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Sunday School teacher/Symphony director molests kids in Utah County


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1 hour ago, Bernard Gui said:

Any bishops included in all those abuse stories?

Yes. (But I made clear that the stories coming out are not all about abuse from church leaders in my post).

Edited by ALarson
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How many bishops?

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Tip of the hat to our Catholic friend, MisererNobis. Anonymity, less risk? No one peeking in the window. 

Edited by Bernard Gui
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1 hour ago, bluebell said:

I do worry that the youth are not allowed to opt out of having their parents there.  I understand that the church cannot force a parent not to be present in an interview of their minor-aged children, but given that parents are much MUCH more likely to abuse children than a church leader, I feel like we might be making life worse for a lot more children than we might be helping.  I wish there was a better solution.

But, having said that, I recognize that this issue has no perfect answers and that everyone involved has the same goal--protect the children.

I agree with your thoughts.  Like I said, this has to be discussed between the parents and their child/youth if it's an issue for them  There needs to be open communication.  Some parents feel strongly about another adult being in the room.  But, I would hope that if their child felt strongly about wanting to have a private interview (with just their church leader), their parents would honor their wishes too.  The parent could make sure they were right outside the door and instruct their child regarding what are proper questions and which ones aren't  (or something along those lines....whatever their concerns are).  I think the key is for parents to talk to their kids about these interviews beforehand.

Edited by ALarson
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6 minutes ago, ALarson said:

I agree with your thoughts.  Like I said, this has to be discussed between the parents and their child/youth if it's an issue for them  There needs to be open communication.  Some parents feel strongly about another adult being in the room.  But, I would hope that if their child felt strongly about wanting to have a private interview (with just their church leader), their parents would honor their wishes too.  The parent could make sure they were right outside the door and instruct their child regarding what are proper questions and which ones aren't  (or something along those lines....whatever their concerns are).  I think the key is for parents to talk to their kids about these interviews beforehand.

Would you want the bishop to participate?

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28 minutes ago, Bernard Gui said:

How many bishops?

Impossible to say, but here's some:

http://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=5437671&itype=CMSID

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/01/24/mormon-bishop-sex-crime/4829127/

https://www.bordeglobal.com/foruminv/index.php?showtopic=11194

http://www.topix.com/forum/city/cumberland-gap-tn/TGFH2B0PPN7J890NL

If you do a search of this doc (Bishop), there's some here:

http://docplayer.net/54058112-The-church-of-jesus-christ-of-latter-day-saints.html

Many on the Mormon Alliance website (I own a couple of their volumes and there are cases of Bishop abuse):

http://mormon-alliance.org/SiteMap.htm


 

Quote

 

Selected LDS Church cases:

In 2001, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) paid a three million dollar settlement to Jeremiah Scott, after Scott filed a lawsuit in 1998 against the church for what his attorney described as an attempted cover-up of sexual abuse Scott suffered from church member Franklin Curtis.[1] The LDS Church denied legal liability in the case, and said it was settling the lawsuit based on "litigation economics" alone.[1]

In September 2008, LDS Church bishop Timothy McCleve pleaded guilty to sexually molesting children from his ward.[2] He was sentenced in December 2008 to one-to-15 year prison terms for the abuse.[3]

In March 2010, former LDS Church bishop Lon Kennard, Sr. was charged with 43 felony counts of sex abuse and sexual exploitation of children, and was imprisoned in Wasatch County, Utah. In November 2011, Kennard was sentenced to three terms of five-years-to-life in prison to be served consecutively, after pleading guilty to three first-degree felony counts of aggravated sex abuse of a child for sexually abusing his daughters.[4][5]

In December 2013, LDS Church bishop Todd Michael Edwards was sentenced to three years in prison for molesting two teenage girls who attended his congregation in Menifee, California. Edwards received two concurrent sentences of three years in prison for two felony counts of sexual battery and sexual penetration with a foreign object. A felony charge of witness intimidation was dismissed as part of a plea bargain with prosecutors after Edwards pleaded guilty.[6]

In January 2014, two men filed a lawsuit in the U.S. state of Hawaii against the LDS Church, alleging that they were sexually abused as children on a church-owned pineapple farm in Maui from 1986 through 1988.[7]

In January 2014, former LDS Church bishop Michael Wayne Coleman was arrested and charged with luring a minor for sexual exploitation after a forensic examination of his laptop and cellphone revealed sexually graphic conversations and an exchange of nude photographs with a teenaged student in Brazil.[8]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormon_abuse_cases

 

 

 

 

There are more as well....

Edited by ALarson
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7 minutes ago, Bernard Gui said:

Would you want the bishop to participate?

In the discussion between parents and their child or youth?  Probably not at first.  But if a parent (or youth) felt it would be a good idea for them all to meet, I can't see why not.  

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2 hours ago, ALarson said:

In the discussion between parents and their child or youth?  Probably not at first.  But if a parent (or youth) felt it would be a good idea for them all to meet, I can't see why not.  

I mean in the preliminary discussion explaining the interviews. Perhaps parents should contact the bishop first just to clear the air and get some mutual understanding. 

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3 hours ago, ALarson said:

Thank you for the info. Let’s all hope there are steps that can be taken to reduce or prevent this behavior in the future.

Edited by Bernard Gui
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9 hours ago, Bernard Gui said:

I mean in the preliminary discussion explaining the interviews. Perhaps parents should contact the bishop first just to clear the air and get some mutual understanding. 

Yes, I knew what you meant (sorry if I wasn't more clear about that).  Like I said, I have no problem with parents doing that.  I don't think it should be required, though.  From my experience, the parents have discussed it with their child/youth and then they've had a good discussion with my Bishop about it (the parent).  But including the youth in that discussion wouldn't be a problem for most Bishops, IMO.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 5/1/2018 at 9:25 AM, Somebodyz said:

Here in the UK all the church doors, including the Bishops office door, have glass  windows and have been that way for well over 20 years. It seems to have taken a long time for some areas to keep up with the change.

You realise that a window in a door doesn’t stop grooming, right? Sexual assaults don’t take place in the Bishops office. They take place in the victims home, or on a trip, or in a car etc. Those sexual assaults by predators take place after they’ve groomed their victims, made them more relaxed, more conditioned, more susceptible. The window in the door prevents nothing. In fact it makes it worse. Because there you are thinking the window has stopped things, you think it’s now safe when it isn’t.

Whoever put windows in doors thinking that prevents the problem hasn’t done their homework. 

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Duplicate post

Edited by Bernard Gui
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3 hours ago, Marginal Gains said:

You realise that genuine Bishops can unwittingly groom minors so that they are more at risk from predators in other scenarios don’t you?

So can non-LDS teachers, coaches, ministers, social workers, Scout Leaders, counsellors, camp advisors, neighbors, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles....anyone who interacts in a personal way with kids. What's your point?

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7 hours ago, Marginal Gains said:

You realise that genuine Bishops can unwittingly groom minors so that they are more at risk from predators in other scenarios don’t you?

 

4 hours ago, Bernard Gui said:

So can non-LDS teachers, coaches, ministers, social workers, Scout Leaders, counsellors, camp advisors, neighbors, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles....anyone who interacts in a personal way with kids. What's your point?

With how many of those people you’ve listed is it considered acceptable for them to hold one to one interviews with minors behind closed doors where they ask the minor questions of a personally intrusive nature?

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I

4 hours ago, Marginal Gains said:

 

With how many of those people you’ve listed is it considered acceptable for them to hold one to one interviews with minors behind closed doors where they ask the minor questions of a personally intrusive nature?

One would first have to agree that a bishop interview is dangerous and intrusive. It probably would not be those people’s roles to ask worthiness questions for participation in their activities, but they all could learn of personal information through their normal contact, for example counselors, teachers, and coaches may learn of behavior problems or abuse. I did as a teacher. Recentlly, Sister Gui learned of some very serious problems in a troubled student’s home simply by asking the student why he seemed so sad. Are you suggesting that the potential for child abuse by LDS bishops may be greater than that of other people who work closely with youth because of worthiness interviews? 

Edited by Bernard Gui
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7 hours ago, Bernard Gui said:

I

One would first have to agree that a bishop interview is dangerous and intrusive. It probably would not be those people’s roles to ask worthiness questions for participation in their activities, but they all could learn of personal information through their normal contact, for example counselors, teachers, and coaches may learn of behavior problems or abuse. I did as a teacher. Recentlly, Sister Gui learned of some very serious problems in a troubled student’s home simply by asking the student why he seemed so sad. Are you suggesting that the potential for child abuse by LDS bishops may be greater than that of other people who work closely with youth because of worthiness interviews? 

I’m suggestion worthiness interviews are a form of grooming. Even when conducted by genuinely good Bishops (the vast majority), the very act of conditioning youth to think its acceptable for an unrelated adult in a position of authority to ask them personally intrusive questions, is grooming. Which places them at higher risk in other situations where the adult might be a predator.

As a teacher, you should know that.

Edited by Marginal Gains
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2 hours ago, Marginal Gains said:

I’m suggestion worthiness interviews are a form of grooming. Even when conducted by genuinely good Bishops (the vast majority), the very act of conditioning youth to think its acceptable for an unrelated adult in a position of authority to ask them personally intrusive questions, is grooming. Which places them at higher risk in other situations where the adult might be a predator.

As a teacher, you should know that.

I understand what you are saying, but as a teacher and former bishop, I disagree. Context and expectations matter. For example, if I learn by some means from a child that she is being abused, as a teacher I am required by law to report that to school administrators. At that point plenty of unrelated adults in positions of authority whose job it is to get the details and apply the remedies will get involved, asking far more intrusive questions than a bishop might ask. There will be lots of undeserved trauma, but I doubt that action will set up the child for later abuse.

Predators come in many guises and operate in diverse ways. Prudent caring adults including bishops and teachers must be vigilantly aware. If changes need to be made at Church, let them be made. We have discussed many of those changes here. I support anything that serves the interest of the child. Proper bishop interviews can serve that purpose, too.

Edited by Bernard Gui
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  • 5 weeks later...
On 4/30/2018 at 8:57 PM, ALarson said:

I agree.  We have actually had a few more parents talk to us regarding wanting to be present for any of their youth's Bishopric interviews.  As I've posted before, so far, these interviews have been positive.

This is interesting to me. I haven't had a single parent ask or demand to be present for youth interviews. 65 youth. And, we read the letter over the pulpit and pinned it on the bulletin board. 

I think the "wave" of things like this (parents demanding to be present for interviews) varies regionally or within certain pockets. Maybe where there is more online discussion board participation . . . ;) 

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On 5/3/2018 at 2:20 PM, bluebell said:

The window and furniture will be situated so that the bishop will be visible but no one else.

Baloney. By craning your neck and altering your angle of view around the window, you can see everywhere in the room --- at least a glimpse. Try it with the primary windows. 

Windows in the bishop's office are a terrible idea. 

I am unaware of a single sex act or example of molestation occurring in a bishop's office or even in a classroom. The charge is usually that the victim grooming takes place there in that setting, and the molestation later at a different venue. If that's the case, then seeing the conversation does nothing, anyway. 

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1 hour ago, rongo said:

This is interesting to me. I haven't had a single parent ask or demand to be present for youth interviews. 65 youth. And, we read the letter over the pulpit and pinned it on the bulletin board. 

I think the "wave" of things like this (parents demanding to be present for interviews) varies regionally or within certain pockets. Maybe where there is more online discussion board participation . . . ;) 

I don't know.  I know it didn't come from me (I've never suggested it to any of the parents who have approached the Bishop about this or discussed it with anyone other than hearing feedback from the Bishop on this)....but maybe others did.  I do know why the first request was made ( the circumstances) and I know that the youth talked to other youth about how great it was having one of their parents go in with them (they hated meeting alone with the Bishop from what I heard).  Maybe it went from there...who knows?  But even since I posted the above we've had a few more requests from parents.

Edited by ALarson
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1 hour ago, rongo said:

Baloney. By craning your neck and altering your angle of view around the window, you can see everywhere in the room --- at least a glimpse. Try it with the primary windows. 

You have no idea what the bishop's office even looks like (it's in an old building that was built by members in the 1960s) so you need to explain how you know you can see everywhere in the room before any of us can take this post seriously.  

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47 minutes ago, bluebell said:

You have no idea what the bishop's office even looks like (it's in an old building that was built by members in the 1960s) so you need to explain how you know you can see everywhere in the room before any of us can take this post seriously.  

Well, if it's like any other room (classroom, or bishop's office) in our church buildings, then yes, I do know what it looks like. Barring some exotic configuration like an L-shaped room or something. 

How old is your building? Church buildings are stereotyped and mass-produced, cookie-cutter style. Unless you are in some old pioneer tabernacle or something, we all know exactly what the room and room layout looks like. And where they put those windows in.

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7 hours ago, rongo said:

Baloney. By craning your neck and altering your angle of view around the window, you can see everywhere in the room --- at least a glimpse. Try it with the primary windows. 

Windows in the bishop's office are a terrible idea. 

I am unaware of a single sex act or example of molestation occurring in a bishop's office or even in a classroom. The charge is usually that the victim grooming takes place there in that setting, and the molestation later at a different venue. If that's the case, then seeing the conversation does nothing, anyway. 

In our building the window to the bishop's office was not on the outside door, but in the door between that office and the clerk's office.  It was actually installed many years ago by our then bishop, who got permission from facilities management, and paid for the installation of the window himself. He is a millionaire building contractor, so he paid for the window and got one of his skilled employees to do the installation.  In this position, the meeting can be observed by an occupant of the clerk's office, but not someone in the hallway.  Typically, that bishop would have his executive secretary in the clerk's office -- this was the person who made the appointment for the bishop in the first place, confidentially was not violated, as all the ExecSec knew was that someone was talking with the bishop. And that was usually all he knew.  This particular bishop was looking to prevent problems in this litigious world.

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