Has the time come? IMO YES! To stop YW, YM, Single Women, from meeting alone with Priesthood Leaders. For everyone's sake!

[Gray]

26 minutes ago, Amulek said:

I have never, in my entire life, lived in a Stake were a Bishop has been involved with abusing one (or more) of the youth.

 

Your points are well taken, but how would you know? Would reports even be believed?

[Danzo]

1 hour ago, Physics Guy said:

In that Washington Post article, I didn't notice a percentage figure for molesters among school teachers. There was a figure of about 2500 discipline actions over 5 years. The article includes an estimate of 50 million American children in school each year, which would seem to require at least a million teachers. Even if we assume that there would be 2500 teachers fired for abuse every five years and that the same million teachers would be teaching for fifty years, that gives a fifty-year rate of 2.5%, well below the figure for Catholic priests given in the same article. More realistic assumptions would probably make the teachers' figure substantially lower still.

A given case of abuse is more likely to involve a teacher than a priest, because there are a lot more teachers than priests. The Catholic church has a significantly more serious problem with abusive priests than school boards have with abusive teachers, however. And anyway the Roman Catholic clergy and Mormon bishops are different cases in some very important and relevant ways. Data about Catholic priests don't say much about Mormon bishops.

I Know that people already have their minds made up, but here is a article that discusses teacher abuse statistics.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2012/02/is_sexual_abuse_in_schools_very_common_.html

This article seems to think 10% is common but mentions surveys where the number is as high as 50% and as low as 3.7%

"Around one in 10 students said they had been the victim of one or more such things from a teacher or other school employee, and two-thirds of those reported the incident involved physical contact."

[Amulek]

5 hours ago, Gray said:

Some things, like education, are so necessary that we have to take a few risks. No one can survive in the modern world without an education.

And some things, like being able to enter the temple worthily in order to participate in saving ordinances (either for yourself or others), are also important - though I understand others feel differently. Again, that comes back to a value judgement though. 

Incidentally, I don't hear cries to end sports programs or music programs whenever a student is involved with one of the faculty members in either of those programs. Yet, it seems as though you can survive just fine in the modern world without being able to play a sport or an instrument. Do you favor removing extra-curricular activities from schools? After all, if even one child could be saved from statutory rape by ending music programs in schools, wouldn't that be worth it?

 

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Are you saying our tradition of priesthood interviews exactly as currently practiced is SO FUNDAMENTAL that it's worth ruining some lives each year to not make any changes? 

As I said previously, I'm open to considering certain changes. For the most part, I think that additional training and adherence to the existing guidelines set forth by the church ought to be sufficient. Many of the changes that have been suggested would, I think, alter the integrity of the interview process in critical ways. 

I was trying to think of a good analogy and the closest I could come up with is that I tend to view worthiness interviews as being kind of like Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. The closer you get to observing the totality of the interview, or the more precise your observation of the interview becomes, the more the interview becomes something other than an actual worthiness interview. 

 

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Apparently the church doesn't even think that they're that necessary, given that there's a whole class of kids (kids with gay parents) who are excluded from them.

If the class of children you are referring to are children who aren't actually members of the church, then I'm not really sure what the problem is. Do you think the church ought to be providing worthiness interviews for people who aren't members? Or are you just bringing this up because it happens to be something else you dislike about the church? If so, save it for another thread. 

 

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When theology trumps to real-world well being of children, theology has gone astray.

 

I think the church cares very deeply about the "real-world well being of children."

And part of that care is manifested by their interest in wanting children to learn how to worthily make and keep sacred covenants. 

 

Edited March 26, 2018 by Amulek

[Amulek]

45 minutes ago, Gray said:

1 hour ago, Amulek said:

I have never, in my entire life, lived in a Stake were a Bishop has been involved with abusing one (or more) of the youth.

Your points are well taken, but how would you know? Would reports even be believed?

How about this then: I have never, in my entire life, lived in a Steak where a Bishop has so much as even been accused of abusing a kid.

And I have served in enough leadership positions in the church over the years that I would have known - especially if you're talking about the ward I grew up in.

As for believing reports, why wouldn't reports be believed? Unless, by 'believed' you mean unquestioningly accepted as being true and that no further investigation / inquiry is required. 

[Jeanne]

5 hours ago, Gray said:

How frequently are you alone, behind closed, windowless doors with a single student as a teacher?

And if it is even only once..who's fault is that? 

[Physics Guy]

The fraction of students who have experienced harassment or abuse is not the same as the fraction of teachers who commit it. It's not clear that the two rates have to even be close. In principle it could be that 100% of teachers are abusers but they all prey on the same vulnerable 10% of pupils. Or it could be that less than 1% of teachers are abusers but each of them is a serial perpetrator who victimizes hundreds of students in the course of their careers. The truth is surely somewhere in between but just where is hard to say.

Also, the Washington Post article that compared teachers and Catholic clergy was citing figures for teachers and priests who had been severely disciplined, whereas the study cited by the Slate article counted anonymous student reports. It's a pretty good bet that a lot of cases reported anonymously by students on a survey never led to disciplinary action for teachers, but again it's hard to guess exactly what the proportion is, so it's hard to connect the two studies. And (so far here, at least) we don't have a comparable study about how many young Catholics have reported abuse by priests.

And still none of this is related to Mormon bishops.

 

[Physics Guy]

36 minutes ago, Jeanne said:

And if it is even only once..who's fault is that? 

I don't think Gray was blaming the child victim for getting alone with a teacher. I think his point was that all Mormon children are required to meet alone with Mormon bishops regularly. They don't usually have to do that with their teachers.

[Jeanne]

6 minutes ago, Physics Guy said:

I don't think Gray was blaming the child victim for getting alone with a teacher. I think his point was that all Mormon children are required to meet alone with Mormon bishops regularly. They don't usually have to do that with their teachers.

I am sorry..perhaps I was misunderstood...if a student of any age is alone in a room with a teacher..it is the teacher's fault..nothing may  happen of course..but the chips will fall where they may..sad but true.

[Calm]

5 hours ago, Tacenda said:

I feel lazy for asking, but does anyone have a reference for the 1st woman showing her breasts willingly. I only read where Bishop tore her shirt off. I don't believe he asked to see her breasts and she willingly showed them to him. I didn't hear that anywhere in the interview. But maybe she admitted it to the authorities? I keep thinking it may be the second woman, since she even asked him for a back rub. Or he just said she asked for it, doubt it. And could this 2nd woman be the one with the breast implants, and he asked to see them? But then again, he may have got the 1st woman and the 2nd confused from the sound of it during the interview.

Check out the police report I linked to in the main thread on this.  It has both interviews.

Greg Bishop, the lawyer son, is quoted in a number of news sites as claiming the woman showed her breasts willingly and without being asked.  

The woman involved in the back rub threatened suicide and was taken into their home afterwards.  According to the son, she asked for a back rub many times and Joseph Bishop said yes only once and felt extremely guilty afterwards.

I want to know why/if he didn't counsel her that asking for back rubs from him was totally inappropriate and stop it before it got to the point where he said yes...and if she refused to stop, have another sister stay therefore as a companion so if his wife wasn't available, they were never alone.

No one likely had breast implants, he was likely speculating on how she had gone from being flat as a missionary to as developed as she was at the time of the interview as she had brought up that she was small breasted in her youth (he was talking about how being small affected him as a kid and she tells him she was small as well, didn't even have breasts as a missionary, pg 29), on page 37 he states 

Quote

 

Bishop:  You had had an operation, a breast enhancement.

Red:  No. (laughs) N o. I had no boobs at 21 years old.

Bishop:  Well you'd talked about it because you had no boobs at 21 I'd thought you had a new ... 

 

If you have additional questions, you should ask them in that one to avoid more derailing of this.

Edited March 26, 2018 by Calm

[Tacenda]

16 minutes ago, Calm said:

Check out the police report I linked to in the main thread on this.  It has both interviews.

Greg Bishop, the lawyer son, is quoted in a number of news sites as claiming the woman showed her breasts willingly and without being asked.  

The woman involved in the back rub threatened suicide and was taken into their home afterwards.  According to the son, she asked for a back rub many times and Joseph Bishop said yes only once and felt extremely guilty afterwards.

I want to know why/if he didn't counsel her that asking for back rubs from him was totally inappropriate and stop it before it got to the point where he said yes...and if she refused to stop, have another sister stay therefore as a companion so if his wife wasn't available, they were never alone.

No one likely had breast implants, he was likely speculating on how she had gone from being flat as a missionary to as developed as she was at the time of the interview as she had brought up that she was small breasted in her youth (he was talking about how being small affected him as a kid and she tells him she was small as well, didn't even have breasts as a missionary, pg 29), on page 37 he states 

If you have additional questions, you should ask them in that one to avoid more derailing of this.

I got the thread mixed up, thanks Calm! 

[Calm]

1 minute ago, Tacenda said:

I got the thread mixed up, thanks Calm! 

No problem, hard to keep track when the topics mesh.

[Kenngo1969]

Quote

[Previously Posted by 6EQUJ5] ... In this case, I don't have a testimony of the Church's law firm.  Kirton and McConkie have covered up abuse by Bishops and others too many times.  IMO, high Church leadership is mostly unaware of their activity so I don't blame Church leadership.  But its time for that law firm to go and it is time to stop priesthood leaders from being alone with youth.  

Still waiting for you to answer my previous CFR, 6EQUJ5:

Quote

CFR for both of your assertions: (1) That Kirton McConkie has "covered up abuse by Bishops too many times"; and (2) that "high ... leadership [in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints] is mostly unaware" of these attempted cover-ups.

 

[Gray]

20 hours ago, Amulek said:

How about this then: I have never, in my entire life, lived in a Steak where a Bishop has so much as even been accused of abusing a kid.

And I have served in enough leadership positions in the church over the years that I would have known - especially if you're talking about the ward I grew up in.

As for believing reports, why wouldn't reports be believed? Unless, by 'believed' you mean unquestioningly accepted as being true and that no further investigation / inquiry is required. 

The two women who were abused by the MTC president had their reports rejected out of hand. The Cinepro's "90s" thread, dozens of womens reported their abusers, none were believed.

And of course most abuse is not reported at all.

[Gray]

21 hours ago, Amulek said:

And some things, like being able to enter the temple worthily in order to participate in saving ordinances (either for yourself or others), are also important - though I understand others feel differently. Again, that comes back to a value judgement though. 

Incidentally, I don't hear cries to end sports programs or music programs whenever a student is involved with one of the faculty members in either of those programs. Yet, it seems as though you can survive just fine in the modern world without being able to play a sport or an instrument. Do you favor removing extra-curricular activities from schools? After all, if even one child could be saved from statutory rape by ending music programs in schools, wouldn't that be worth it?

As I said previously, I'm open to considering certain changes. For the most part, I think that additional training and adherence to the existing guidelines set forth by the church ought to be sufficient. Many of the changes that have been suggested would, I think, alter the integrity of the interview process in critical ways. 

I was trying to think of a good analogy and the closest I could come up with is that I tend to view worthiness interviews as being kind of like Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. The closer you get to observing the totality of the interview, or the more precise your observation of the interview becomes, the more the interview becomes something other than an actual worthiness interview. 

If the class of children you are referring to are children who aren't actually members of the church, then I'm not really sure what the problem is. Do you think the church ought to be providing worthiness interviews for people who aren't members? Or are you just bringing this up because it happens to be something else you dislike about the church? If so, save it for another thread. 

I think the church cares very deeply about the "real-world well being of children."

And part of that care is manifested by their interest in wanting children to learn how to worthily make and keep sacred covenants. 

 

I'm in favor of common-sense changes that reduce risk of abuse.

However in the case of temple recommend interviews, certain semi-routine practices, like asking kids if they masturbate, are abusive in and of themselves (even if no physicial abuse follows), and should stop altogether.

Theology is flexible. And no, temple worthiness doesn't trump the safety of children. .

[Tacenda]

1 minute ago, Gray said:

I'm in favor of common-sense changes that reduce risk of abuse.

However in the case of temple recommend interviews, certain semi-routine practices, like asking kids if they masturbate, are abusive in and of themselves (even if no physicial abuse follows), and should stop altogether.

Theology is flexible. And no, temple worthiness doesn't trump the safety of children. .

I agree, sexual questions are out of place. Especially to children that have no idea what they mean and a leader proceeds to describe it. This is wrong. And if that child/youth happens to have explored their bodies innocently they will leave that room thinking they are terrible, which is not true but a natural part of learning of their bodies. 

[Gray]

Just now, Tacenda said:

I agree, sexual questions are out of place. Especially to children that have no idea what they mean and a leader proceeds to describe it. This is wrong. And if that child/youth happens to have explored their bodies innocently they will leave that room thinking they are terrible, which is not true but a natural part of learning of their bodies. 

I consider these kinds of a questions a form of sexual harassment. Even in Catholicism, with its strong history of the confessional, confession is voluntary, and the topic is determined by the confessor. There is no interrogation.