critical of the Church's efforts on this front if it fails spectacularly in 100% of known cases? In my mind its worth criticizing if ever the Church tells a bishop to not call the police if it can be imagined or hoped that the abuser stops abusing. That alone would be a spectacular fail. If you imagine the bishop in this case was told to call the police and is lying, then be my guest and believe that. The evidence doesn't suggest that. And earlier it appeared to me you defended the Church saying it may be ok to not call the police if they thought the abuse had ended.

Recall, You said:
If church legal thought the abuse was one isolated event, based on a judgement call from the bishop, they may have encouraged him to continue counseling for a little while to see if the member would turn themselves in. That would have been in the best interest of the member.
No. That is a terrible idea and comes off as unreasonably defensive to me. If Church legal thought it was an isolated event and encouraged the bishop to not call the police and try to handle it on his own, then they failed, spectacularly. That you have experience with the hotline and think this is reasonable has me pretty concerned, overall. And I"m not tending towards histrionics here. I really do think the Church fails whenever it recommends against calling police.
“Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.”
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Dr Exiled
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Re: "what the [lds] church misrepresented in the AP article response"

Post by Dr Exiled »

JohnW:

You seem like a decent guy. However, I don't think there is much good to say about the Church's history here. It's pretty obvious that this has been a problem for a long, long time. Back in the 70's I was a witness to some horrific incidences of child abuse and was visited by the Stake President on assignment from some higher-ups. He counseled me to not say anything. This was an isolated incident he said and the perp was in counseling. I responded that the perp had been acting weird for years and that it was known among the kids that he was to be avoided, meaning to let the SP know that perhaps counseling wasn't working. I knew he had molested a bunch of kids in the Stake. The SP then put his arm on my shoulder telling me that the leaders were handling it and that we needed to keep this internal and he mentioned how the Tanners and other outsiders would make a big deal, overreacting to this isolated incident. Then I mentioned how the Deseret Gym was full of pedophiles and that I had seen some horrific stuff there as well. He kind of snapped at that point, repeating what he had said earlier and that the perp would be coming by to apologize. Well, that was a waste. The guy gave a half-assed apology and I couldn't look him in the eye out of disgust as I knew he succeeded with a couple of the kids in the Stake where he failed with me. I wanted to kick his ass and probably could have as I was a little bigger than him at the time.

Anyway, this has been a problem for a long, long time and your defenses ring hollow. It would be different if this were the first time and if the policy was just to contact the police instead of wanting to handle things internally so as to protect the false perfection image the Church cultivates. It's a problem that won't go away until there is some recognition, like actual repentance on the part of the Church. Also, people like you need to stop justifying this, because there isn't much to justify. The Church needs to repent and there is too much resistance from them at this point to defend. It looks really bad.
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Doctor CamNC4Me
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Re: "what the [lds] church misrepresented in the AP article response"

Post by Doctor CamNC4Me »

No one is asking for a 100% solution to solve child abuse, that’s impossible. However, we shouldn’t let perfection be the enemy of good, and as it stands now the “church” isn’t even at the level of good - it’s evil. It’s giving safe harbor to rapists and the such. How many examples do you need to actually have your moral compass right itself? This dogged determination to protect the “church” results in more babies, children, boys, girls, women, and even men being abused by predators, repentant or otherwise.

And JohnW, you don’t have a unique perspective that we can’t understand, other than your perspective being unique to you. We either served in these various capacities or we have real-world experience in terms of handling this sort of thing. This speaking in vagueries thing you’re doing is facile and acting in bad faith. You can’t even bring yourself to answer some questions we’ve posed to you in a frank and honest manner. Your tippity tapping is turning into trolling.

- Doc
Hugh Nibley claimed he bumped into Adolf Hitler, Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Gertrude Stein, and the Grand Duke Vladimir Romanoff. Dishonesty is baked into Mormonism.
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Re: "what the [lds] church misrepresented in the AP article response"

Post by Doctor Steuss »

dastardly stem wrote:
Fri Oct 07, 2022 1:53 pm
JohnW wrote:
Fri Oct 07, 2022 7:51 am
If church legal thought the abuse was one isolated event, based on a judgement call from the bishop, they may have encouraged him to continue counseling for a little while to see if the member would turn themselves in. That would have been in the best interest of the member.
No. That is a terrible idea and comes off as unreasonably defensive to me. If Church legal thought it was an isolated event and encouraged the bishop to not call the police and try to handle it on his own, then they failed, spectacularly. That you have experience with the hotline and think this is reasonable has me pretty concerned, overall. And I"m not tending towards histrionics here. I really do think the Church fails whenever it recommends against calling police.
It also, once again, shows a perpetrator-centric approach.

"That would have been in the best interest of the member."

Once again, the victim is an ethereal entity that is being "protected" merely by saying they are. The focus, repeatedly, is on the priesthood-holding abuser. M 2.0 and John W have confirmed this, and reaffirmed it in their anecdotes. The "protection" of the victim is at best parallel to the perpetrator, and at worse secondary.

Nothing about providing counseling or medical services for the child. Nothing about meeting with the child. It's the perpetrator who gets the effort and focus; especially when the Church reaffirms through the Hotline that's the course to take.

Again, a man was raping his child, and molesting his baby. Multiple Church leaders knew. At least one Church lawyer knew. Literally nothing was done for the child and baby. Nothing. Yet, instead of roundly condemning how the leaders acted, and how the lawyer acted, we are getting "hey guys, let's not get too extreme here. Sure, a child was being raped, and a baby molested, and no one did anything to protect the child and baby, but the intentions were totes the best..."
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