Actual Ex-Mo Predators

[Kishkumen]

And there are plenty of people who unfortunately think the sun shines out of his backside. Where does all this anecdotal evidence leave us?

The people who haven't signed NDAs and have stuck their heads above the parapet have unfortunately been found to be quite unreliable with some of their claims. And a judge indicates that the more litigious one has been destroying evidence and also seems to have contempt for the law. Feels a bit lynchy.

I shall not be encouraging my kids to work at Open Stories Foundation. But not sure he can be cancelled just yet.

Yep. I am not going to work for OS or encourage others to do so. There are always those who will cozy up to people with a little success and notoriety in the hope that they can capture a little of that success for themselves. So OS really doesn’t need me or my help.

The trouble is that a little success and notoriety can attract the wrong kind of people. The nutters and narcissists. The people who want to use you to get something for themselves. When they don’t get their way or what they came for, they can get nasty.

I have seen it even in my line of work. It is much worse in archaeology than my particular area. There are many unrealistic and ambitious people who feel entitled to all kinds of unearned goodies. They are ready to lash out and take their pound of flesh when they encounter disappointment.

Some people don’t like JD. They don’t like the fact that he is a privileged white dude. And sometimes he does dumb stuff. But I have not seen one compelling piece of evidence that he has done more than make some dumb mistakes. I have seen evidence of some weirdly entitled people going after him, people who felt they deserved something, money, more responsibility, more spotlight, than JD had given them. Rosebud seems to have imagined JD would be her husband and he would make her the queen bee of OS.

People are entitled to choose not to support JD, or like him, but that doesn’t make this flawed dude the monster these nuts and narcissists have endeavored to paint him as.

[drumdude]

And sometimes he does dumb stuff. But I have not seen one compelling piece of evidence that he has done more than make some dumb mistakes.

I think there's a little more to it than that when you dig through the evidence. It's exhausting going through all of it, and I understand why many would prefer to develop their opinion without looking at it. But two things stand out to me from the evidence - the first is that John Dehlin didn't just make one mistake, he has a pattern of these mistakes. And secondly, that John Dehlin and his wife apparently don't even trust John to be in the room alone with another woman like Carrah Burrel (however you spell that).

If I were a woman applying for Open Stories Foundation, I'd want to know that the CEO of the company has such a large problem with women that he doesn't feel like he can control himself when he is alone with her. That's a bigger deal than just "John made a dumb mistake." IMHO, having unfortunately seen more of John's personal life than I would ever want to before these serious allegations arose.

[IWMP]

Huh? I assumed Marcus was implying that other women were suggesting more than a negative opinion. As in more women were accusing him of sexual harassment but with more evidence. I haven't seen such accusations but I don't spend much time thinking about it.

No, that is not what I was implying. Please don't read more into it than exactly what I said, which is this:

I am talking about the multiple other people who expressed their opinion re Dehlin, and several who gave lengthy, detailed information about their personal experiences with Dehlin. These had nothing to do with Rosebud. They were almost all uniformly negative about Dehlin, with a very few expressing a vaguely neutral stance.

Re-reading I can see I did read more into that than I should have with regard to harassment. You didn't mention harassment I visualised it.

[Dr. Shades]

To get a flavor of the accusations, check out the following: [SNIP]

Umm, . . . link?

[Meadowchik]

And there are plenty of people who unfortunately think the sun shines out of his backside. Where does all this anecdotal evidence leave us?

The people who haven't signed NDAs and have stuck their heads above the parapet have unfortunately been found to be quite unreliable with some of their claims. And a judge indicates that the more litigious one has been destroying evidence and also seems to have contempt for the law. Feels a bit lynchy.

I shall not be encouraging my kids to work at Open Stories Foundation. But not sure he can be cancelled just yet.

Yep. I am not going to work for OS or encourage others to do so. There are always those who will cozy up to people with a little success and notoriety in the hope that they can capture a little of that success for themselves. So OS really doesn’t need me or my help.

The trouble is that a little success and notoriety can attract the wrong kind of people. The nutters and narcissists. The people who want to use you to get something for themselves. When they don’t get their way or what they came for, they can get nasty.

I have seen it even in my line of work. It is much worse in archaeology than my particular area. There are many unrealistic and ambitious people who feel entitled to all kinds of unearned goodies. They are ready to lash out and take their pound of flesh when they encounter disappointment.

Some people don’t like John Dehlin. They don’t like the fact that he is a privileged white dude. And sometimes he does dumb stuff. But I have not seen one compelling piece of evidence that he has done more than make some dumb mistakes. I have seen evidence of some weirdly entitled people going after him, people who felt they deserved something, money, more responsibility, more spotlight, than John Dehlin had given them. Rosebud seems to have imagined John Dehlin would be her husband and he would make her the queen bee of OS.

People are entitled to choose not to support John Dehlin, or like him, but that doesn’t make this flawed dude the monster these nuts and narcissists have endeavored to paint him as.

Instead of nutters and narcissists, start with a baseline of reasonable and sincere ex-Mormons. Most who were heavily indoctrinated and raised in the Mormon world are going to be leaving the church with heavy baggage. And many will be rightly working on unburdening themselves from that baggage.

There can be plenty of therapeutic benefits of interacting with exmo media and online communities. By hearing others experiences, one can get more insight about their own and can continue on toward healing and being healthy without the church.

On the other hand, the exmo community can also more readily provide a context to repeat dysfunctional patterns supported in Mormonism. Trusting people, and those looking for guidance will very easily find a familiar even comfortable pattern in glomming onto authority figures. And unless a person has made major progress unlearning misogyny, they are going to be looking to men to find authority figures.

At the same time, there may be exmormons who are constantly looking to relive that critical time of de-conversion, where they catch a Mormon authority figure in error. So they will be glomming on to one or more Mormon personalities to watch, critique, and catch in error. Even better if they find one who explicitly engages. Let the endless sparring continue.

These are two ways exmormons keep proximity with the church in an unhealthy holding pattern. In order to get out of either, I think there must be first detachment from the authority concept altogether. Authority should in my opinion be only used in life on an extremely limited, highly audited basis.

Second, we all need to be working on unlearning misogyny. Men and women. We miss out on a basic understanding of the human experience if we deprioritize the views of women in favour of mens'.

[Kishkumen]

I think there's a little more to it than that when you dig through the evidence. It's exhausting going through all of it, and I understand why many would prefer to develop their opinion without looking at it. But two things stand out to me from the evidence - the first is that John Dehlin didn't just make one mistake, he has a pattern of these mistakes. And secondly, that John Dehlin and his wife apparently don't even trust John to be in the room alone with another woman like Carrah Burrel (however you spell that).

If I were a woman applying for Open Stories Foundation, I'd want to know that the CEO of the company has such a large problem with women that he doesn't feel like he can control himself when he is alone with her. That's a bigger deal than just "John made a dumb mistake." IMHO, having unfortunately seen more of John's personal life than I would ever want to before these serious allegations arose.

Nice try, drumdude. First of all, I said JD made dumb mistakes plural. But, hey, it is useful for you to make my position look silly by misquoting me deliberately. Still, you did it artfully, so kudos for that. I also acknowledged that John is flawed. And I do think that in the situation, with Rosebud lingering to remind the world of some of John’s dumb mistakes, that Margie and John are probably going to manage their damaged trust by keeping John away from temptation, if that is what is, in fact, going on.

But that doesn’t make him a Kimball or even a Bramer.

[Kishkumen]

Instead of nutters and narcissists, start with a baseline of reasonable and sincere ex-Mormons. Most who were heavily indoctrinated and raised in the Mormon world are going to be leaving the church with heavy baggage. And many will be rightly working on unburdening themselves from that baggage.

There can be plenty of therapeutic benefits of interacting with exmo media and online communities. By hearing others experiences, one can get more insight about their own and can continue on toward healing and being healthy without the church.

On the other hand, the exmo community can also more readily provide a context to repeat dysfunctional patterns supported in Mormonism. Trusting people, and those looking for guidance will very easily find a familiar even comfortable pattern in glomming onto authority figures. And unless a person has made major progress unlearning misogyny, they are going to be looking to men to find authority figures.

At the same time, there may be exmormons who are constantly looking to relive that critical time of de-conversion, where they catch a Mormon authority figure in error. So they will be glomming on to one or more Mormon personalities to watch, critique, and catch in error. Even better if they find one who explicitly engages. Let the endless sparring continue.

These are two ways exmormons keep proximity with the church in an unhealthy holding pattern. In order to get out of either, I think there must be first detachment from the authority concept altogether. Authority should in my opinion be only used in life on an extremely limited, highly audited basis.

Second, we all need to be working on unlearning misogyny. Men and women. We miss out on a basic understanding of the human experience if we deprioritize the views of women in favour of mens'.

All great observations and important to add. I don’t think this conflicts with the point I was making, but I think it is vital to recognize that most people in the Ex-Mo community are normal, decent people who need healing. And, I think that John’s biggest attackers (Rosebud and Kamp) are troubled people, not inherently bad people. A lot of the people who routinely criticize him are well intentioned people speaking in line with their genuinely held beliefs.

But, I think my point stands. There is a big dose of mental illness and misguided ambition behind the attacks on Dehlin, and decent people of a certain ideological stripe are inclined to tolerate and even support the troubled and troubling opponents of Dehlin because of their convictions and ideological commitments. And this is the distortion I am talking about. The flawed becomes the evil, troubled people are made out to be monsters.

[drumdude]

Instead of nutters and narcissists, start with a baseline of reasonable and sincere ex-Mormons. Most who were heavily indoctrinated and raised in the Mormon world are going to be leaving the church with heavy baggage. And many will be rightly working on unburdening themselves from that baggage.

There can be plenty of therapeutic benefits of interacting with exmo media and online communities. By hearing others experiences, one can get more insight about their own and can continue on toward healing and being healthy without the church.

On the other hand, the exmo community can also more readily provide a context to repeat dysfunctional patterns supported in Mormonism. Trusting people, and those looking for guidance will very easily find a familiar even comfortable pattern in glomming onto authority figures. And unless a person has made major progress unlearning misogyny, they are going to be looking to men to find authority figures.

At the same time, there may be exmormons who are constantly looking to relive that critical time of de-conversion, where they catch a Mormon authority figure in error. So they will be glomming on to one or more Mormon personalities to watch, critique, and catch in error. Even better if they find one who explicitly engages. Let the endless sparring continue.

These are two ways exmormons keep proximity with the church in an unhealthy holding pattern. In order to get out of either, I think there must be first detachment from the authority concept altogether. Authority should in my opinion be only used in life on an extremely limited, highly audited basis.

Second, we all need to be working on unlearning misogyny. Men and women. We miss out on a basic understanding of the human experience if we deprioritize the views of women in favour of mens'.

All great observations and important to add. I don’t think this conflicts with the point I was making, but I think it is vital to recognize that most people in the Ex-Mo community are normal, decent people who need healing. And, I think that John’s biggest attackers (Rosebud and Kamp) are troubled people, not inherently bad people. A lot of the people who routinely criticize him are well intentioned people speaking in line with their genuinely held beliefs.

But, I think my point stands. There is a big dose of mental illness and misguided ambition behind the attacks on Dehlin, and decent people of a certain ideological stripe are inclined to tolerate and even support the troubled and troubling opponents of Dehlin because of their convictions and ideological commitments. And this is the distortion I am talking about. The flawed becomes the evil, troubled people are made out to be monsters.

John Dehlin has made many bedfellows of exMormons and apologists on this issue. Their convictions and ideology couldn’t be farther apart. That says something about John, not his critics. When many on both sides agree John is problematic, that seems to me to be something more than narcissism run amok. Again, just my opinion.

For the record, I don’t think he is evil or a monster and anyone using those words (if anyone is using those words) is being childish and reductionist.

[Marcus]

Saying a person's problems with sexual harassment and how they treat women don't rise to the level of "Kimball and Bramer" inappropriately minimizes the issue. It's fallacious reasoning.

Yes, I agree Rosebud has serious issues, but the bottom line for me is still that Dehlin got her fired after he had a sexual encounter with her. He's handled the aftermath of this sexual harassment of Rosebud very badly, as has she, but that doesn't excuse his behavior, nor the behavior that multiple other first-hand, documented reports have shown.

[drumdude]

Saying a person's problems with sexual harassment and how they treat women don't rise to the level of "Kimball and Bramer" inappropriately minimizes the issue. It's fallacious reasoning.

Yes, I agree Rosebud has serious issues, but the bottom line for me is still that Dehlin got her fired after he had a sexual encounter with her. He's handled the aftermath of this sexual harassment of Rosebud very badly, as has she, but that doesn't excuse his behavior, nor the behavior that multiple other first-hand, documented reports have shown.

Yep.