Calm Posted January 4, 2023 Posted January 4, 2023 Impressed you showed up here and impressed by your post, Jane. I find your goals as stated here admirable and hope you can fulfill them (I am big on accuracy in telling stories myself). 1
puzzlehobbit Posted January 4, 2023 Posted January 4, 2023 7 minutes ago, Calm said: Impressed you showed up here and impressed by your post, Jane. I find your goals as stated here admirable and hope you can fulfill them (I am big on accuracy in telling stories myself). Thank you Calm. Much appreciated! Long time lurker here. This is a site full of fruitful discussions.
Calm Posted January 4, 2023 Posted January 4, 2023 From your discussion on another board: Quote Yeah. I figure he [Joseph Smith] needs to be in there because after all, he was accused of sex-related crimes. I think there's a number of early LDS apostles I'll end up adding for that reason Are you going to only take contemporary accusations for historical individuals or are you going to include any accusations made at any time, including in the here and now?
Calm Posted January 4, 2023 Posted January 4, 2023 (edited) Quote Every person in our database has been publicly accused of sexual abuse or another sex crime - we're simply tracking the information and news related to these cases. When you say “publicly accused”, what is the standard? Will you put up an accusation that is just posted somewhere on the internet, for example? How do you prevent malicious claims damaging innocent peoples’ lives? I can see your site being used to discredit actual victims of crimes by making claims they were abusers (seen that done to a relative of mine who was abused by her husband and it’s happening to a friend right now in a nasty divorce and hear that is not uncommon, I am therefore a bit paranoid about it). Edited January 4, 2023 by Calm 2
puzzlehobbit Posted January 4, 2023 Posted January 4, 2023 14 hours ago, Calm said: From your discussion on another board: Are you going to only take contemporary accusations for historical individuals or are you going to include any accusations made at any time, including in the here and now? At any time, as long as they meet our posting policy and criteria. See my next answer for more on this. 14 hours ago, Calm said: When you say “publicly accused”, what is the standard? Will you put up an accusation that is just posted somewhere on the internet, for example? How do you prevent malicious claims damaging innocent peoples’ lives? I can see your site being used to discredit actual victims of crimes by making claims they were abusers (seen that done to a relative of mine who was abused by her husband and it’s happening to a friend right now in a nasty divorce and hear that is not uncommon, I am therefore a bit paranoid about it). I hear what you're saying. This is a highly charged topic and it's extremely important to me to treat it with proper care. If an accusation/allegation appears in a public court document, a police probable cause affidavit or other similar statement from law enforcement, a sheriff's office press release, or a reputable mainstream news publication, we generally will include it in our database, even if the accused is deceased. We consider each instance carefully because there's sometimes gray area. What makes a news publication reputable, for example? So we try to take into account what would make the accusation credible and relevant to the public interest. So if someone goes on let's say, this forum, or the reddit exmormon sub, or makes an anonymous tiktok video, and they simply say so-and-so abused me - we will typically only include the accused in our database if the accusation generates public discussion in multiple locations beyond the original source. When there's a lot of public conversation occurring about an accusation, we tend to include the accused in our database because we're trying to provide an accurate picture of instances of public accusations, so we can help people see how the LDS church responds to those allegations, and what results from them. A few examples of our decision making: Hugh Nibley is in our database because his daughter Martha Beck's accusations against him gained national news media attention. Spencer Palmer is in our database because he was a well-known Mormon leader and his grandson made accusations against him in a Mormon Stories podcast episode. We believe it generated enough discussion to merit inclusion, even though he died about 20 years before the accusations were publicly made. Ted Bundy's not in our database because even though he's a world-famous serial killer and many people know that he was a Mormon church member for a time, we haven't seen evidence to suggest that he was ever active in the LDS church, performed in any church leadership capacity, or self-identified as Mormon. Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Barzee are in our database because they were, at least for a time, active Mormon church members, because their abuse of Elizabeth Smart gained national attention, and because Mormonism heavily influenced them. Albert Carrington, we're still trying to figure out whether to include him. Mormon apostle, check. Allegations of sexual misconduct, check. Excommunicated because of it, check. Allegations of actual sexual abuse or other sex crimes ... it's very gray area. Is cheating on your wife a crime? Is it sexual abuse when you're sleeping with very young adults, you're decades older than them and there's a marked power imbalance because of your standing in the Church? Or is it simply consensual lasciviousness, perfectly legal and not worthy of discussion in this database? So far, he's not in the database. Philander Smartt, former LDS mission president, is in our database because even though he wasn't charged with a crime or arrested, his release was noted in multiple mainstream media publications and the LDS church issued a statement about his excommunication calling it "a tragic and heartbreaking case of deception and betrayal that has impacted many lives." Was it sexual abuse? Was it actual criminal activity? We think those questions ought to be discussed, for the sake of those abused. Numerous accusations made on personal blogs, Facebook pages/groups, tweets, YouTube/Tiktok videos and other social media platforms are not included in our database because we don't see any response to them outside of the original location they were posted. In some cases, we've seen very persistent bloggers make detailed accusations about named individuals, and we've dug into the details but not found any related public police/court/news records. Numerous people we've come across that are discussed in police/court documents are not included because we can't determine if they were ever Mormon. My Mormon uncle who did prison time for sexually abusing underage girls is not in the database because I haven't found the related court documents yet. Once I do, I'll add him. I hope this helps. It's a complex, messy topic, and shining a light on it takes a lot of work to make sure misleading shadows are not cast.
provoman Posted January 4, 2023 Posted January 4, 2023 (edited) 1 hour ago, puzzlehobbit said: At any time, as long as they meet our posting policy and criteria. See my next answer for more on this. I hear what you're saying. This is a highly charged topic and it's extremely important to me to treat it with proper care. If an accusation/allegation appears in a public court document, a police probable cause affidavit or other similar statement from law enforcement, a sheriff's office press release, or a reputable mainstream news publication, we generally will include it in our database, even if the accused is deceased. We consider each instance carefully because there's sometimes gray area. What makes a news publication reputable, for example? So we try to take into account what would make the accusation credible and relevant to the public interest. So if someone goes on let's say, this forum, or the reddit exmormon sub, or makes an anonymous tiktok video, and they simply say so-and-so abused me - we will typically only include the accused in our database if the accusation generates public discussion in multiple locations beyond the original source. When there's a lot of public conversation occurring about an accusation, we tend to include the accused in our database because we're trying to provide an accurate picture of instances of public accusations, so we can help people see how the LDS church responds to those allegations, and what results from them. A few examples of our decision making: Hugh Nibley is in our database because his daughter Martha Beck's accusations against him gained national news media attention. Spencer Palmer is in our database because he was a well-known Mormon leader and his grandson made accusations against him in a Mormon Stories podcast episode. We believe it generated enough discussion to merit inclusion, even though he died about 20 years before the accusations were publicly made. Ted Bundy's not in our database because even though he's a world-famous serial killer and many people know that he was a Mormon church member for a time, we haven't seen evidence to suggest that he was ever active in the LDS church, performed in any church leadership capacity, or self-identified as Mormon. Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Barzee are in our database because they were, at least for a time, active Mormon church members, because their abuse of Elizabeth Smart gained national attention, and because Mormonism heavily influenced them. Albert Carrington, we're still trying to figure out whether to include him. Mormon apostle, check. Allegations of sexual misconduct, check. Excommunicated because of it, check. Allegations of actual sexual abuse or other sex crimes ... it's very gray area. Is cheating on your wife a crime? Is it sexual abuse when you're sleeping with very young adults, you're decades older than them and there's a marked power imbalance because of your standing in the Church? Or is it simply consensual lasciviousness, perfectly legal and not worthy of discussion in this database? So far, he's not in the database. Philander Smartt, former LDS mission president, is in our database because even though he wasn't charged with a crime or arrested, his release was noted in multiple mainstream media publications and the LDS church issued a statement about his excommunication calling it "a tragic and heartbreaking case of deception and betrayal that has impacted many lives." Was it sexual abuse? Was it actual criminal activity? We think those questions ought to be discussed, for the sake of those abused. Numerous accusations made on personal blogs, Facebook pages/groups, tweets, YouTube/Tiktok videos and other social media platforms are not included in our database because we don't see any response to them outside of the original location they were posted. In some cases, we've seen very persistent bloggers make detailed accusations about named individuals, and we've dug into the details but not found any related public police/court/news records. Numerous people we've come across that are discussed in police/court documents are not included because we can't determine if they were ever Mormon. My Mormon uncle who did prison time for sexually abusing underage girls is not in the database because I haven't found the related court documents yet. Once I do, I'll add him. I hope this helps. It's a complex, messy topic, and shining a light on it takes a lot of work to make sure misleading shadows are not cast. You shine a light on what amounts to gossip, but you are not casting misleading shadows; does not compute. By the standard you have for rando claim on social media, all that needs be done is spam the claim to various social media. If you are familiar with a certain /r, then you should know how easily participants are manipulated into a frenzy - it is almost as if you use social-media-virtue signal-confirmation bias to determine if a rando social media claim should be in your database. Edited January 4, 2023 by provoman 2
smac97 Posted January 4, 2023 Author Posted January 4, 2023 15 hours ago, puzzlehobbit said: Hi Smac, I'm Jane, creator of FLOODLIT. Proof: https://floodlit.org/site-verifications/ I appreciate your feedback and criticism. Welcome to the board. 15 hours ago, puzzlehobbit said: Many people, particularly abuse survivors, prefer to remain anonymous when they submit information to our website. I can understand that. My concern about anonymity is less about ferreting out the identities of contributors as it is about (A) the reputations of those being publicly - and anonymously - accused of horrendous crimes, (B) inaccuracies in what is being said about instances of abuse, (C) the inability or unwillingness to account for the substantial efforts the Church has made in the last many years to develop and deploy policies and procedures that more properly deal with allegations of abuse when they arise in the Church, and (D) the seeming ulterior motive of publicly disparaging an already unpopular religious minority, the Latter-day Saints, in one of the ugliest ways possible, and of attributing malice and/or indifference to the Church and its members as regarding sexual abuse. Regarding (A), it appears that the vast majority of "cases" your website is "tracking" happened years or decades ago, or are based on unsubstantiated allegations (often nothing more than news items), or expressly or impliedly impugn the Church for the abusive behavior of some of its members (despite such behavior being unequivocally condemned and taught against by the Church), or else list individuals whose membership in the Church is incidental to their alleged wrongdoing, or fail to account for the Clergy-Penitent privilege (which in many jurisdictions prohibits clergy from notifying law enforcement of confessed-to abuse), or fail to account for the Church's policies and procedures which facilitated the detection and cessation of abuse, or or some combination of these. Let's consider, for example, the first ten names on your list as ordered alphabetically: 1. George Aaron: His daughters accuse him, in a 2018 news article, of abuse "in the 1980s and early 1990s." 2. James Adams: Pleaded guilty in 1994, 29 years ago. 3. Paul and Leizza Adams: This terrible story, which we have extensively addressed on this board, ended in 2017 when Paul Adams committed suicide. 4. Michael Adamson: "{J}ailed after pleading guilty to 11 charges of indecent assault committed between 1966 and 1982" (that is, or 41-57 years ago). 5. Brady Allen: A high school teacher in Roy, Utah who was arrested "after he 'engaged in a highly sexual conversation' with an officer posing as a 13-year-old {on a chat app}." None of the news items on your website (and none I looked up) reference him being a member of the Church, or that his membership in the Church has any relevance to his conduct. Instead, all I found was a FB post referencing Allen as "an LDS digital media teacher in the visual arts department at Roy High School." 6. Terry Allen: Sentenced in 1987 "to six years in prison for molesting his niece in 1982 when she was 13" (that is, 41 years ago). A single news item from 1987 describes him as "an IBM executive who had been active in the local Mormon church." (Is anyone blaming IBM for Mr. Allen's abusive behavior? If not, why not?) 7. Steward Allsford: This man was purportedly a bishop when he committed abuse against a child "in the 1990s" (though no news items indicate that he used his ecclesiastical position to commit the abuse). He committed suicide during his trial in 2017. 8. Benjamin Alyk: This person, while serving as a missionary, confessed to his mission president to making child pornography. He was immediately sent home and subjected to a disciplinary council. He later turned himself in to law enforcement. No mention here of the (apparent) relevance of the Clergy-Penitent privilege, which I addressed in the context of Mr. Alyk back in 2019 here. I also made this observation (which I think could be applied to your website) : Quote Quote have you not been paying attention to the numerous abuse stories that have surfaced (in the news) regarding this (past and currently)? I've been paying a lot of attention to such things. But "abuse stories that have surfaced (in the news)" are, collectively, essentially anecdotal. Quote Do you believe they are all incorrect or inaccurate? I believe they are mostly unvetted and unsubstantiated. I also believe that very few of these stories involve an element of "the abuse happened/continued because the bishop followed the already-in-place guidelines, training, and helpline instructions from the Church and its legal counsel." If you want to abolish or substantially alter the status quo, I think it is incumbent upon you to demonstrate how and whether we could improve on the status quo. As it is, and with respect, I think you are caught up in a sort of "moral panic." We all want to protect children from harm. Surey we can agree on that. But the particulars of how we do that need to be reasoned and evaluated. Reacting to inflammatory news headlines is not the best way to go. With respect, I think "{r}eacting to inflammatory news headlines" is what your website is all about. 9. Elwood Anderson: "Elwood Anderson of Gig Harbor, 46, allegedly downloaded and shared more than 9,000 images of young children engaged in sexually explicit activity." This story is from 2013 (that is, 10 years ago). Only a single news item, and it makes no reference to him being a member of the Church or otherwise establishing a nexus between his membership and his alleged misconduct. The only source indicating he is a Latter-day Saint is the 2017 compilation by Deborah Diener, (apparently the primary source for almost all of your site's content), which merely says "LDS Elwood Anderson." 10. Jared Anderson: This is a pretty horrible story from 2016. This is, I think, the only profile so far which characterizes the Church in an other-than-negative-and-condemnatory light. From your website: Quote LDS Jared Anderson was arrested for abusing “ten or more teens and was charged on two counts of sexual performance with a child and one count of indecency with a child after several teen boys from his church reported abuse to church officials.” The boys were ages 15-17. “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints issued a statement” regarding this abuse. “When we learned of the situation, local leaders reported it immediately to law enforcement.” LDS ward of accused at time of alleged crime(s): Encino Park Once more: “When we learned of the situation, local leaders reported it immediately to law enforcement.” This is because, per this news item, "when two victims came forward and first told church authorities about the parties that had been going on for months with 'numerous' boys," the Church "contacted child protective services." And on and on and on. Your website purports to be "tracking hundreds of public instances of sex crimes allegedly perpetrated by LDS church leaders or members." Well, no, not really. The bulk of your "profiles" pertain to allegations or instances of abuse from years ago. For pete's sake, you have a profile for Joseph Smith, who died in 1844. On December 31 you posted a list of "events from 2022." I think this is a legitimate thing to do, as the matters described are current, and newsworthy, and important. We need to be aware of instances of misconduct by members of the Church so that the Church can improve itself. However, a significant issue I have is your website's tendency to conflate correlation and causation. You are compiling stories of actual or alleged abuse by people who are members of the Church, but many (most, I think) of which instances do not involve causative elements. That is, many of the perps and alleged perps are only listed here because they are members of the Church, but not because that membership is relevant or causative or contributive to the abuse. By way of example, your "events from 2022" list includes a story about Michael James Clay, a former BYU professor accused of sexually abusing a BYU student. I started a thread on this story back in June 2020 when it came out in the news. A few questions about it: 1. Assuming Clay is guilty of the alleged misconduct, did his behavior comport with, or violate, the doctrines and teachings of the Church? 2. Assuming Clay is guilty of the alleged misconduct, is his membership and affiliation with the Church a causative element of the behavior? Or is it instead an incidental detail? 3. Assuming Clay is guilty of the alleged misconduct, would you say that his conduct constitutes a gross violation of the duties he owed to his victim, but to BYU and the Church? 4. Did BYU and/or Church turn a blind eye towards, or else attempt to suppress, these allegations? Did BYU or the Church do anything wrong or inappropriate? Your 2022 list also references Clark Crookston, who in March of 2022 "pleaded guilty to two counts of attempted aggravated sexual abuse of a child, both second-degree felonies, and a third-degree felony charge of dealing in materials harmful to a minor." Your profile of him includes a news item quoting one of his victims as follows: "She said he was a bishop in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a dentist and a college professor. 'I assumed I was alone. I felt guilty even to question his worthiness.'" And also this: Quote Howard, the prosecutor, said Crookston “looks harmless on the surface, with a great reputation in the community and the religious community.” She said he used his status to “capitalize and gain access to the most vulnerable victims. He has done irreparable harm.” She added, “His facade worked. He was able to groom his victims.” A few questions about this story: 1. Was Crookston's membership and affiliation with the Church a causative element of the behavior? Or is it instead an incidental detail? 2. Was his "religious community" complicit in his misconduct? Or was it a victim of it? 3. Crookston was, by profession, a dentist. Do you fault the dentist profession/community for his misconduct? If not, why not? Your 2022 events list also references news items about Sean Sund: Quote WEST JORDAN, Utah (KUTV) — A man who taught primary in a congregation of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has pleaded guilty to sexually abusing a girl from his ward. The abuse occurred during sleepovers at the home of Sean Sund, 49, between January and March of 2018. Court documents filed Friday show Sund reached an agreement with prosecutors in which he pleads guilty to one count of sexual abuse of a child, a second-degree felony. Sund was originally charged with five counts of aggravated sex abuse of a child, a first-degree felony. As part of the plea agreement, Sund’s attorneys and prosecutors stipulate he will serve 364 days in jail, undergo psychosexual evaluation, and will be a registered sex offender for life. The allegations against Sund were first reported to West Jordan police in summer 2018 when a girl from Sund’s primary class alleged he slept in the same bed with her and touched her inappropriately at sleepovers. Court records show that Sund told detectives that he frequently hosted sleepovers for children from his ward. See also here: Quote A 45-year-old man was arrested Thursday evening on five counts of aggravated sexual abuse of a child, West Jordan Police said in a Tweet. The suspect, identified as Sean Sund, "held a position of trust over (the) victim as he was a primary teacher in their LDS branch,” the department stated. The alleged victim is an 8-year-old girl, police say. Police say her parents reported the abuse to child protective services. According to police, the sexual abuse occurred at the suspect's home during sleepovers with students from a LDS Church primary class. Police say a “bunch" of other children were present. Sund was arrested last week, but posted $125,000 bail. He was arrested again on June 14, Thursday evening. He is now being held at $100,000 bond. The primary class is part of an LDS branch made up of people from the Marshall Islands, where the Sund served an LDS mission, according to police. Sund, a single man with no kids, "held sleepovers at his home and abused the victim multiple times." The Church has policies in place regarding overnight activities (see also here and here), several provisions of which Sund was apparently violating. Moreover, in 2010 Elder Lawrence of the Seventy cautioned specifically against sleepovers: Quote May I express my personal warning about a practice that is common in many cultures. I am referring to sleepovers, or spending the night at the home of a friend. As a bishop I discovered that too many youth violated the Word of Wisdom or the law of chastity for the first time as part of a sleepover. Too often their first exposure to pornography and even their first encounter with the police occurred when they were spending the night away from home. That there were multiple such "sleepovers" involving children from "an LDS branch made up of people from the Marshall Islands," is deeply troubling. The Church's policies were, I suspect, not followed. The Branch President was either oblivious to these sleepovers or else ignored or condoned them, none of which is appropriate. The parents of the children apparently allowed their children to spend the night unsupervised in the home of a single adult man, which is also problematic (though there may be cultural customs in play here). In other words, this story is certainly worth highlighting and discussing. Is the Church culpable for the abuse? I think not. Again, its policies were almost certainly not followed, and the Branch President did not do his job (nor did the parents act appropriately). Is there anything the Church could do to reduce the risk of this happening again? I think so. The Handbook could be updated to provide specific guidelines regarding sleepovers (which, for young children, should I think be categorically prohibited). 15 hours ago, puzzlehobbit said: So we allow them to do that. We don't automatically publish that info, however. Here's our posting policy: https://floodlit.org/posting-policy/ Right. I suspect there are many instances when you are not following your own policy: Your policy states that "{p}rofessional and reasonable efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, including quality-control review," and that "{e}ach reported allegation has been double-checked with the cited source document." I question that. Like, a lot. It looks like you have incorporated the entirety of Deborah Diener's 2017 "report" which has tons of "stories" which are quite old and hence pretty difficult to verify. For example, you cribbed a profile of "Jene Albert Hansen" from Diener's report, stating: Quote Listed as Mormon in the Boy Scout perversion files. News clipping from Hayward Review states "an irate Dad violently attacks Hansen" Hansen is listed twice in the BSA files and was in 2 different troops. 12/13/60 California LDS Jene Albert Hansen listed as Mormon in the Boy Scout perversion files. News clipping from Hayward Review states "an irate Dad violently attacks Hansen" Hansen is listed twice in the BSA files and was in 2 different troops. HANSEN-Jene Albert Hansen 2.pdf. http://documents.latimes.com/iene-albert-hansen/ This is copied verbatim from Diener's profile: Quote LDS Jene Albert Hansen listed as Mormon in the Boy Scout perversion files. News clipping from Hayward Review states "an irate Dad violently attacks Hansen" Hansen is listed twice in the BSA files and was in 2 different troops. HANSEN-Jene Albert Hansen 2.pdf. http://documents.latimes.com/jene-albert-hansen/ The link to the LA Times takes you to a PDF about documents from the 60s and early 70s about Hansen as found in the BSA files. I saw nothing in those files that make any reference to him being a member of the Church, or of the BSA troops in which he participated in (Troop 602 and Troop 625, both in San Lorenzo, CA). So what "{p}rofessional and reasonable efforts" did you make, what "double-check{ing}" did you do, relative to Jene Hansen? The same question can be asked of all of your copied and pasted profiles from Diener's report. Also from from your "Posting Policy": Quote 8. If the individual faces an allegation for an act which occurred after the individual has left the church, the individual is listed in the database. Really? You are including in a self-described "Mormon sex abuse database" individuals who allegedly engaged in misconduct after they have "left the church?" May I ask why? Also from your Posting Policy: Quote 13. If an individual is found not guilty or not liable after a trial, but other victims have come forward with allegations, the individual is listed in the database, and a note about the acquittal or defense finding is included in a certain field on the case information page. So even after allegations against individuals that have been examined in court, and resulting in a not-guilty or not-liable verdict "after a trial," you nevertheless include these individuals in your "Mormon sex abuse database"? May I ask why? Also from your Posting Policy: Quote FLOODLIT is committed to truth, accuracy, and fairness. Corrections and comments on information appearing in the database are encouraged and can be sent to team @ floodlit.org. If FLOODLIT discovers facts establishing that any information appearing in the database is inaccurate, we will promptly take appropriate action, including but not limited to revising, correcting or withdrawing the information. Do you provide a listing of instances where you have done this (revised, corrected or withdrawn profiles/information)? If so, where is it? If not, why not? 15 hours ago, puzzlehobbit said: We're extremely careful about vetting information for accuracy. There's no gossip on the site. If you find any, please let me know and I'll remove it right away. Thank you. Again, I question that. You have just copied and pasted Diener's report, apparently in its entirety, which hardly suggests you being "extremely careful about vetting." Every name I spot checked from Diener's report (Jene Albert Hansen, Larren Bybee Arnold, Thomas Opfar, and several others) are repeated verbatim in your database. Your profile of Larren Bybee Arnold includes a text artifact, "7 of 316," which just happens to correspond to the page number on which he is listed in Diener's report. 15 hours ago, puzzlehobbit said: We're trying to do something similar to what bishop-accountability.org has been doing for around 20 years, And what is that "something?" What objectives are you trying to achieve? 15 hours ago, puzzlehobbit said: but with a focus on the LDS church instead of the Catholic church. With respect, I question that. Again, you say you are "tracking 500 LDS/Mormon sex crime cases," and yet most of them are years in the past. What is there to "track" about allegations against Joseph Smith, who has been dead since 1844? In my view, his profile is in your "Mormon sex abuse database" to encourage antipathy toward the Church and its leaders and members (who honor him as a prophet, despite his flaws and errors), and that's all. 15 hours ago, puzzlehobbit said: We're trying to keep track of public information and public reports about accusations against Mormon church leaders and members. This includes "keep{ing} track of public information" about alleged or actual perpetrators of abuse who are long dead, right? What is the point of that? 15 hours ago, puzzlehobbit said: Hundreds of the cases we're tracking go back decades, and in some cases, the accused is now deceased. Contemporary or recent instances of abuse? I could see that (though I still question the objectives and motives). But including profiles of people long dead in the list of "cases" you are tracking seems pretty misleading. If you remove the antiquated cases, I suspect you wouldn't be left with "hundreds" of cases, but with dozens. Still very troubling (as any nonzero number would be), but "dozens" of profiles of abuse, spread across some years, in a church numbering in the millions, would not be nearly as provocative and inflammatory and accusatory. So it looks like you are padding your numbers by copying and pasting the entirety of of Diener's report, even reaching back to allegations against a man who died nearly 200 years ago. I have a hard time giving your website the benefit of the doubt when the "Mormon sex abuse database" includes profiles of an "apostle" (Joseph Smith (d. 1844)),a "general authority" (George P. Lee (d. 2010)), a mission president dead since 2000 (where the only information is from his grandson as posted on an overtly anti-mormon podcast), another mission president dead since 2018 (also where the only information is from an anti-mormon podcast interview, posted about 2 months prior to the accused's death), a stake president dead since 2014 who in 1994 was caught soliciting a prostitute (still reprehensible conduct in a number of ways, but not quite within the parameters of what most think of as "sex abuse"), and so on. This stuff looks more like you are trying to be provocative and pad your numbers. 15 hours ago, puzzlehobbit said: I'll try to make the wording more clear on the website so it doesn't give any impression that we're saying that every case we're researching is still developing or running through the court system, etc. I'm not sure that will solve the issue of you data-dumping the entirety of Diener's "report," the "profiles" of people long dead, the guilty-until-proven-innocent-and-even-then-we'll-list-him-as-a-perp attitude reflected in your policy (paragraphs 8 and 13), the "hey, an entirely unsubstantiated allegation of abuse is, in and of itself, sufficient for us to list a person's name as in a 'Mormon sex abuse database'"-style approach reflected in your policy, etc. 15 hours ago, puzzlehobbit said: The effort's not about gossip or making people upset - it's simply about shining a light on the topic of sexual abuse or sex crimes in the Mormon church. We feel that for a long time, there's been a lot of secrecy there. We're just trying to provide accurate information to help people research or discuss this topic. Sorry, not quite able to go along with this. Not when your website includes "profiles" of people long dead. Not when your website includes people in your "Mormon sex abuse database" who have only been accused (including those who have been accused after their deaths). Not when your website includes people in your "Mormon sex abuse database" who have allegedly done something wrong after they left the Church. Not when your website includes people in your "Mormon sex abuse database" who "found not guilty or not liable after a trial." Not when your website includes people in your "Mormon sex abuse database" whose membership/activity in the Church is questionable, negligible, and/or irrelevant to the alleged misconduct. Not when your website includes people in your "Mormon sex abuse database" who are listed based on unsubstantiated allegations, and nothing more. In any event, I don't know what you mean by "shining a light" means. It seems like a nice way of saying "purveying lurid, prurient information about alleged misconduct by members of a religion I dislike." 15 hours ago, puzzlehobbit said: As stated on our homepage, we're not an advocacy organization. Can't quite go along with that, either. You are advertising your site as providing a "Mormon sex abuse database." You are including in that database people who are dead, who purportedly did bad things after they left the Church, who have been exonerated in court, whose status as a Latter-day Saint is only incidental to their conduct, who are been the subject of unsubstantiated allegations and nothing more, and so on. The commonality of these profiles seems to be that they all make the Church (and its leaders and members) look terrible. 15 hours ago, puzzlehobbit said: As an abuse survivor, I do very much want to help reduce the amount of abuse in this world. So do I. But vilifying a small and unpopular religious minority by defining them by the worst actions of its worst members is not going to help. 15 hours ago, puzzlehobbit said: But FLOODLIT's aim is mainly to provide accurate information, because how can we hope to tackle a problem if we don't even understand it? Your website is, in the main, just replicating what Deborah Diener did in 2005, and what the Mormon Alliance did in 1995. You are compiling lurid and provocative information in an indiscriminate and haphazard way, apparently to pad numbers. We can and should have discussions about abuse, but I think the adversarial and lurid and inflammatory approach you have adopted is not only not helpful, but perhaps even counterproductive. 15 hours ago, puzzlehobbit said: So I'm working as hard as I can each day to help survivors feel like there's somebody out there who's trying to shine a light and help their voices be heard. Including the putative "survivors" of Joseph Smith, who died in 1844? How do you expect me to take that claim seriously? Moreover, have you asked any of these "survivors" if they want their abuser's publicly named and shamed? 15 hours ago, puzzlehobbit said: How bad is the problem of sexual abuse in the LDS church? That's a fair question. Your "Mormon sex abuse database" doesn't do much to answer it, though. 15 hours ago, puzzlehobbit said: Has the church ever been accused of covering up abuse? Yes. Have those accusations been uniformly vindicated? Or are there instances when the accusations have ended up being made without evidence? Are there instances where the accusations have been made by bystanders and lookyloos who are principally interested in bashing the Latter-day Saints and their faith, and who appropriate and compile stories of abuse in an attempt to make the Church and its leaders and members look as terrible as possible? Are there instances where the accusations have been, misleading, inaccurate, conclusory, patently false, etc.? 15 hours ago, puzzlehobbit said: Has it ever been ordered to make payments to abuse victims? Yes. 15 hours ago, puzzlehobbit said: How many men have ever been arrested for or charged with sex crimes while serving as Mormon bishops? Yes. In a church numbering the many millions, with about 32,000+ congregations, a tiny fraction of bishops have been shown as engaging in misconduct (though often not in any way associated with their duties as a bishop). 15 hours ago, puzzlehobbit said: In what percentage of Mormon stakes and wards have there been instances where a local LDS member was convicted of a sex crime? I don't know. And your "Mormon sex abuse database" doesn't help answer that question. You are only proving my point here, about correlation v. causation. If a Jewish person commits a crime, do you use that as a springboard for asking "In what percentage of Jewish congregations have there been instances where a Jew was convicted of a sex crime?" If a Muslim person commits a crime, do you ask "In what percentage of Muslim congregations have there been instances where a Muslim was convicted of a sex crime?" Guilt by association. That is what you are doing. You are conflating correlation with causation. If a person commits some sort of sexual misconduct, and if that person is a Latter-day Saint, you are implicitly attributing his misconduct to his being a Latter-day Saint. I find that deeply problematic. The Church doesn't teach or encourage or condone sexual abuse. Instead, the Church unequivocally condemns such behavior, and has developed policies and procedures and resources to detect abuse, stop abuse, help its victims, and so on. To be sure, there have been instances in the past when the Church has erred, even seriously so, in addressing - or not addressing - allegations of abuse. But it has made huge efforts to address this issue, which efforts look like they are glossed over in favor of lurid and prurient (and derivative, and frequently unsubstantiated) compilations such as your "Mormon sex abuse database." 15 hours ago, puzzlehobbit said: How has the church responded to each instance of alleged or confirmed abuse? In a variety of ways, since there are a lot of variables in play. 15 hours ago, puzzlehobbit said: We're simply trying to help answer questions like those. Candidly, it doesn't come across that way to me. In my opinion, your website is not fair or objective, but is instead heavily slanted. It is in many ways not accurate, but is instead riddled with unsubstantiated allegations, guesswork, and so on. It is not intended to fairly assess the policies and procedures and resources the Church has been developing and using for years as pertaining to allegations of abuse, nor is it intended to facilitate improvements in such policies/procedures/resources, but is instead intended to vilify the Church, its leaders, its members, to define them by the worst acts of its worst members. This assessment was strengthened when I saw someone from your org (you?) posting on an anti-mormon discussion board, in which you justified Joseph Smith's profile (described in the thread as "old humpin Joe") by saying that he was accused of sex-related crimes, and that you are going to be adding still other long-dead leaders of the Church in the future. 15 hours ago, puzzlehobbit said: I invite you and anyone else with research skills to help us. We've currently got a backlog of about 100 cases to sift through. Okay. Here's a few things to get going: First start by pulling down the entirety of your copied-and-pasted content from Deborah Diener's "report." Second, heavily vet, one by one, each of the persons named in that report. Third, get rid of antiquated "profiles" (particularly the ones seemingly intended as "redmeat" for critics of the Church (, such as the one for Joseph Smith). Fourth, revise your "Posting Policy" to get rid of its guilty-until-proven-innocent-and-even-then-we'll-list-him-as-a-perp elements (such as paragraphs 8 and 13). Fifth, remove the "profiles" of those in your "Mormon sex abuse database" who have allegedly done something wrong after they left the Church. Sixth, remove the profiles of those who have been "found not guilty or not liable after a trial." Seventh, remove the profiles of those whose membership/activity in the Church is questionable, negligible, and/or irrelevant to the alleged misconduct. Eighth, remove the profiles of those who are listed based on unsubstantiated allegations, and nothing more. Are you open to incorporating any of these? 15 hours ago, puzzlehobbit said: If you were running a research project to shed light on the topic of sex abuse in the Mormon church, what would you do to ensure that it was helpful and not harmful? Well, I would incorporate most or all of the foregoing proposals. I would also insist on more than lip service to "innocent until proven guilty." Public allegations of sexual misconduct are hugely damaging, both when they are substantiated and when they are not. I would also require a set of objectives substantially more concrete than "shed{ding} light on the topic of sex abuse." I would look to help the Church, rather than publicly disparaging and humiliating it. I would look for ways it could improve and avoid its past errors and omissions, rather than endlessly trumpet those errors and omissions. I would also work with sociologists, law enforcement, and other resources to compile competent and objective data, rather than the slapdash, if-the-allegation-is-reported-in-the-news-it-must-be-true approach. 15 hours ago, puzzlehobbit said: I want to show that I'm listening. I've shed so many tears already as I've researched these stories. I would encourage you to work on that. Shed your tears (as you should), but then set aside the emotionalisms and find ways to improve the situation rather than wallow in accusations and disparagements. 15 hours ago, puzzlehobbit said: The last thing I would ever want to do is make anybody's suffering worse. I don't see how your "Mormon sex abuse database" is making anyone's suffering better. It provides grounds for a sort of pound-of-flesh attitude towards the Church (and its leaders and members) from people who are already hostile to it, but that's about it. It sure doesn't do much for me as a Latter-day Saint / husband / father / attorney / former bishop. 15 hours ago, puzzlehobbit said: I'm hoping that a lot of people will end up saying, thanks to FLOODLIT, they were able to find accurate information that ended up leading to better discussions about this topic, which ultimately can lead to better solutions. I think you will end up getting people to dislike, or even despise, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and its leaders, and its members. They will read your "Mormon sex abuse database" and come away with a generalized antipathy, with a sense that we are indifferent to sexual abuse, or even that we condone it in some sense, that we are depraved, even evil. I say this because those are the feelings I get, and I am a faithful Latter-day Saint who knows better. 15 hours ago, puzzlehobbit said: Again, thank you and I appreciate the opportunity to be here and share my thoughts with you. I have said a lot here, some of it pretty blunt, even harsh. But you asked for feedback, so here you go. Thanks, -Smac 2
Tacenda Posted January 4, 2023 Posted January 4, 2023 40 minutes ago, smac97 said: Welcome to the board. I can understand that. My concern about anonymity is less about ferreting out the identities of contributors as it is about (A) the reputations of those being publicly - and anonymously - accused of horrendous crimes, (B) inaccuracies in what is being said about instances of abuse, (C) the inability or unwillingness to account for the substantial efforts the Church has made in the last many years to develop and deploy policies and procedures that more properly deal with allegations of abuse when they arise in the Church, and (D) the seeming ulterior motive of publicly disparaging an already unpopular religious minority, the Latter-day Saints, in one of the ugliest ways possible, and of attributing malice and/or indifference to the Church and its members as regarding sexual abuse. Regarding (A), it appears that the vast majority of "cases" your website is "tracking" happened years or decades ago, or are based on unsubstantiated allegations (often nothing more than news items), or expressly or impliedly impugn the Church for the abusive behavior of some of its members (despite such behavior being unequivocally condemned and taught against by the Church), or else list individuals whose membership in the Church is incidental to their alleged wrongdoing, or fail to account for the Clergy-Penitent privilege (which in many jurisdictions prohibits clergy from notifying law enforcement of confessed-to abuse), or fail to account for the Church's policies and procedures which facilitated the detection and cessation of abuse, or or some combination of these. Let's consider, for example, the first ten names on your list as ordered alphabetically: 1. George Aaron: His daughters accuse him, in a 2018 news article, of abuse "in the 1980s and early 1990s." 2. James Adams: Pleaded guilty in 1994, 29 years ago. 3. Paul and Leizza Adams: This terrible story, which we have extensively addressed on this board, ended in 2017 when Paul Adams committed suicide. 4. Michael Adamson: "{J}ailed after pleading guilty to 11 charges of indecent assault committed between 1966 and 1982" (that is, or 41-57 years ago). 5. Brady Allen: A high school teacher in Roy, Utah who was arrested "after he 'engaged in a highly sexual conversation' with an officer posing as a 13-year-old {on a chat app}." None of the news items on your website (and none I looked up) reference him being a member of the Church, or that his membership in the Church has any relevance to his conduct. Instead, all I found was a FB post referencing Allen as "an LDS digital media teacher in the visual arts department at Roy High School." 6. Terry Allen: Sentenced in 1987 "to six years in prison for molesting his niece in 1982 when she was 13" (that is, 41 years ago). A single news item from 1987 describes him as "an IBM executive who had been active in the local Mormon church." (Is anyone blaming IBM for Mr. Allen's abusive behavior? If not, why not?) 7. Steward Allsford: This man was purportedly a bishop when he committed abuse against a child "in the 1990s" (though no news items indicate that he used his ecclesiastical position to commit the abuse). He committed suicide during his trial in 2017. 8. Benjamin Alyk: This person, while serving as a missionary, confessed to his mission president to making child pornography. He was immediately sent home and subjected to a disciplinary council. He later turned himself in to law enforcement. No mention here of the (apparent) relevance of the Clergy-Penitent privilege, which I addressed in the context of Mr. Alyk back in 2019 here. I also made this observation (which I think could be applied to your website) : With respect, I think "{r}eacting to inflammatory news headlines" is what your website is all about. 9. Elwood Anderson: "Elwood Anderson of Gig Harbor, 46, allegedly downloaded and shared more than 9,000 images of young children engaged in sexually explicit activity." This story is from 2013 (that is, 10 years ago). Only a single news item, and it makes no reference to him being a member of the Church or otherwise establishing a nexus between his membership and his alleged misconduct. The only source indicating he is a Latter-day Saint is the 2017 compilation by Deborah Diener, (apparently the primary source for almost all of your site's content), which merely says "LDS Elwood Anderson." 10. Jared Anderson: This is a pretty horrible story from 2016. This is, I think, the only profile so far which characterizes the Church in an other-than-negative-and-condemnatory light. From your website: Once more: “When we learned of the situation, local leaders reported it immediately to law enforcement.” This is because, per this news item, "when two victims came forward and first told church authorities about the parties that had been going on for months with 'numerous' boys," the Church "contacted child protective services." And on and on and on. Your website purports to be "tracking hundreds of public instances of sex crimes allegedly perpetrated by LDS church leaders or members." Well, no, not really. The bulk of your "profiles" pertain to allegations or instances of abuse from years ago. For pete's sake, you have a profile for Joseph Smith, who died in 1844. On December 31 you posted a list of "events from 2022." I think this is a legitimate thing to do, as the matters described are current, and newsworthy, and important. We need to be aware of instances of misconduct by members of the Church so that the Church can improve itself. However, a significant issue I have is your website's tendency to conflate correlation and causation. You are compiling stories of actual or alleged abuse by people who are members of the Church, but many (most, I think) of which instances do not involve causative elements. That is, many of the perps and alleged perps are only listed here because they are members of the Church, but not because that membership is relevant or causative or contributive to the abuse. By way of example, your "events from 2022" list includes a story about Michael James Clay, a former BYU professor accused of sexually abusing a BYU student. I started a thread on this story back in June 2020 when it came out in the news. A few questions about it: 1. Assuming Clay is guilty of the alleged misconduct, did his behavior comport with, or violate, the doctrines and teachings of the Church? 2. Assuming Clay is guilty of the alleged misconduct, is his membership and affiliation with the Church a causative element of the behavior? Or is it instead an incidental detail? 3. Assuming Clay is guilty of the alleged misconduct, would you say that his conduct constitutes a gross violation of the duties he owed to his victim, but to BYU and the Church? 4. Did BYU and/or Church turn a blind eye towards, or else attempt to suppress, these allegations? Did BYU or the Church do anything wrong or inappropriate? Your 2022 list also references Clark Crookston, who in March of 2022 "pleaded guilty to two counts of attempted aggravated sexual abuse of a child, both second-degree felonies, and a third-degree felony charge of dealing in materials harmful to a minor." Your profile of him includes a news item quoting one of his victims as follows: "She said he was a bishop in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a dentist and a college professor. 'I assumed I was alone. I felt guilty even to question his worthiness.'" And also this: A few questions about this story: 1. Was Crookston's membership and affiliation with the Church a causative element of the behavior? Or is it instead an incidental detail? 2. Was his "religious community" complicit in his misconduct? Or was it a victim of it? 3. Crookston was, by profession, a dentist. Do you fault the dentist profession/community for his misconduct? If not, why not? Your 2022 events list also references news items about Sean Sund: See also here: Sund, a single man with no kids, "held sleepovers at his home and abused the victim multiple times." The Church has policies in place regarding overnight activities (see also here and here), several provisions of which Sund was apparently violating. Moreover, in 2010 Elder Lawrence of the Seventy cautioned specifically against sleepovers: That there were multiple such "sleepovers" involving children from "an LDS branch made up of people from the Marshall Islands," is deeply troubling. The Church's policies were, I suspect, not followed. The Branch President was either oblivious to these sleepovers or else ignored or condoned them, none of which is appropriate. The parents of the children apparently allowed their children to spend the night unsupervised in the home of a single adult man, which is also problematic (though there may be cultural customs in play here). In other words, this story is certainly worth highlighting and discussing. Is the Church culpable for the abuse? I think not. Again, its policies were almost certainly not followed, and the Branch President did not do his job (nor did the parents act appropriately). Is there anything the Church could do to reduce the risk of this happening again? I think so. The Handbook could be updated to provide specific guidelines regarding sleepovers (which, for young children, should I think be categorically prohibited). Right. I suspect there are many instances when you are not following your own policy: Your policy states that "{p}rofessional and reasonable efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, including quality-control review," and that "{e}ach reported allegation has been double-checked with the cited source document." I question that. Like, a lot. It looks like you have incorporated the entirety of Deborah Diener's 2017 "report" which has tons of "stories" which are quite old and hence pretty difficult to verify. For example, you cribbed a profile of "Jene Albert Hansen" from Diener's report, stating: This is copied verbatim from Diener's profile: The link to the LA Times takes you to a PDF about documents from the 60s and early 70s about Hansen as found in the BSA files. I saw nothing in those files that make any reference to him being a member of the Church, or of the BSA troops in which he participated in (Troop 602 and Troop 625, both in San Lorenzo, CA). So what "{p}rofessional and reasonable efforts" did you make, what "double-check{ing}" did you do, relative to Jene Hansen? The same question can be asked of all of your copied and pasted profiles from Diener's report. Also from from your "Posting Policy": Really? You are including in a self-described "Mormon sex abuse database" individuals who allegedly engaged in misconduct after they have "left the church?" May I ask why? Also from your Posting Policy: So even after allegations against individuals that have been examined in court, and resulting in a not-guilty or not-liable verdict "after a trial," you nevertheless include these individuals in your "Mormon sex abuse database"? May I ask why? Also from your Posting Policy: Do you provide a listing of instances where you have done this (revised, corrected or withdrawn profiles/information)? If so, where is it? If not, why not? Again, I question that. You have just copied and pasted Diener's report, apparently in its entirety, which hardly suggests you being "extremely careful about vetting." Every name I spot checked from Diener's report (Jene Albert Hansen, Larren Bybee Arnold, Thomas Opfar, and several others) are repeated verbatim in your database. Your profile of Larren Bybee Arnold includes a text artifact, "7 of 316," which just happens to correspond to the page number on which he is listed in Diener's report. And what is that "something?" What objectives are you trying to achieve? With respect, I question that. Again, you say you are "tracking 500 LDS/Mormon sex crime cases," and yet most of them are years in the past. What is there to "track" about allegations against Joseph Smith, who has been dead since 1844? In my view, his profile is in your "Mormon sex abuse database" to encourage antipathy toward the Church and its leaders and members (who honor him as a prophet, despite his flaws and errors), and that's all. This includes "keep{ing} track of public information" about alleged or actual perpetrators of abuse who are long dead, right? What is the point of that? Contemporary or recent instances of abuse? I could see that (though I still question the objectives and motives). But including profiles of people long dead in the list of "cases" you are tracking seems pretty misleading. If you remove the antiquated cases, I suspect you wouldn't be left with "hundreds" of cases, but with dozens. Still very troubling (as any nonzero number would be), but "dozens" of profiles of abuse, spread across some years, in a church numbering in the millions, would not be nearly as provocative and inflammatory and accusatory. So it looks like you are padding your numbers by copying and pasting the entirety of of Diener's report, even reaching back to allegations against a man who died nearly 200 years ago. I have a hard time giving your website the benefit of the doubt when the "Mormon sex abuse database" includes profiles of an "apostle" (Joseph Smith (d. 1844)),a "general authority" (George P. Lee (d. 2010)), a mission president dead since 2000 (where the only information is from his grandson as posted on an overtly anti-mormon podcast), another mission president dead since 2018 (also where the only information is from an anti-mormon podcast interview, posted about 2 months prior to the accused's death), a stake president dead since 2014 who in 1994 was caught soliciting a prostitute (still reprehensible conduct in a number of ways, but not quite within the parameters of what most think of as "sex abuse"), and so on. This stuff looks more like you are trying to be provocative and pad your numbers. I'm not sure that will solve the issue of you data-dumping the entirety of Diener's "report," the "profiles" of people long dead, the guilty-until-proven-innocent-and-even-then-we'll-list-him-as-a-perp attitude reflected in your policy (paragraphs 8 and 13), the "hey, an entirely unsubstantiated allegation of abuse is, in and of itself, sufficient for us to list a person's name as in a 'Mormon sex abuse database'"-style approach reflected in your policy, etc. Sorry, not quite able to go along with this. Not when your website includes "profiles" of people long dead. Not when your website includes people in your "Mormon sex abuse database" who have only been accused (including those who have been accused after their deaths). Not when your website includes people in your "Mormon sex abuse database" who have allegedly done something wrong after they left the Church. Not when your website includes people in your "Mormon sex abuse database" who "found not guilty or not liable after a trial." Not when your website includes people in your "Mormon sex abuse database" whose membership/activity in the Church is questionable, negligible, and/or irrelevant to the alleged misconduct. Not when your website includes people in your "Mormon sex abuse database" who are listed based on unsubstantiated allegations, and nothing more. In any event, I don't know what you mean by "shining a light" means. It seems like a nice way of saying "purveying lurid, prurient information about alleged misconduct by members of a religion I dislike." Can't quite go along with that, either. You are advertising your site as providing a "Mormon sex abuse database." You are including in that database people who are dead, who purportedly did bad things after they left the Church, who have been exonerated in court, whose status as a Latter-day Saint is only incidental to their conduct, who are been the subject of unsubstantiated allegations and nothing more, and so on. The commonality of these profiles seems to be that they all make the Church (and its leaders and members) look terrible. So do I. But vilifying a small and unpopular religious minority by defining them by the worst actions of its worst members is not going to help. Your website is, in the main, just replicating what Deborah Diener did in 2005, and what the Mormon Alliance did in 1995. You are compiling lurid and provocative information in an indiscriminate and haphazard way, apparently to pad numbers. We can and should have discussions about abuse, but I think the adversarial and lurid and inflammatory approach you have adopted is not only not helpful, but perhaps even counterproductive. Including the putative "survivors" of Joseph Smith, who died in 1844? How do you expect me to take that claim seriously? Moreover, have you asked any of these "survivors" if they want their abuser's publicly named and shamed? That's a fair question. Your "Mormon sex abuse database" doesn't do much to answer it, though. Yes. Have those accusations been uniformly vindicated? Or are there instances when the accusations have ended up being made without evidence? Are there instances where the accusations have been made by bystanders and lookyloos who are principally interested in bashing the Latter-day Saints and their faith, and who appropriate and compile stories of abuse in an attempt to make the Church and its leaders and members look as terrible as possible? Are there instances where the accusations have been, misleading, inaccurate, conclusory, patently false, etc.? Yes. Yes. In a church numbering the many millions, with about 32,000+ congregations, a tiny fraction of bishops have been shown as engaging in misconduct (though often not in any way associated with their duties as a bishop). I don't know. And your "Mormon sex abuse database" doesn't help answer that question. You are only proving my point here, about correlation v. causation. If a Jewish person commits a crime, do you use that as a springboard for asking "In what percentage of Jewish congregations have there been instances where a Jew was convicted of a sex crime?" If a Muslim person commits a crime, do you ask "In what percentage of Muslim congregations have there been instances where a Muslim was convicted of a sex crime?" Guilt by association. That is what you are doing. You are conflating correlation with causation. If a person commits some sort of sexual misconduct, and if that person is a Latter-day Saint, you are implicitly attributing his misconduct to his being a Latter-day Saint. I find that deeply problematic. The Church doesn't teach or encourage or condone sexual abuse. Instead, the Church unequivocally condemns such behavior, and has developed policies and procedures and resources to detect abuse, stop abuse, help its victims, and so on. To be sure, there have been instances in the past when the Church has erred, even seriously so, in addressing - or not addressing - allegations of abuse. But it has made huge efforts to address this issue, which efforts look like they are glossed over in favor of lurid and prurient (and derivative, and frequently unsubstantiated) compilations such as your "Mormon sex abuse database." In a variety of ways, since there are a lot of variables in play. Candidly, it doesn't come across that way to me. In my opinion, your website is not fair or objective, but is instead heavily slanted. It is in many ways not accurate, but is instead riddled with unsubstantiated allegations, guesswork, and so on. It is not intended to fairly assess the policies and procedures and resources the Church has been developing and using for years as pertaining to allegations of abuse, nor is it intended to facilitate improvements in such policies/procedures/resources, but is instead intended to vilify the Church, its leaders, its members, to define them by the worst acts of its worst members. This assessment was strengthened when I saw someone from your org (you?) posting on an anti-mormon discussion board, in which you justified Joseph Smith's profile (described in the thread as "old humpin Joe") by saying that he was accused of sex-related crimes, and that you are going to be adding still other long-dead leaders of the Church in the future. Okay. Here's a few things to get going: First start by pulling down the entirety of your copied-and-pasted content from Deborah Diener's "report." Second, heavily vet, one by one, each of the persons named in that report. Third, get rid of antiquated "profiles" (particularly the ones seemingly intended as "redmeat" for critics of the Church (, such as the one for Joseph Smith). Fourth, revise your "Posting Policy" to get rid of its guilty-until-proven-innocent-and-even-then-we'll-list-him-as-a-perp elements (such as paragraphs 8 and 13). Fifth, remove the "profiles" of those in your "Mormon sex abuse database" who have allegedly done something wrong after they left the Church. Sixth, remove the profiles of those who have been "found not guilty or not liable after a trial." Seventh, remove the profiles of those whose membership/activity in the Church is questionable, negligible, and/or irrelevant to the alleged misconduct. Eighth, remove the profiles of those who are listed based on unsubstantiated allegations, and nothing more. Are you open to incorporating any of these? Well, I would incorporate most or all of the foregoing proposals. I would also insist on more than lip service to "innocent until proven guilty." Public allegations of sexual misconduct are hugely damaging, both when they are substantiated and when they are not. I would also require a set of objectives substantially more concrete than "shed{ding} light on the topic of sex abuse." I would look to help the Church, rather than publicly disparaging and humiliating it. I would look for ways it could improve and avoid its past errors and omissions, rather than endlessly trumpet those errors and omissions. I would also work with sociologists, law enforcement, and other resources to compile competent and objective data, rather than the slapdash, if-the-allegation-is-reported-in-the-news-it-must-be-true approach. I would encourage you to work on that. Shed your tears (as you should), but then set aside the emotionalisms and find ways to improve the situation rather than wallow in accusations and disparagements. I don't see how your "Mormon sex abuse database" is making anyone's suffering better. It provides grounds for a sort of pound-of-flesh attitude towards the Church (and its leaders and members) from people who are already hostile to it, but that's about it. It sure doesn't do much for me as a Latter-day Saint / husband / father / attorney / former bishop. I think you will end up getting people to dislike, or even despise, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and its leaders, and its members. They will read your "Mormon sex abuse database" and come away with a generalized antipathy, with a sense that we are indifferent to sexual abuse, or even that we condone it in some sense, that we are depraved, even evil. I say this because those are the feelings I get, and I am a faithful Latter-day Saint who knows better. I have said a lot here, some of it pretty blunt, even harsh. But you asked for feedback, so here you go. Thanks, -Smac Smac, there is something that I think is important for members to know as to not copy or repeat or think an example of what is okay. And that is Joseph marrying such young wives, there have been incidents of abuse even recently with men going after very young girls. Also, remember the website with the guy who tried to put a stop to bishop interviews, his name escapes me, but on his website there were hundreds of people speaking of their awful experiences in the church. It's a problem, and any time it's aired out, the more we hopefully can curtail it happening again. Or any time we air it, then abuse victims will be more forthright to go to authorities about it. But we'll see how much you've been able to make the website floodlit change for the better. Also, I don't mind them mentioning old abuse cases, it needs to be known.
puzzlehobbit Posted January 4, 2023 Posted January 4, 2023 Thank you all for the feedback and responses. I'll get back to you as soon as I can, hopefully tonight. There's just a lot to go through and I want to give everybody a thoughtful response.
smac97 Posted January 4, 2023 Author Posted January 4, 2023 17 hours ago, Calm said: When you say “publicly accused”, what is the standard? Apparently "publicly" is the standard. Look at the profile for "Spencer Palmer." He died in 2000. He's characterized as "former BYU professor of religion, mission president, temple president, LDS church area authority, personal friend of Mormon prophet Gordon B. Hinckley." And also this: "Accused by his grandson Matt Purcell on the Mormon Stories podcast." The profile also includes a number of unattributed quotations, one of which includes a claim that Palmer "sexually abused his own grandson & who knows how many others." That's about it. The grandson's unadorned accusation and an anonymous/unattributed quote posted by Floodlit are, in and of itself, sufficient to have Spencer Palmer listed in the "Mormon sex abuse database." Another example of the an-accusation-alone-is-enough-to-get-him-added-to-a-published-to-the-world-"Mormon-sex-abuse"-database standard is in the profile of Lowell Robison, who died in 2018, and against whom the "evidence" yet another Mormon Stories podcast (consisting of an interview with an accuser, "Christopher Swallow"). Another example is the profile of Chesley Nels Pierson, which is a copy-and-paste job culled from Deborah Diener's "report," and which provides three links: https://canoe.com/EdmontonNews/es.es-10-26-0008.html (not working, since the website apparently only maintains stories on their website back to 2013, and the story on Pierson was apparently published in 2008) https://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/msg97853.html (apparently includes a fragment of the story from the above link) https://ritualabuse.us/2008/10/issue-48-january-2003/ (same) Here's the fragment: Quote from L Moss Sharman Church Shocker Mormon Leader Excommunicated by Kevin Connor, Edmonton Sun 10/26/02 "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has excommunicated a long-time high-ranking member in the wake of multiple allegations of sexual abuse and a police probe, The Sun has learned.... Pierson, a Patriarch with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Calgary, is being investigated by police over allegations he has had inappropriate sexual contact with young males in the church. Patriarchs are high-ranking church elders who can bless congregation members....In 1973, Snelling, now 57, says he complained to his stake president - similar to an archbishop - of the Mormon church in Edmonton that Pierson had fondled his genitals. That individual has since died. "(The Stake president) swept it under the rug," Snelling said..." http://www.canoe.com/EdmontonNews/es.es-10-26-0008.html The profile also includes a link to Pierson's obituary from January 2021 (which post-dates Diener's report). So the evidentiary basis for listing Pierson on the "Mormon sex abuse database" is the above fragment. 17 hours ago, Calm said: Will you put up an accusation that is just posted somewhere on the internet, for example? Well, she's "put up an accusation that is just posted somewhere" (the "somewhere" being Mormon Stories and a fragment of a disappeared article from 2008) against Palmer, Robison and Pierson, so I think the answer has to be "yes." 17 hours ago, Calm said: How do you prevent malicious claims damaging innocent peoples’ lives? That's a fair question. Palmer died in 2000, Robison in 2018, and Pierson in 2021. None of them is alive to deny the accusations made against them. I note that Floodlit does not include (not yet, anyway) the 2018 allegations against Richard and Brenda Miles (Brenda is the daughter of Pres. Nelson). I wonder why that is. As you may recall, the Miles vigorously defended themselves against the allegations, which were genuinely horrific. They even "outed" themselves, as they were designated as anonymous "Doe" defendants, but they chose to reveal who they were during their legal fight. See here: Quote SALT LAKE CITY — Allegations rejected 30 years ago following multiple law enforcement investigations resurfaced Wednesday in a federal lawsuit filed against a daughter and son-in-law of the president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The couple was identified only as John and Jane Doe in the suit, but an attorney for the defendants identified them as Brenda and Richard Miles, the daughter and son-in-law of President Russell M. Nelson, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, often called the Mormon church. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Utah by six unnamed plaintiffs, all the children or stepchildren of a man who died by suicide in 1995. They revived allegations that rocked a Bountiful neighborhood in 1986 when they said they were abused as part of a sex ring of adults and babysitters. Three of the plaintiffs allege that the plaintiffs' father and the Mileses were part of a group who sexually assaulted them as children when their ages ranged from newborn to 8 years old. The alleged assaults took place at "touching parties" at homes in the Mueller Park area of Bountiful, according to the complaint. Within hours on Wednesday, the Mileses filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit. The motion said the plaintiffs' claims are "false and horrific" and are barred by the statute of limitations. The federal complaint was filed on October 3, 2018, and the motion to dismiss filed "within hours." That is practically unheard of. I have never seen such a thing in 18 years of practice. Quote In a statement, the Mileses described what they called "long-ago debunked accusations" as "patently false and deeply, utterly offensive." "Child abuse is evil, but so is a false accusation of child abuse," said the Mileses' attorney, Jim Jardine, of the law firm Ray Quinney & Nebeker. ... The allegations The lawsuit included nine exhibits. Six are declarations made by the children or stepchildren. The other three are from their mothers and a psychiatrist who treated the children in 1986. Three children allege in signed exhibits that they remember being sexually assaulted in the touching parties by their father, their paternal grandmother, the Mileses, a teenage babysitter and numerous others. Two stepchildren say they were raped by their stepfather. One child and one stepchild say they don't remember being assaulted but were told they were by their siblings, parents and therapists. A seventh child provided an exhibit, but she is not listed as a plaintiff in the suit. The suit graphically details repeated sexual assaults and rape of the plaintiffs when they were young children. "We have never abused these children or anyone else," the Mileses said in their statement. "To do so would be contrary to our beliefs, our principles, our character and the way we have always lived our lives. Police investigated these allegations against us more than 30 years ago and found no evidence to support them. To protect ourselves from the specter of false allegations, we voluntarily took a polygraph test. The results of the tests, which we took in 1986, support the reality that we did not sexually abuse these children." The lawsuit also claims the Mileses "utilized their status within the church, both as leaders in their own right and as the daughter and son-in-law of an apostle of the church, to cover up the crimes they committed against Jane Doe 1, Jane Doe 2 and John Doe 1." The lawsuit infers that President Nelson, who became an apostle in 1984, used his influence to protect the father and the Mileses from both the criminal investigation and church discipline. The suit explicitly accuses the Mileses of "lying to the police and influencing the criminal investigation; influencing leaders of the church to ignore church policy and not convene a church disciplinary (council) against themselves and (the plaintiffs' father); and further actions which encouraged and enabled defendants and (plaintiffs' father) to escape criminal prosecution and not be excommunicated from the church for the heinous sexual crimes they committed against these children." The plaintiffs claim that this enabled their father to remarry and allegedly abuse the children in that second marriage, who are listed as the second set of three plaintiffs — Jane Doe 3 and 4 and John Doe 2. The church strongly denied the claims that President Nelson or any church official used any influence on the criminal investigation or church discipline. "These allegations of interference or coverup are baseless and offensive," the church said in a statement. "Law enforcement investigated this matter in the 1980s and took no action against the church or its leaders. We will continue to act responsibly and appropriately in addressing these matters." The stake president at the time, Craig Smith, said neither the Mileses or any church leader influenced his decision about church discipline for the plaintiffs' father or anyone else. "No one from the church told me what to do about whether members of the stake should or should not be disciplined," Smith said in a statement. "Decisions about members of my stake were left up to me as the stake president." Church policy instructs local leaders not to convene a disciplinary council until a legal investigation is concluded. The Mileses' attorney, Jim Jardine, said the allegations arose from the work of a "controversial" therapist, Barbara Snow, who was investigated for "planting" false memories in patients, which she denied. I checked the status of this lawsuit. It was apparently delayed for quite a while because a lawsuit dealing with a similar issue was pending at the time before the Utah Supreme Court. However, in July 2020 the parties stipulated to a dismissal of the suit with prejudice. The Mileses were represented by James Jardine, whom I understand to be a formidable - and now retired - attorney. By all appearances, he vigorously and aggressively fought the lawsuit against the Mileses, and I suspect he or his firm would not hesitate to again protect them in a legal setting if this or that individual decided to post "profiles" of the Mileses on a "Mormon sex abuse database." Well, Puzzlehobbit? You have publicly listed at least three other people on your "Mormon sex abuse database" based on unadorned public accusations. But they are all conveniently dead, whereas the Mileses are A) alive and kicking, B) apparently within the parameters of your "Posting Policy," and C) they are also on record as being willing to vigorously defend themselves. So what are your plans here? Are you going to add them to your "Mormon sex abuse database" given that they have been publicly accused of horrific crimes? I sure hope you don't. But if you do, I will immediately notify Ray, Quinney & Nebeker (the Mileses previous law firm), and I hope they sue the pants off you and get a massive judgment against you. Not because you are a bad person (I don't know you, after all), but because you are behaving recklessly. Dangerously. You are playing with fire. You are willing to destroy reputations and lives, despite you having no particular information or evidence as to the guilt (or innocence) of those you are publicly accusing on flimsy evidentiary grounds. I hope the preceding paragraph is sobering to you. It ought to be. 17 hours ago, Calm said: I can see your site being used to discredit actual victims of crimes by making claims they were abusers (seen that done to a relative of mine who was abused by her husband and it’s happening to a friend right now in a nasty divorce and hear that is not uncommon, I am therefore a bit paranoid about it). That is the same point the Mileses made in their own defense. Puzzlehobbit, and people like her, are simply not situated to deal with the repercussions that may come if and when they post defamatory material against someone who is situated to defend themselves. Thanks, -Smac 3
provoman Posted January 5, 2023 Posted January 5, 2023 2 hours ago, puzzlehobbit said: Thank you all for the feedback and responses. I'll get back to you as soon as I can, hopefully tonight. There's just a lot to go through and I want to give everybody a thoughtful response. This is from your website "8. If the individual faces an allegation for an act which occurred after the individual has left the church, the individual is listed in the database." If you are not casting misleading shadows, why include people who not part of the LDS Church AND the alleged conducted happened AFTER they were no longer part of the LDS Church? It is as though a reader is to think "well of course the did that because they were once part of the LDS." 1
Calm Posted January 5, 2023 Posted January 5, 2023 (edited) 5 hours ago, smac97 said: Paul and Leizza Adams: This terrible story, which we have extensively addressed on this board, ended in 2017 when Paul Adams committed suicide. Not really ended as there are possible issues with how the Church handled the case and is handling it and the database’s purpose is in part to track the Church’s responses. —— to puzzlehobbit: I am not that concerned about the age of allegation as I think historical treatment to compare to what is happening now could be useful if done the right way (documenting actual behaviour of the Church good and bad and very bad even, but not just listing allegations), I am more concerned with how allegations are presented. Looking at the Nibley and Bishop cases—two cases I am very familiar with, including the background of the accusers—I find it problematic there is little to no critique of the claims, especially given the issues with recovered memories and known false allegations of assault. At the very least links to discussions of those problems should be given so readers can be truly informed about all the context. Then there is the issue of credibility and Nibley Beck’s own behaviour where she kidnapped her sick, elderly father and kept him in an hotel room to force a confession (according to her own description). Quote This is also a woman who was trained in the martial arts; who kidnapped her aging father when he was only days out of the hospital suffering from chest pains; who held him hostage in a hotel room for over five hours with three other women watching guard; who left her mother unattended after she had just been released from the hospital with an infection that we all thought might take her from us; who, when Hugh asked permission to leave, confesses in her book, “I’m sure any patient, high-minded, enlightened person would let him go right now. Me, I’m just getting started” (p. ). Let me just ask, what if the genders in that hotel room were reversed—what if four young men took a 90-year-old woman into a hotel room, kept her there against her will, and tried to make her confess to a sexual crime she did not commit? This is not a poor defenseless woman I am up against; this is a poor defenseless man I was defending. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1624&context=msr I don’t believe Denson knew Bishop had surgery just a few days before and was likely on painkillers (he was in a wheelchair and had a caregiver while according to a letter news report he was walking by himself with no one else present when the story broke and they wanted to interview him), so not holding her responsible for her timing, but it needs to be noted he was likely more suggestible than he should have been in regards to leading questions (there were quite a few where he just agreed to her leading questions, but then contradicted that agreement in what came out next, iirc). I wouldn’t fault her for doing the interview, except that she had reported Bishop to the police iirc not long before, they had positively responded and detectives in Utah (where the crime took place) were going out to Arizona (where he lived) to interview him, but instead of being patient, she jumped the gun and did her own interview…which tainted the process unfortunately. He was still wearing pjs and apologized for it when the police interviewed him, so might have been still affected by drugs. With Denson, there is only a vague reference to her past criminal history with the conclusion that it was consistent with sexual abuse while ignoring it was also consistent with extortionists. She had even swallowed small pieces of razor blades at her daughter’s party so as to have a claim against a restaurant, not the first time she tried to scam a restaurant, and much, much worse, false allegations of rape of at least 5 men, which including poisoning herself to blame a neighbour and in one case actually resulted in sending an innocent black man (her favorite target I believe) to jail for months. Having read the transcript of her interview and the police documentation that was released as well as the official documentation of Denson’s own criminal behaviour, I think Bishop is highly suspect for some form of abusive behaviour (asking women to expose their breasts, giving another a frisky back rub; at the very least he is a narcissistic sexist creep, his treatment of his two wives appears to be manipulative and in his mind they existed to serve him in his mind and his description of his interaction with the sister missionary staying at his home for help is disgusting imo), but there is no actual admission by him in the interview to a rape, just leading questions where he agrees to being guilty about lesser actions than rape and some interruptions right when it gets interesting by Denson that prevent Bishop from actually answering in any details. Made me wonder why she didn’t push for an actual confession or let him ramble, but instead got him off track. I am not suggesting the Bishop case should be dropped, just that you are presenting certain allegation claims as fact when they are not (“admitted on tape” to sexual assault or rape of Denson is false, check the transcript) and I just don’t believe you are giving even the bare minimum info needed to let people know there is much more to the case than her allegation. Since you included additional info about the son of Joseph Bishop and his wrongdoing (personally I think he should have been sued or penalized by the bar if possible for releasing the daughter’s name to the press, what a jerk), why not include more of her history? I would like to see evidence that it is typical behavior of sexual abuse victims to make false rape accusations for extortion purposes. My understanding is that it isn’t. Most false reports (which are not that common, 2-8% last I checked) are by younger girls and women pressured by parents to report consensual sex as rape to hide the fact they consented (these typically drop the case when the parents back off) and women who have a long history of false reporting. Edited January 5, 2023 by Calm 2
Vanguard Posted January 5, 2023 Posted January 5, 2023 7 minutes ago, Calm said: Having read the transcript of her interview and the police documentation that was released as well as the official documentation of Denson’s own criminal behaviour, I think Bishop is highly suspect for some form of abusive behaviour (asking women to expose their breasts, giving another a frisky back rub; at the very least he is a narcissistic sexist creep, his treatment of his two wives appears to be manipulative and in his mind they existed to serve him in his mind and his description of his interaction with the sister missionary staying at his home for help is disgusting imo), but there is no actual admission by him in the interview to a rape, just leading questions where he agrees to being guilty about lesser actions than rape and some interruptions right when it gets interesting by Denson that prevent Bishop from actually answering in any details. Made me wonder why she didn’t push for an actual confession or let him ramble, but instead got him off track. And wasn't there considerable question AFAICR as to Bishop's cognitive abilities at the time of Denson's interview? Hadn't he been diagnosed with some form of dementia? I'm not looking to excuse him though we have to provide relevant context.
Calm Posted January 5, 2023 Posted January 5, 2023 (edited) 17 minutes ago, Vanguard said: And wasn't there considerable question AFAICR as to Bishop's cognitive abilities at the time of Denson's interview? Hadn't he been diagnosed with some form of dementia? I'm not looking to excuse him though we have to provide relevant context. Not actually diagnosed, at least not officially confirmed. Someone claiming to be a family member iirc said he had dementia on Reddit I believe and many of us speculated about him having some based on how he was talking…very passive, limited details if any unless allowed to slip into storytelling mode and then inflated, going on forever, including irrelevant stuff, very self centered. He was very close in sounding like my mother who had pretty significant dementia at the time. However, once I started considering the details of his surgery and read the later description of him bouncing around his home, I thought the issue was more likely pain medication, though there could have been some early dementia involved, even with the police he was t the brightest bulb. Leftover anesthesia can cause an issue (my dad went really weird after a surgery, doctors were dismissive of it as side effects of the anesthesia until it went on for over a week and then they did a cat scan and discovered a begin brain tumor that had completely absorbed his pituitary gland, the stress of the surgery had thrown off the neurochemical balance he had maintained somehow). And given he was in a wheelchair, he was likely on some pain medication. Hard to know what it likely would be and how much given the details of the surgery were confidential. Edited January 5, 2023 by Calm
Calm Posted January 5, 2023 Posted January 5, 2023 34 minutes ago, Vanguard said: And wasn't there considerable question AFAICR as to Bishop's cognitive abilities at the time of Denson's interview? Hadn't he been diagnosed with some form of dementia? I'm not looking to excuse him though we have to provide relevant context. I had forgotten he had claimed the Church paid for a breast enhancement for a younger than 21 years sister….I have a hard time thinking the Church would pay for any cosmetic surgery at any age…maybe help with reconstruction after an accident…but breast enhancement? That and a few other things he said, he was not all there, whether medication or dementia. https://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/71962-byu-police-of-joseph-bishop-interview-tape-released/?do=findComment&comment=1209911835 1
provoman Posted January 5, 2023 Posted January 5, 2023 2 hours ago, Calm said: Since you included additional info about the son of Joseph Bishop and his wrongdoing (personally I think he should have been sued or penalized by the bar if possible for releasing the daughter’s name to the press, what a jerk), I am not convinced the full release was not orchestrated by someone close to Denson - the full release of the information played in her favor so well. (I do not recall the son being the one who released the name of the daughter, but that is neither here nor there.)
Calm Posted January 5, 2023 Posted January 5, 2023 (edited) 1 hour ago, provoman said: I am not convinced the full release was not orchestrated by someone close to Denson - the full release of the information played in her favor so well. (I do not recall the son being the one who released the name of the daughter, but that is neither here nor there.) It was in the info packet, iirc, that was sent to the press, wasn’t it? In an email chain? Edited January 5, 2023 by Calm
provoman Posted January 5, 2023 Posted January 5, 2023 1 hour ago, Calm said: It was in the info packet, iirc, that was sent to the press, wasn’t it? In an email chain? "Jordan shared his letter with Bishop’s son, Greg Bishop, who is acting as his father’s attorney, to use in any settlement efforts. Jordan did not share his letter with reporters, but Greg Bishop, who declined to comment for this story, copied some of the information about the victim — omitting mention of the adopted daughter’s name — and sent it to various news outlets as a way to defend his dad. The full letter has since leaked out." https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2018/04/04/a-woman-was-shocked-to-see-her-name-in-a-mormon-church-compiled-dossier-which-she-says-was-designed-to-discredit-her-birth-mother/
Calm Posted January 5, 2023 Posted January 5, 2023 (edited) 5 minutes ago, provoman said: "Jordan shared his letter with Bishop’s son, Greg Bishop, who is acting as his father’s attorney, to use in any settlement efforts. Jordan did not share his letter with reporters, but Greg Bishop, who declined to comment for this story, copied some of the information about the victim — omitting mention of the adopted daughter’s name — and sent it to various news outlets as a way to defend his dad. The full letter has since leaked out." https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2018/04/04/a-woman-was-shocked-to-see-her-name-in-a-mormon-church-compiled-dossier-which-she-says-was-designed-to-discredit-her-birth-mother/ Thanks for the reminder. So much to keep straight. I went and reread some materials just to be sure my criticisms were accurate. Funny what parts I had retained versus forgotten. Edited January 5, 2023 by Calm
helix Posted January 5, 2023 Posted January 5, 2023 (edited) 15 hours ago, puzzlehobbit said: If an accusation/allegation appears in a public court document, a police probable cause affidavit or other similar statement from law enforcement, a sheriff's office press release, or a reputable mainstream news publication, we generally will include it in our database, even if the accused is deceased Suppose I form a group to investigate Jews. We create a website: "Jew Crimes". It's just there to document all allegations and crimes against people who happen to be Jewish. Our group generates a clever process to automate and filter out all accused who aren't Jewish from those who are. After months of work, we have a list of thousands and thousands of Jews, and only Jews. I state: "The effort is not about gossip or making people upset - it's simply about shining a light on the topic of Jewish crimes within the religion and/or culture. We feel that for a long time, there's been a lot of secrecy there. How can we hope to tackle a problem if we don't even understand it? I invite all of you with research skills to help us." Oh, I forgot to mention, we will include people who were once Jewish but renounced it. Further, the standard just has to be that they were mentioned somewhere with visibility and related to Jews. A 20 year old dead Jew who was accused by a former coworker of insider trading on a popular YouTube channel? That's in the database. A former Jew who converted to Catholicism and later was convicted of fraud? That also goes in the database. Would you think that's ok? Edited January 5, 2023 by helix 2
helix Posted January 5, 2023 Posted January 5, 2023 (edited) On 1/2/2023 at 2:04 PM, smac97 said: Could you provide a citation to this (about the clerk saying he "had no idea the children had been abused")? I was not aware of that point. The witness here is Brother Fife (who was a clerk but became a 1st counselor when the excommunication occurred). Also And the part the key part where he slipped up a bit and stated/implied several times that he had no idea why the arrest occurred, or if any abuse was physical or sexual: On 1/2/2023 at 2:04 PM, smac97 said: Could you provide references for Adams having "had sex with ... several other women while married to Leizza"? From Leizza: She also added that he would go see the bishop for "the porn and the affairs and his mother." I'd have to go through the documents, but I recall another couple places where it was inferred he was ex'd due to these affairs. It looks like you found those in your follow-up post. Edited January 5, 2023 by helix 1
puzzlehobbit Posted January 5, 2023 Posted January 5, 2023 I've been up working on the FLOODLIT website almost all night, and need to get some rest. Thank you all for your feedback. I deeply appreciate your time and energy. I intend to address everybody's thoughts in time, hopefully by the end of this week. I'm sorry if I don't end up responding personally to every item of feedback here, but I will do my best. FLOODLIT's purpose is to help people learn about instances in which LDS church members were accused of committing sex crimes, or accused of failing to prevent or respond to sex crimes or allegations of sex crimes. Maybe the accused were guilty, maybe they weren't ... maybe the church was portrayed accurately, maybe it wasn't ... it's not FLOODLIT's goal to make those determinations. It's our goal to make it easier for people to follow these stories and get accurate information about them. I'm sorry if I have caused any confusion or upset feelings by not making that clear! In most cases, the people in our database were arrested and found guilty of sex crimes. In a few cases, they were publicly accused, but never arrested or charged. Thank you so much for your feedback on our posting policy. We've revised it in an attempt to be more clear: https://floodlit.org/posting-policy/ Please read that and let me know what you think I could do to make it better. Thank you! What's a better word than "tracking?" I can see how it can create confusion - sorry about that. I thought it would be clear to most people that tracking meant researching, reporting, looking into, following up on - not necessarily monitoring in real time. Hard to keep tabs on someone who's been dead a while. But there are cases like Paul Douglas Adams where the courts are still working on things years after the death of the accused. We've got to work on cleaning up and providing more and better source information for many of the cases in the database - thank you for pointing that out. The database is really only going to be as strong as its weakest entry, and fairness and accuracy are paramount here. I would never want to defame anyone, and I only want to tell the truth on FLOODLIT. As a sexual abuse survivor myself, and someone who has seen what tremendous damage false accusations can have, I want you all to understand that I am keenly aware of the balance that must be struck between listening with empathy to someone's story and taking great care to not lead anyone to be harmed or treated unfairly. We have a lot of people coming to us with allegations that will never make it into our database for a variety of reasons. I have personally spoken with abuse survivors who were abused by people in our database who were found guilty in court. I feel that I owe them my very best effort to present as accurate a picture as I can of how their story unfolded in public, how the case went through the courts, what the local LDS leadership did or didn't do, etc. Please, if you can spare a little time, let me know and we'd love to have you help us conduct research. That's how floodlights work - many little lights coming together to form a brilliant array. The more "floodlit" this topic can become - the more we are able to discuss it openly and accurately - I think the less abuse there will be in the world.
helix Posted January 5, 2023 Posted January 5, 2023 (edited) 1 hour ago, puzzlehobbit said: Please read that and let me know what you think I could do to make it better. Thank you! My advice: take the entire site down. This site is blatant bigotry. People who use their shovel in only one mud pit to dig up and publish accusations against only one group are bigots, by definition. Whether it be a site focused on publishing accusations against exclusively Jews, or exclusively Muslims, or Latter-day Saints, or Latinos, or Blacks, or Whites, or gays, etc. Such sites breeds hate. They mislead people into thinking that group must have a disproportionate problem because they hear less of problems from other groups. They persuade people that this group must be targeted out for heavier social or legal punishment. Others take up the cause and reinforce horrid stereotypes throughout society. They are sought after by people who are already predisposed to hate that group. Jews have been fighting against exactly such causes for centuries, and sadly, similar accusers still don't recognize when they start up the exact same thing against another group. Or they do, and they think it's deserved. Either way, the site is rooted in one fundamental flaw: bigotry. Edited January 5, 2023 by helix
Stormin' Mormon Posted January 5, 2023 Posted January 5, 2023 (edited) 1 hour ago, helix said: Such sites breeds hate. They mislead people into thinking that group must have a disproportionate problem because they hear less of problems from other groups. Agreed. According to Wikipedia, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children reports that there are 843,260 registered sex offenders in the US. Let's assume that their crimes were spread out over the period of 50 years, which means that each year there are 16,866 crimes committed that would get one put on such a registry. Let's further assume that all of those perps are male. With the male population of the US at 164 million, that means that 0.01% of men will commit a sex crime in a given year. There are 14,676 wards and branches in the US. In each ward or branch there is a bishopric or branch presidency consisting of 3 men. Add to that another 3 men who serve in young men's presidencies. I don't know if we still have young men's advisors, but let's add another 3 for them. Further, there are around 10 age groups in primary, each with 2 teachers. Let's assume that half of primary teachers are men, and say 10 in each ward. That means in each ward or branch there are 19 men who have access to children and youth, for a total of 278,844 such LDS men in the US. Further let's add stake presidencies and stake young men's presidencies to the mix. There are 1,671 stakes in the US with 6 men in each stake with access to youth, which makes 10,026 stake-level leaders in the US with access to youth. Add the two together we get 288,870 men in the US who may be interacting with children or youth one-on-one. If sex offender rates among the population of LDS leaders are the same as sex offender rates in the general US population, we would expect to see 29 such cases every year, or 580 over the last two decades. And that's only among the callings I specifically included in the above analysis. If we include any male LDS member, regardless of how active they are or in what callings they serve, we would expect to see 338 per year (based on a US LDS population of 6.8 million, half of which are presumed to be male) or 6,760 over the last two decades. Are those numbers anywhere close to what's in the Floodlit database? (I like to do these math analyses, not because I think the numbers will prove to be precise or exact, but because they can at least get us in the ballpark of reasonable expectation). Edited January 5, 2023 by Stormin' Mormon 1
provoman Posted January 5, 2023 Posted January 5, 2023 (edited) 2 hours ago, puzzlehobbit said: FLOODLIT's purpose is to help people learn about instances in which LDS church members were accused Is that the case? floodit will post information even when the accused is not a member of the LDS Church AND the acts were committed when the accused was no longer a a member of the LDS Church. While I understand somewhat of what floodit purpose; but I do question whether the claim about not casting misleading shadows Edited January 5, 2023 by provoman
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