The man in the woman's restroom - the last straw.

Outrageous experiences in my "story" ---- this one is #1!

The LAST STRAW!
This is my last absurd experience with the Mormon Church. I had convinced my inactive daughter that going to church would never hurt you and we ought to go once in awhile. This particular Sunday, we decided to use the woman's restroom. When we came out of stalls and were washing our hands and had pulled up our dresses to adjust our underwear, she saw a man in the double mirrors! She alerted me while quickly putting her dress down.

As I had dried my hands and no longer had my dress up, I approached him and told him it was inappropriate for him to be in the ladies room.

He went ballistic, got right in my face backing me up against a wall as he said he had PERMISSION as he always came in to help his wife.

He maintained that his wife would only let him help her in the restroom. His wife was in a wheelchair and they were in the nursing room area that is adjacent to the wheelchair access toilet where she was eating a cracker and they had the sound up on the piped in Sunday School Lesson.

When I told him he would have to leave, he grabbed his wife's wheel chair and proceeded to shove me through the double doors nearly knocking me over yanking her around tipping her back and forth in his attempt to shove me out of the way so he could get out. She remained absolutely silent through out all of this.

He left my daughter and I stunned and shaking. Fortunately, I was able to keep him from knocking me over and got the doors open so he could exit. He said he was leaving, however, we found out a little while later that he had only exited the building to go outside and come back in the other door by the Bishop's office where he was telling them I had attacked him!

My daughter and I were very upset, adrenaline was pumping as I had been shoved through two doors by this out of control man when the counselor motioned for us to come inside the office and speak with him and them. Needless to say, we did not enter.

When we came running and yelling out of the bathroom, a "sister" told us that this was the Lord's house and we needed to be Reverent! I could not believe my ears. In her behalf, she had no idea what had happened.

It is important to note here that this man proclaimed himself as his wife's sole provider and been taking care of her for over 20 years. I knew others had helped her in the past in the restroom. He could easily have asked one of the ladies.

She was covered from neck, to ankle, to wrist in clothing on a very warm spring day. I have worked with the elderly and assisted living and this kind of attire is suspect and warrants further investigation, especially when he maintained that she would not allow anyone else to assist her.

One of the counselors kept saying: "CALM DOWN OR LEAVE, CALM DOWN OR LEAVE.

Well, we left! Never to return.

The women and men of the church said that it was just fine for that man to be in the woman's restroom. He was there to help his wife. And besides, he would never LOOK.

This man had access to the women's restroom anytime he pleased, he was NOT helping his wife, she was having a snack in the nursing mothers area taking up all the room so others could not use the room.

He could hear all conversations and watch women and children exiting what they thought was a private woman's toilet area as he was behind the side wall where he could not be seen, lurking!

And this is not inappropriate? That complete lack of reason and logic and common sense is just unbelievable. We subsequently found out there are no laws on the books in our county to enforce about use of bathrooms on private property. The LDS Church in that area probably knew that.

It wasn't until we threatened to call the radio and TV stations and social services, and my true believing Mormon husband wrote letters which the brethren maintained I forced him to do that we got a kind of sideways apology from the Bishop, who was absent that day.

EDIT: no visible signs of the assault, called the police but could not press charges. The police went to the man's house to speak with him.
We also called Social Services for the Elderly to have her case investigated
[Updated: July 2008 The woman in this story is recently deceased.]

This event finally got my attention and I stopped giving the church one more chance. Next the process of rewriting all the scripts put in my head from all that programming (Another post on How I Got Myself UnMormonized~!) began along with a long study of the history of the church adding about 25 books to my personal library.

This incident also has an apology. One of very few!
I happened to go to a yard sale nine months after this incident at the bishopric's home that told me to :Calm down or go home. He actually recognized that they didn't handle it well!

UPDATE:
A Mormon from the Ward happened to call our home recently (2009)and in chatting, I was surprised when he brought up this incident from 1998 and how he felt about it. Apparently, he stood up for me. He said he was later "demoted" also. It was so nice to hear from someone who was there and knew all about it and was as disgusted as I was.

(This happened in 1998. I left resigned my membership in 2002- much of that process shared on RFM.)

I love it every time I read it. I hope NO ONE misses it because it's great!

What goes on with men who like to peek at women when they use the restroom?

I was at one of our favorite restaurants a few weeks ago, and the scuttle-but was that a male who worked their had installed a camera in the room, so that he could see women sitting on the pot! (Yes, he got fired.)

Also, I was at a different restaurant where a husband was trying to help his handicapped wife use the facility. I offered to help her, so she and he wouldn't need to suffer the embarrassment and problems associated with this chore.