Just to clarify, even a pair of male missionaries cannot meet with a single female in most circumstances unless a fourth person is present. Yet, a single male missionary (i.e., a district leader) can meet with any single individual for a pre-baptismal interview. And a single male bishop always meets with single members (female or male, youth or adult) for periodic worthiness interviews.
ificouldhietokolob Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Why, it's because the bishop has super-powerful > priesthood and the discernment of the holiest of > ghosties, of course! > > Which sometimes is a license to be an ass...
One reason is that mormons love to unload all their emotional baggage in the bishops office. I never have and have always kept things short, but seriously I've sat there waiting for my turn for what seems like 40 minutes and am like "what is going on in there?"
And it turns out to be some lady wiping her tear and the bishop being all priestly.
The trouble is that if they have more witnesses in the room, the question of confidentiality becomes greater. It would be great if interviews were conducted by bishops and relief society president or someone, But would the ward trust the lady interviewer with keeping secrets?
This is a big problem and few can reliably be trusted.
Bishops CAN'T and DON't keep everything confidential. Hot potato issues are just TOO juicy and they are as big of a gossip at times as anyone. It happened to me in a devastating instance of breach of confidence and I know it has happened at other times since I have been the receiver of the gossip.
Before I was a member, I felt the need to confess something to the bishop. I was convinced it was the right thing to do to be extra worthy of baptism. In hindsight, it probably made for juicy gossip. I like to think that bishop had integrity, but I'll never know for sure and it stopped mattering to me years ago.
So we’ll keep women out of interviews because of the stereotype that says they blab. But the fact that men are much more likely to be sexual predators isn’t considered?
at the time that my ex left me. They assigned a couple to me for HT. UNTIL I requested no HTs. Wait a minute, I just realized that I had male HTs for a short time after that and the main HT was the old stake president and a younger male (teenager). I only allowed him to come visit me once. He'd stop me when he'd see me walking and ask if he could come to visit and I told him no every time. I knew him as I had worked for his boss at Thiokol. He had also been the bishop when I first moved here.
The SP HT was actually assigned when the next bishop was put in and then I had to tell the new bishop no HTs.
What I couldn't understand was the attitude of it being a problem if 2 people of the opposite sex were together they couldn't keep their hands off each other. I had some interesting experiences because of this when I was working at Thiokol and rode with all men carpools. Some of the wives just couldn't handle that. OH, but the mormon women always sent me as a young girl home from babysitting with their husband driving me home.