I posted this first to one of Dave's threads but decided it should probably have its own thread. Hence. . .

Dehlin recently did an interview with an attorney describing how the LDS church uses the hotline to discourage the reporting of abuse cases. In that interview Dehlin put out an invitation for people with experience with church coverups to contact him and his team.

Today Dehlin released another Mormon Stories episode describing those stories. Early in the video he says his team was inundated with personal experiences and he could only share a small number of them. Then his producer, Jenn, said that she had now read over three hundred of those accounts and that she and Dehlin intended to reply directly to every one of them. By this point she was in tears and having difficulty speaking. She said this was the "heaviest" podcast she's ever done.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtrRRdMgXW4

I agree. This podcast is profoundly disturbing and puts a human face on the church's Risk Management Department and its hotline.

In addition, at the 11:30 mark Jenn says that of the 300+ stories she's read over the last two weeks, less than five were cases in which the church representatives encouraged reporting to the secular authorities. That comes in at about 1&, meaning that the church discourages reports to the secular authorities at a rate approaching 99%

Additionally interesting, the three states with the highest per capita rates of child sex abuse are, in order,

1) Idaho,
2) California,
3) Utah.

Compare that list with the three states with the highest concentration of Mormons to total population. They are

1) Utah,
2) Idaho,
3) California.

At this point that's correlation and not causation, but the convergence of the two data sets is, to put it mildly, suggestive of a causal relationship.

Child abuse reporting rates almost certainly do not reflect the actual abuse that is happening. Especially in a place like Utah where 'clergy' hasn't been reporting abusers.

Plus, most abusers are skilled manipulators. They have manipulated victims and possible witnesses into not reporting, sometimes for years. Easy for a skilled manipulator to convince a realtor or dentist who happens to be their bishop that they have truly repented and no other action is needed.

I think that many people, especially religious people, like to feel that child abusers can reform. But researchers know that child abusers can never reform, can never change. They can never again have close, unsupervised contact with minors.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/20/2022 12:16PM by summer.

Why is there so much abuse in the "only true church?" I can't figure it out. Does it stem from polygamy? Joseph and Emma were the first to have their second anointing, which happened around the time polygamy happened. I wonder if the two were related. I think polygamy was a big turn off for many members, especially Emma, so Josep invented the second anointing to appease any feelings of guilt or wrong doing they may have felt. Maybe early on they learned to look the other way and even excuse other forms of abuse because the second anointing absolved abusers of all wrong doing. That and the priesthood gave them special powers and made them above the law. It seems that from the early days of the Mormon church there was a culture of abuse that was tolerated and even excused.

As time passes I'm seeing how truly evil the Mormon church is, even if there are a lot of members who are good people. The church itself is pure evil.

First, I don't think Mormons are on average particularly good people. They "serve" almost exclusively their own community, spending time and money on the church even as they avail themselves of others' efforts to run civic organizations, coach children's sports, etc. To one degree or another, they are parasites on non-Mormon society.

Moreover Mormons subordinate their moral views to whatever the Q15 says. I knew members who were in favor of gay marriage until the church came out against it in 2008, at which point those members suddenly opposed equal rights. People who abandon their own consciences and principles are not "good." Nor are those who disagree but keep their mouths shut until the church finally declares the morally right policy and then announce to the world that they were always in favor of that policy. Their "principles" are cheap, costing nothing, because when push comes to shove they'll do as they are told.

Mormons are moral lemmings, some running fast and some running slow but all moving towards the edge of the cliff. I have seen branches and wards turn against innocent people as readily as the residents of Salem did during the witch trials.

Having said that, why is there so much abuse in the church? I'd say there are a couple of reasons. The first is a suspicion, to which you alluded, that Mormon families are more than normally dysfunctional in part because of the legacy of polygamy but also because of the demonization of natural sex and the authority structure that the LDS church shares with the Catholic Church. In both of those organizations there has been so much concealment of scandals for so many generations that the books must never be opened. Hence the Lord's need for the Holy Law Firm, Kirton McConkie.

What happens when you protect a child molester in your family or your community, when you relocate him or promote him? He abuses more children. And when those children reach maturity, some significant proportion of them become molesters who have leverage over the church because they too were its victims and can spill the beans. Inevitably, over time the frequency of molestation and the number of scandals in which church leaders are complicit both increase to levels substantially greater than in the general population.

And what keeps those scandals quiet? Yes, the church. Yes, Kirton McConkie. But it's also those fine Mormon people who obey the bishops and stake presidents and hot line lawyers telling them not to go to the police. It's those members who don't have the backbone to insist on doing the right thing and letting the consequences follow as they were told to do in Primary; its the members who, if the church truly did come clean, would jump up and down and say they always wanted the church to open the books.

Can we really say that Mormons are morally superior to the people of Salem?

Good point that the numbers of the scandals hit a point (long ago) where they must continue to hide them away because if one log is overturned maybe the whole house will come down.

Mixed metaphors, or whatever, but you know what I mean. Once you bury a secret rather than coming clean you have to duck and dive forever to keep it covered over because if one secret is dug up people will keep digging and find more.

And as so many people have discovered throughout history, it's the cover-up that gets you in the end.

I think that the man being the "head of the household" and the Big Wooo priesthood holder plays in as well. The man owns the wife and all the children. So if he abuses them, it's just his own property. Of course, that doesn't apply when the abuser is outside the family.

Then there is the mind set that they are so persecuted and must band together to protect the tribe. Don't talk/tell outsiders. And many children don't have access to outsiders if their school system is full of them. I do think that is changing though. When I was a kid in Utah all the teachers were mormon. And of course, people feel safe with their kids around other mormons so they don't guard as well.

Bottom line is that LDSInc doesn't care. It only cares about protecting its self and most importantly, its MONEY.

What about the states with the highest rate of teen suicide ?

I was waiting for you to post that argument, David.

Flimsy excuse ! *LOL*

Why must I do all the heavy lifting around here, Dave?

Why??