Article Re: Clergy/Penitent Privilege

[smac97]

1 hour ago, bluebell said:

Changed his mind in favor or against?

The link doesn't explicitly say, but it looks like "against," since it speaks of Bill taking a "brave and unexpected stance on a topic that has long been considered a cornerstone in the fight against abuse."

I give Bill credit for actually thinking this through, but his self-aggrandizing stuff sure is offputting.  "Bill Reel takes a brave and unexpected stance ..." "Join Bill Reel as he fearlessly explores..."

Thanks,

-Smac

[Tacenda]

2 hours ago, bluebell said:

Changed his mind in favor or against?

Against mostly, he changed his mind to think mandatory reporting isn't always best. He mentioned that it's not always what we think. From memory, poor memory, something about some mandatory reporters report things that are vague enough that there wasn't abuse really or not the kind of abuse that they need to put someone in jail over, or be ripped from their child. Something like a parent made a poor choice in how they treated a child or ? Many variables...but that the mandatory reporter felt that they had to report no matter what because of the law, but they may have not seen the picture or the whole picture clearly. I haven't had time to read the links, but in them maybe you'll see what he's saying and you don't even need to go to Bill's site. Which is anti, pretty much. Just think it helped me open my eyes.

Edited December 8, 2023 by Tacenda

[bluebell]

43 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

Against mostly, he changed his mind to think mandatory reporting isn't always best. He mentioned that it's not always what we think. From memory, poor memory, something about some mandatory reporters report things that are vague enough that there wasn't abuse really or not the kind of abuse that they need to put someone in jail over, or be ripped from their child. Something like a parent made a poor choice in how they treated a child or ? Many variables...but that the mandatory reporter felt that they had to report no matter what because of the law, but they may have not seen the picture or the whole picture clearly. I haven't had time to read the links, but in them maybe you'll see what he's saying and you don't even need to go to Bill's site. Which is anti, pretty much. Just think it helped me open my eyes.

 

[Tacenda]

deleted, need to say it better

 

Edited December 8, 2023 by Tacenda

[Benjamin McGuire]

18 hours ago, webbles said:

The second link appears to say that at least 3 people won the suit.  I haven't been able to find what suits those were yet.

Without knowing, I would guess that there are areas of overlap. Some churches provide counseling services in a less religious context, and you could certainly sue your minister for defamation if they were to divulge damaging information provided in private. Both of these kinds of issues would be within the broad area of priest-penitent confidentiality issues, but wouldn't directly deal with the issues we have been discussing.

But let's not lose sight of the original context here in this discussion. The fact that we are getting into the level of minutia argues for the fact that ministers in general are not breaking the law when they reveal something given in confidence as suggested by the article linked here.

[Benjamin McGuire]

23 hours ago, MiserereNobis said:

Catholic priests should rather go to jail than break the confessional. There are many historical examples of priests suffering death rather than breaking the seal. Breaking the confessional entails automatic excommunication. The canons of the Church supersede the laws of man.

They only supersede the laws of man in a religious context. You cannot use this as a defense in a court of law, and members of religions are subject to the laws of man just as every other member of society.

There are, I think, two points worth raising here. When a Catholic priest is aware of some evil that will be done, and does nothing to stop it, there is a degree of culpability in their (non) action. This culpability exists even if you believe that God will forgive them for it because of their religious role. Second, our society provides special benefits to religion that it does not provide to other organizations. These benefits come with some expectations on the part of the larger society. When religions turn away from those expectations, then perhaps they should lose the benefits that come to them. There is nothing within Catholicism itself (or Mormonism for that matter) that requires that they have formal recognition from the state as to their religious status (Mormonism has a history of functioning in places where it has no official recognition). Giving up that recognition would be one way in which the Catholic Church could forgo the need for mandatory reporting. It seems obvious (at least to me) that the Church is unwilling to forgo the benefits it receives from that formal recognition over this issue ...

[webbles]

4 minutes ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

Giving up that recognition would be one way in which the Catholic Church could forgo the need for mandatory reporting. It seems obvious (at least to me) that the Church is unwilling to forgo the benefits it receives from that formal recognition over this issue ...

I don't see how the laws for mandatory reporting have anything to do with whether the state "recognizes" the church.  You seem to be thinking that the government is only forcing established churches to be mandatory reporters, but I don't see anything related to that.  The laws usually just talk about "clergy", "church doctrine", or "church practice".  I'm pretty sure that if a child was abused and the clergy knew about, the child would still be able to sue the clergy for not following the mandatory reporting statue even if that clergy wasn't in an established church.

[Calm]

On 12/5/2023 at 10:35 AM, Benjamin McGuire said:

am (and have been) a mandatory reporter for a number of roles that I play in my professional and civic engagement.

These kinds of discussions often forget that mandatory reporting isn't simply about children. I deal much more frequently (at least in my professional career) with elder abuse than child abuse.

Ben, would you mind sharing a bit more detail about your work and “civic engagement” so I have a better grasp of your likely experiences that contribute to your POV?  If you don’t wish to, no problem.  I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.

I highly value your opinions as they appear balanced and informed to me whenever you choose to contribute and I want to understand your position here as well, but I am missing some links between your comments and want to make more connections…but I don’t want to harass you to fill in the gaps for me just because my brain is half asleep lately.  I plan on rereading your posts and am hoping that second time through will help my understanding of your points.  Not knowing exactly what you do is causing me to feel like I am missing something significant when you refer to it.

[Benjamin McGuire]

I don't really have sufficient time to respond to all the links offered in this thread, so I want to leave that part of the discussion with a few major points -

1: The question in the research isn't about whether or not mandatory reporting is helpful. The consensus is that mandatory reporting is a very helpful (and necessary) part of confronting real abuse in our society. The question is about who we should designate as mandatory reporters. Is it better to make more people mandatory reporting knowing that this will come with corresponding negative impacts (some of which can be mitigated)? How much training should reporters have? And how should we address the reality that reporters can only report on those they come into contact with (one of the reasons why educators are considered such an important part of this process - since they deal with most of the children in our country).

2: It appears that most of the negative impacts of expanded mandatory reporting are only indirectly caused by the expansion. It is easy to claim that using resources to track down reports of abuse that cannot be substantiated take resources away from investigating reports that can be substantiated. Such an argument is useful to those opposed to expanded mandatory reporting (or even mandatory reporting in general) but they come with an unwarranted assumption that the system needs to have a zero sum - that is, if we were willing to add more resources for investigations when expanding mandatory reporting, these kinds of negative consequences are trivialized. Some of the negative impacts of expanding mandatory reporting come from the 20% increase in actual cases of abuse - and the subsequent problems associated with dealing with them in a system that is already experiencing strained resources.

3: The intrusion by the government into other spheres of life (family and religion) is a far bigger problem. Subjective decision making makes this problem larger than it otherwise might be (that is, we all can recognize abuse in its extremes, we are less comfortable when it is a borderline issue) - and the intrusion into family life for those who are already living at the margins of society is problematic. We are concerned about the lack of due process in many of these cases. It seems, at times, that a segment of our society is willing to give far more autonomous rights to a fetus than to a toddler (places where we see the demand for rights for the fetus while at the same time claiming that parental rights are particularly important to preserve). It should also be obvious at the outset that this issue of expanding mandatory reporting impacts this issue significantly. If we were to have an abuse investigation into every family unit in the country, we would certainly have a much higher success rate at rooting out child abuse in our country. But, apart from the cost in resources to do this, the intrusion into our private lives by the government would feel intolerable to most of us. Perhaps we should work to limit the number of children without regular access to mandatory reporters? Should we eliminate home schooling? How do we balance the need to discover problems with the need for family autonomy and privacy?

4: Lastly, I think that we won't make the progress we want with some of these issues as long as we continue to support policies that encourage economic inequality, limit access to health care (including mental health care), and so on.

[Benjamin McGuire]

20 minutes ago, webbles said:

I don't see how the laws for mandatory reporting have anything to do with whether the state "recognizes" the church.  You seem to be thinking that the government is only forcing established churches to be mandatory reporters, but I don't see anything related to that.  The laws usually just talk about "clergy", "church doctrine", or "church practice".  I'm pretty sure that if a child was abused and the clergy knew about, the child would still be able to sue the clergy for not following the mandatory reporting statue even if that clergy wasn't in an established church.

Definitions matter once we start talking about lawsuits. It's difficult for me to accept the idea that you can have a "church doctrine" or "church practice" or even "clergy" in the absence of an established church. What I am suggesting is not that there isn't an organization but rather that the organization is formed using a different context than that of a religion - say, for example, that you organized your 'religion' as a for profit corporation.

[Tacenda]

15 minutes ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

I don't really have sufficient time to respond to all the links offered in this thread, so I want to leave that part of the discussion with a few major points -

1: The question in the research isn't about whether or not mandatory reporting is helpful. The consensus is that mandatory reporting is a very helpful (and necessary) part of confronting real abuse in our society. The question is about who we should designate as mandatory reporters. Is it better to make more people mandatory reporting knowing that this will come with corresponding negative impacts (some of which can be mitigated)? How much training should reporters have? And how should we address the reality that reporters can only report on those they come into contact with (one of the reasons why educators are considered such an important part of this process - since they deal with most of the children in our country).

2: It appears that most of the negative impacts of expanded mandatory reporting are only indirectly caused by the expansion. It is easy to claim that using resources to track down reports of abuse that cannot be substantiated take resources away from investigating reports that can be substantiated. Such an argument is useful to those opposed to expanded mandatory reporting (or even mandatory reporting in general) but they come with an unwarranted assumption that the system needs to have a zero sum - that is, if we were willing to add more resources for investigations when expanding mandatory reporting, these kinds of negative consequences are trivialized. Some of the negative impacts of expanding mandatory reporting come from the 20% increase in actual cases of abuse - and the subsequent problems associated with dealing with them in a system that is already experiencing strained resources.

3: The intrusion by the government into other spheres of life (family and religion) is a far bigger problem. Subjective decision making makes this problem larger than it otherwise might be (that is, we all can recognize abuse in its extremes, we are less comfortable when it is a borderline issue) - and the intrusion into family life for those who are already living at the margins of society is problematic. We are concerned about the lack of due process in many of these cases. It seems, at times, that a segment of our society is willing to give far more autonomous rights to a fetus than to a toddler (places where we see the demand for rights for the fetus while at the same time claiming that parental rights are particularly important to preserve). It should also be obvious at the outset that this issue of expanding mandatory reporting impacts this issue significantly. If we were to have an abuse investigation into every family unit in the country, we would certainly have a much higher success rate at rooting out child abuse in our country. But, apart from the cost in resources to do this, the intrusion into our private lives by the government would feel intolerable to most of us. Perhaps we should work to limit the number of children without regular access to mandatory reporters? Should we eliminate home schooling? How do we balance the need to discover problems with the need for family autonomy and privacy?

4: Lastly, I think that we won't make the progress we want with some of these issues as long as we continue to support policies that encourage economic inequality, limit access to health care (including mental health care), and so on.

This is key!! Thanks, I always feel smarter after reading your posts, for a moment at least.

From your post: 4: Lastly, I think that we won't make the progress we want with some of these issues as long as we continue to support policies that encourage economic inequality, limit access to health care (including mental health care), and so on.

Edited December 8, 2023 by Tacenda

[Benjamin McGuire]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

Ben, would you mind sharing a bit more detail about your work and “civic engagement” so I have a better grasp of your likely experiences that contribute to your POV?  If you don’t wish to, no problem.  I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.

Well I had this whole thing typed out and then the website did something funny ... so here is the short version -

I am a technologist (I know its a broad term). T hese days, I am much more of an administrator dealing with policy and management than I am in dealing with equipment. I have spent most of my professional career working for public agencies. Early on, I spent time working in the public school system. Following that, I moved into health care. Currently I am employed (and have been for almost twenty years) as the tech director for a county owned public health care agency.  Additionally, I have spent some time as a public school board member. I am currently a part of the planning board for a public regional healthcare coalition, and I sit on a state advisory committee dealing with healthcare information exchanges.

To try and give you a sense of where I am coming from, I would say this - there was a big shift when I switched from public education to health care. The issue of mandatory reporting wasn't really taken terribly seriously (it was far more important years later when I served on the school board). In healthcare, there was a great deal more education and involvement - with annual mandatory education. My personal role tends to be more administrative. I am often a participant in the investigation process - if not directly, then in helping others review documentation, video footage, and so on.

The organization where I work, while county owned, is overseen by a public DHHS board (Department of Health and Human Services) which is a blend of local and state leadership - our board members are chosen both locally and by the governor's office. While we fall under their governance, they also oversee other local DHHS agencies which include the groups that investigate and respond to abuse complaints as well as the placement of children (foster housing), and other social services. For the last fifteen years, I have been a religious participant at the DHHS board meetings. I have been through years of reporting about service staffing, case counts, case loads, the number of reports versus the number of substantiated cases, and data of that sort. What I recognize from this history is that there are never enough resources - that there are always efforts being made to help make large case loads manageable. Mandatory reporting laws didn't bring more resources to the table, just more work - and yet, they have worked very well in the contexts in which I have been exposed to them. By the time abuse is happening, there are no happy outcomes (at least not in the short term).

In my organizational roles, I have participated in regular (although infrequent) investigations into situations that we have had reported to us (including allegations of abuse placed against our staff). One thing that grows on you over time in positions like mine (at least it has for me) is a sense of ownership - a sense of responsibility and a need to protect all of those individuals placed under my care. My organization has always responded to every complaint and allegation - we have created a positive culture around our reporting requirements. Because of our commitment, we rarely have a serious substantiated problems involving our staff. My time as a school board member was more difficult - the cases I had to deal with there, while often very straight forward, often came with complicating factors - especially as we worked to create solutions that maintained safe and appropriate environments. Sometimes these were further complicated because due process takes longer than we would like. And sometimes decisions made by others are more arbitrary than I would like.

In any case, it is from this perspective that I approach this topic - it is somewhat personal for me. I think that we have this inherent conflict. On the one side, the need for our society to work to guarantee (as much as possible) the safety and well being of the members of our society - especially those who don't have an adequate voice of their own and who are unable to fully advocate for themselves. On the other, this problem of needing to balance this against the privacy and autonomy of families in their private spaces. And this means that on some level, there will always be a strong reactionary component to this sort of thing. And part of me believes that there is something useful in universal mandatory reporting (even if it isn't actively enforced) - it functions as a reminder that we all need to be our brother's keepers. If we see in every child our own and in each of our elderly community members our own parents - this notion of reporting becomes far less about the mandate and more about helping make sure that everyone is able to live, as much as possible, free from fear and hunger and preventable suffering. The more of us that are committed to this reality, the more likely we are to collectively reduce the abuse that is out there.

Finally, to touch back on that touchy part of the issue - I also think that if we can collectively be engaged, then when we see difficult situations, where there is neglect or hunger - not out of deliberate abuse but because of circumstances that are difficult to control - then perhaps we can come together as a society to prioritize eliminating poverty, increasing education, and in general working to make sure that everyone has a standard of living so that we don't have to confuse their life of necessity with abuse.

[Ryan Dahle]

On 3/8/2023 at 7:16 AM, Benjamin McGuire said:

Where is a bishop legally constrained from reporting abuse to law enforcement? There aren't any laws that make such a thing illegal.

Can you elaborate on this? If a church member confesses actions of abuse to a member of the clergy of a Church, and the state's laws make that confession a legally privileged communication, how would breaching that privilege not be illegal? For instance, the Idaho law stipulates: 

Quote

(b)  General rule of privilege. A person has a privilege to refuse to disclose and to prevent another from disclosing a confidential communication by the person to a clergyman in the clergyman's professional character as spiritual adviser.

(c)  Who may claim the privilege. The privilege may be claimed by the person, or for the person by the person's lawyer, the guardian or conservator, or by the personal representative if that person is deceased. The clergyman at the time of the communication may claim the privilege but only on behalf of the person. The authority of the clergyman to do so is presumed in the absence of evidence to the contrary.

What does this legal privilege mean if the clergyman can then disclose the confession contrary to the confessor's wishes without any legal consequences to the clergyman? Stated another way, if there is nothing legally barring the clergyman's unauthorized disclosure of the confession, then in what way is the confession legally "privileged"?

[Calm]

On 12/6/2023 at 12:07 PM, Benjamin McGuire said:

There is absolutely zero empirical evidence that any of these suggestions have an impact on abuse

While we might not know if teaching having both parents in the home actually lowers rates of abuse, it seems likely there is a direct connection between a community that publicly puts high value on both parents in the home and the fact that community has greater percentages of both parents in the home…don’t we have data that show LDS families are less likely to have single parents?  I could have sworn I saw this recently, but so far I am coming up with we marry more and have more children. (2014 Pew Religious Landscape research)

And isn’t there correlation between having both parents in a home and less likelihood of abuse?

[Calm]

33 minutes ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

then the website did something funny

I had the same issue, too many “connections” it said.  Most annoying.  Thank you for taking the time to redo it.  Your background sounds like it provides you with both depth and breadth on the issues.  
 

Quote

One thing that grows on you over time in positions like mine (at least it has for me) is a sense of ownership - a sense of responsibility and a need to protect all of those individuals placed under my care. 

I can well imagine this.  And I am thinking this likely leads to a greater commitment to support and protect solutions you have seen work as well as wanting to see more concrete, detailed solutions due to possible frustrations with seeing the effect of vague promises and poor followthrough.  Criticism of what I believe works (which implies discontinuing its use) without a pretty solid proactive program/policies ready to replace it would not give me confidence.

Edited December 9, 2023 by Calm

[Benjamin McGuire]

45 minutes ago, Ryan Dahle said:

Can you elaborate on this? If a church member confesses actions of abuse to a member of the clergy of a Church, and the state's laws make that confession a legally privileged communication, how would breaching that privilege not be illegal?

This isn't Idaho Law in the way that you suggest. You can look at see the context here. These are "Idaho Rules of Evidence Rule 505. Religious Privilege." The rule of evidence that you quote deals with evidence that is permissible in court as evidence. The only way that a clergyman might make such a statement in a relevant circumstance is if a prosecutor put him on the stand. The defense would then challenge any questions to the clergyman that would seek to uncover privileged information. If the prosecution introduced such testimony (against the evidence rules), it could be grounds for a mistrial.

This isn't a discussion of what is illegal or not illegal.

45 minutes ago, Ryan Dahle said:

What does this legal privilege mean if the clergyman can then disclose the confession contrary to the confessor's wishes without any legal consequences to the clergyman?

Think of it like attorney-client privilege. Are there repercussions if an attorney violates this privilege? He can lose his license to practice law. They may face other professional discipline. He could be sued if the disclosure caused harm of some sort. In the same way, a clergyman who violates this privilege can face professional discipline (i.e. can be censured by the church). A catholic priest might be excommunicated for it. But, unlike with an attorney, there is no regulated mechanism on the part of society for licensing clergymen. So, they cannot revoke his 'license.' And, unlike a situation with an attorney-client relationship, or a doctor-patient relationship, the penitent-priest relationship isn't regulated by the government and isn't under some sort of contract - meaning that there isn't some sort of legal obligation here that can be exploited with a lawsuit. And to be frank, we don't really want the government to try and define the priest-congregant relationship.

45 minutes ago, Ryan Dahle said:

Stated another way, if there is nothing legally barring the clergyman's unauthorized disclosure of the confession, then in what way is the confession legally "privileged"?

The legal privilege is that the defendant in a trial is allowed to prevent all privileged testimony from being entered as evidence in a trial. It could be complete public knowledge, due to a breach of that confidence, and it would still be inadmissible. You might notice in the Idaho law that it doesn't limit the revelation of the information to the clergyman: "to prevent another from disclosing a confidential communication by the person to a clergyman in the clergyman's professional character as spiritual adviser." If the statement were recorded, and the record was provided to the prosecutor, the prosecutor could use such a statement to further his investigation, but he could not present it as evidence in a trial.

This is what is meant by privilege. Different states have more or less restrictive rules for priest-penitent privilege.

Edited December 9, 2023 by Benjamin McGuire

[Benjamin McGuire]

38 minutes ago, Calm said:

And isn’t there correlation between having both parents in a home and less likelihood of abuse?

Yes and no ...

Yes if we are dealing with original parents and they are married (intact married family).

Not so much in all other circumstances.

You might look here and here.

These factors also align with other related risk factors. An even stronger risk factor than family construction is poverty. We have to be careful in trying to argue for causation here. There is a really high level of correspondence between family structure and poverty. In the U.S. right now, around 75% of children in poverty are living in a non-intact family. Certainly both poverty and non-intact family status are risk factors for abuse.

A last point on this - since people are marrying later, and marriages are becoming more stable (even if less frequent), I would expect that the gap between married intact families and a lack of abuse would continue to trend in this direction - these are more stable relationships with much better economic status and fewer children.

Edited December 9, 2023 by Benjamin McGuire

[Calm]

dup

Edited December 9, 2023 by Calm

[MiserereNobis]

38 minutes ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

A catholic priest might be excommunicated for it.

A Catholic priest is automatically excommunicated if he breaks the confessional seal. There is no might about it. It happens automatically -- no bishop needs to declare it. This excommunication can only be lifted by the Pope.

[Smiley McGee]

17 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

When a Catholic priest is aware of some evil that will be done, and does nothing to stop it, there is a degree of culpability in their (non) action.

No no. Doing something would restrict the free will of the offender. By doing nothing the priest is accomplishing some greater good. 

[Danzo]

One of my big problems with mandatory reporting is that it highly encourages (forces, if you read the letter of the law) people to use only one solution when they suspect abuse, call the cops!

I personally have experienced the disruption, fear and helplessness when someone used that approach on us 35 years ago.  It produced a trauma that resonates with our family to this day.  to have the cops raid the home, physically assault our mother take away a family member was not a very happy experience.  And this was over a what everyone later (after very traumatic experiences) admitted was a misunderstanding.  All because someone felt obligated to "Call the cops"

Currently I am married to someone who grew up very poor.  At age thirteen, her parents sent her to the US to work in the fields (Call the Cops!) and live with her sister in a house full of people (Call the Cops!).   They were very poor (Call the Cops!). My mother in law was married at age 14(call the cops!) in an arranged marriage (Call the Cops!). to someone she is still happily married to 60 years later.

Fortunately,  My wife joined the church when she was thirteen, and instead of calling the cops various church members reached out to her and helped her.  She has a least three non biological  "mothers" that helped take care of her, helped her get the what she needed both physically, emotionally and spiritually.

I shudder to think what could have happened if these people  felt obligated to call the cops as mandatory reporters instead of providing help that was needed.  She could have ended up in some group home or worse. 

[Tacenda]

7 hours ago, Danzo said:

One of my big problems with mandatory reporting is that it highly encourages (forces, if you read the letter of the law) people to use only one solution when they suspect abuse, call the cops!

I personally have experienced the disruption, fear and helplessness when someone used that approach on us 35 years ago.  It produced a trauma that resonates with our family to this day.  to have the cops raid the home, physically assault our mother take away a family member was not a very happy experience.  And this was over a what everyone later (after very traumatic experiences) admitted was a misunderstanding.  All because someone felt obligated to "Call the cops"

Currently I am married to someone who grew up very poor.  At age thirteen, her parents sent her to the US to work in the fields (Call the Cops!) and live with her sister in a house full of people (Call the Cops!).   They were very poor (Call the Cops!). My mother in law was married at age 14(call the cops!) in an arranged marriage (Call the Cops!). to someone she is still happily married to 60 years later.

Fortunately,  My wife joined the church when she was thirteen, and instead of calling the cops various church members reached out to her and helped her.  She has a least three non biological  "mothers" that helped take care of her, helped her get the what she needed both physically, emotionally and spiritually.

I shudder to think what could have happened if these people  felt obligated to call the cops as mandatory reporters instead of providing help that was needed.  She could have ended up in some group home or worse. 

Thanks for this example, that speaks volumes! 

[Benjamin McGuire]

19 hours ago, Danzo said:

My mother in law was married at age 14(call the cops!) in an arranged marriage (Call the Cops!). to someone she is still happily married to 60 years later.

We just aren't going to see eye to eye about this. This is awful. The fact that we can find anecdotal examples where something turns out good doesn't justify all of the bad that occurs in similar situations, and doesn't change the fact that this was a fundamentally bad thing that occurred to your mother-in-law.

[Tacenda]

39 minutes ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

We just aren't going to see eye to eye about this. This is awful. The fact that we can find anecdotal examples where something turns out good doesn't justify all of the bad that occurs in similar situations, and doesn't change the fact that this was a fundamentally bad thing that occurred to your mother-in-law.

This is quite the dilemma. 

[bluebell]

1 hour ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

We just aren't going to see eye to eye about this. This is awful. The fact that we can find anecdotal examples where something turns out good doesn't justify all of the bad that occurs in similar situations, and doesn't change the fact that this was a fundamentally bad thing that occurred to your mother-in-law.

How is being married at 14 "fundamentally" bad?