“It's Not About The Sex” My Ass
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What to do when your church gets caught fibbing?

4/8/2016

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When the Internet no longer
lets you get ​away with
​“Those are anti-Mormon lies”

A new Salt Lake Tribune article by Peggy Fletcher Stack bears the generous title, “New Mormon mission: How to teach members the messy part of LDS history, theology.”

It is generous in that the Mormon Church had until recently dealt with its unsavory history with denials the likes of, “These are lies spread by anti-Mormons.” A reminder that good Mormons shouldn’t be reading that stuff often accompanied the denials.
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169 years ago, Mormon pioneers came in droves to Utah. According to at least one church official, today Mormons are leaving in droves.
But the LDS Church, despite claims of being led by a prophet, seer, and revelator, was taken unawares by Google and other search engines. Now able to check the facts for themselves, Mormons found out that the folks dredging up history hadn’t been lying. Their trusted church leaders had been.

The church is trying to recover. Tactics range from pretending never to have officially denied anything; to claiming never to have hidden but merely not to have emphasized certain information; to pathetic arguments put forth by the likes of Terryl Givens, with the church’s support, arguing that so long as the church makes you feel warm, fuzzy, and closer to its purported god, it doesn’t matter that its material claims aren’t factual. For some reason, people like Givens seem to prefer more cumbersome phrases, like “its material claims aren’t factual,” to shorter ones, like “it lied.”

Another tactic has been to attempt to own the issues and spin them in the church’s favor by unofficially endorsing Richard Bushman’s supposed tell-all, embarrassingly apologetic biography, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling, and by releasing essays dealing with issues from polygamy to racism. This the church touts as a new era of transparency. Never mind that “new era of transparency” implies a prior era of secrecy.

Moreover, it’s one thing to come clean of your own accord. Coming clean when you’re cornered isn’t integrity. It is damage control.


Asked if church leaders were aware that googling the church’s history was leading members to leave “in droves,” Marlin K. Jensen, emeritus member of the First Quorum of the Seventy and former Church Historian and Recorder said, “We are aware. … I often get this question, ‘Do the brethren really know?’ They do. … And they realize that, maybe, since Kirtland, we’ve never had a period of—I’ll call it apostasy—like we’re having right now, largely over these issues.” One wonders if his wrists were later slapped for letting that bit of candor slip.

Not coincidentally, church growth in countries with ready access to the Internet has slowed to a crawl.

Droves aside, the vast majority of Mormons remain. Many are wholly and happily unaware of the issues that have come to light, and not a few wouldn’t leave if they were aware. Many deny that there is any truth to damning events in the church’s history, including those the church has verified. Such is the power of cultism, tradition, and comfort.
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You can help stop ecclesiastical sex abuse

4/2/2016

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Just $5 will help stop
​ecclesiastical sex abuse

Yes, even in the Mormon Church
Let’s hope that revelations of ecclesiastical sexual abuse and coverups never become so commonplace that we fail to react with horror, treat every case as new, and provide needed support to every new victim who comes forth.

It would be naive to think that sexual abuse at the hands of ecclesiastical leaders occurs only in the Catholic Church. More and more Latter-day Saints are finding the courage to report sexual abuse at the hands of ordained leaders.

• Take, for instance, a woman whose Mormon bishop dispensed church funds in her time of need—on condition she give him oral sex. Twice.

• Or a teenage girl who was molested by a bishop’s son only to have the bishop tell her to be grateful she was chosen as one of the boy’s eternal companions.

• Or the fact that a number of victims have agreed to keep quiet in exchange for payment—taken from tithing funds. (If you’re one of them, the agreement is not binding. Keep the money and come forth.)

Two needs emerge. One is a place for victims to tell their stories in confidence, receive validation, and, if needed, receive professional counseling at no charge. The other is the action to expose these goings-on (while protecting those who wish to remain anonymous).

No one is interested in painting all LDS leaders with a broad brush. But for victims—and to spare potential future victims—it is vital to expose and stop the guilty and all who protect them, and to hold them accountable. Even Mormon doctrine calls for as much for the sake of their own salvation. (Doctrine and Covenants 19:15-20)

Restore Our Humanity has taken up the cause. No one there takes any pay, but their important work incurs expenses. They’re not asking for much. Even $5 will make a difference. Please help now by clicking here and on “donate.” FYI, we just did.
From the
RestoreOurHumanity.Org 
website (click on “issues”)
Restore Our Humanity: Sexual Abuse InitiativeRestore Our Humanity will be working on an ongoing project to address, expose and stop once and for all the rampant child abuse, abuse enablement and abuse cover up that has been taking place within the LDS Church and Boy Scouts of America.
This project will consist of 3 parts:

1) A probable lawsuit to hold the organizations responsible for covering up crimes and not reporting these to the authorities, and thereby becoming accomplices to criminal actions. If successful this could lead to civil actions and further litigation.

2) Media and documentary projects to allow Survivors to tell their stories and let the truth be heard.
3) A resource pool of healing professionals to be made available to all survivors and family who come forward in order to put them in touch with the best care, treatment and support for the duration of the project and beyond.
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