Cardinal Biggles wrote:I think that my scariest LDS memory must be when a group of young men from my LDS boy scout troop/deacon's quorum grabbed me and dragged me out of the church building during a Stake-wide scout meeting, ostensibly to beat the s*** out of me on the lawn, because they thought that I was a homosexual (I am not, by the way).
I escaped, though.
just me wrote:Waaaaait. So, are you f*****g serious? OMG!
Cardinal Biggles wrote:I am serious. And don't call me f*****g. Haha.
The whole story is rather embarrassing. I was still a bed-wetter at 13, as were many of my younger siblings. This might have had something to do with the beatings with a belt that our father regularly issued, but I can't be sure.
It was, therefore, a bad idea for me to go on an overnight campout (the "Klondike Derby") in hand-made snow caves with the other scouts at Maple Dell. But I went anyway. I slept in my sleeping bag, and my best friend slept in his sleeping bag next to me in the same cave. Unfortunately, the unthinkable happened that night. I peed. I awoke, shivering, and freaking out about how I was going to explain the yellow stain in the snow beneath my bag.
The others were still asleep. My pajamas were soaking, so I removed them. I knew that my best friend was double-bagged (one sleeping bag within another), for warmth. I didn't think that I was going to survive the night if I stayed in my wet, and solidifying, bag. So I whispered to him and told him I was really cold and asked him if I could please get into the outer bag (there was never any contact between us). At first, drowsy, he objected, but he finally gave in, probably just so he could go back to sleep. Sexual thoughts were the furthest thing from either of our minds, I'm sure.
It would have been a good idea for me if I had tried to arise earlier than everyone else, but I didn't. The next morning, the other scouts in the quorum discovered that I was in the outer bag. They assumed that my friend and I were in the very same bag, even though there was a bag separating us. They gleefully starting running around and shouting to the whole campsite that I and my friend were in the same bag.
From that day forwards, rumors starting going around the junior high that my friend and I were "faggots." I felt sorry for my friend as well; he never asked for any of it. The young men from my ward broke into my friend's locker at school and wrote, in permanent magic marker on the inside of his locker door, a love note to him that was allegedly from me. Unfortunately, my friend believed that the note was from me, in spite of my denials, and he decided that I really was homosexual. We didn't remain friends.
A couple weeks later, the incident at the Stake Center happened. Luckily, my family moved away to another ward, where nobody knew me, soon thereafter. Whew!
Sorry to hear this, Cardinal Biggles.
I had a friend in the next ward who changed dramatically at age 12 and about 7 months. Two years later, he told me about an incident at an overnight outing of his scout troop. There were only 5 go, and it was only 1/2 mile outside of our little town, and on property along a creek, owned by one of the 5's parents. There was no adult, and the other four started circle jerking. When my friend wouldn't join in, they grabbed him and one by one anally raped him.
I knew all four of the others and always had my doubts about it having actually happened. Until about 35 years later. One of those four attended my friend's funeral, and afterwards asked me how his life had been in those 35 years. I explained it had not been good. This guy kept asking questions, lamely. Finally, he said he needed to get something off his mind and asked if I would listen. He started crying almost as soon as he told me the same story my friend had told me decades earlier, only from the perspective of being one of the perpetrators.
My friend had never wanted to be in boy scouts, but his parents forced him because it was an LDS thing, the troop was defined as the 12-13 year old's in his ward. Essentially, his parents forced him to go on an outing, because of their LDS beliefs, and it resulted in their son being raped, by four other 'good' LDS boys--of which 3 went on missions, and I know one has been a bishop and SP. And that is not the one who told me what had happened after my friend's funeral.
I'm not a fan of the boy scout program, and I don't think any religion should encourage, in the name of god, any young boys to participate in it.
By the way, this is the worst LDS nightmare for me, it wasn't even my own experience, but it haunts me much more than even the weird crap that goes on in the temples.