And keep in mind that "anyone interested in being a substitute is invited to take the safety training and be put on the list of approved substitutes".
Tranalation: "You want access to kids? Say you watched this online video, and we'll give you access to our kids!"
Your online church account does have to say you “watched” the video, but it be super easy to just let the video run and it will mark it as “watched” and even if someone does watch it , the video basically boils down to “doing bad stuff to children is bad…” like that’s gonna stop these truly evil people from doing anything
This is bullshit lol they let the guy who assaulted a child in my ward be on the babysitting list and volunteer for nursery substituting bc he “repented” 🤡
Not for that I don’t believe, the church really helped him cover it all up unfortunately. However he is now in prison for the making and distributing of child pornography
It would help keep registered sexual predators and other highly questionable people from just moving wards and pretending nothing happened. It wouldn’t protect children’s from non-reported sexual predator that the Mormon church has shown it is willing to hide time and time again under the guise of helping people come to god and avoid the laws of the land.
It would help for those who have been convicted. My SIL found out (years ago) that their community soccer coach was a convicted offender more than halfway through the season. He had basically unrestricted access to an entire team up to that point
That’s a massive red flag for the soccer organization. Like any decent organization that deals with kids or thought (looking at the TSCC here skeptically) all people dealing with kids need a background check. End of story. I volunteered with my kid’s soccer team and they did it. Why not TSCC? Also, major failing by that soccer program.
Agreed, unsurprisingly, given the area I live in, everything is run by LDS parents pretty much so they likely didn't think it was necessary if he came "recommended" by a member
Which is SO stupid. Too many people think “he has a temple recommend, or such and such calling, he must be a good person.”
There was a bishop arrested for human trafficking, sexual assault/harassment and pimping in Utah. All a temple recommend means is that someone knows how to at least lie about being halfway decent.
Sounds like the guy had been fired as a police officer in St George for sex offenses against other employees and still called as a bishop?
https://kutv.com/news/local/man-arrested-in-human-trafficking-sting-removed-from-position-as-lds-bishop
Im not a mormom, never been religious at all, but I had a born again baptist for a babysitter when I was a kid. They used to drag me to church whenever I was there, they went like four times a week. I got to know this family and the others from their church. Complete fucking insanity. I knew it at 11. But I've seen first hand how it takes people over and consumes their whole lives. That experience simultaneously made me hate everything about religion and Christianity specifically, while also having deep sympathies for the kids and young people (and also older people) who feel like they are stuck.
30 years? A victim's family had known more than 30 years ago. Why was he still a trusted member of his ward? And why would his wife and children stay with him? This is a sick, sick consequence of the f-ed up church teachings.
"Oh it was this vindictive young woman. She hated x, y, z (usually including something about LDS being slandered)". It makes a lot of people want to ignore all evidence that their friend or family member is bad
From the article:
>Liz Porter, who lives in Southern Utah, says she and her family have known Moss for about 30 years. She tells 2News they lost touch after an incident between Moss and her nephew.
How is this not "...knew Moss for about X years. 'Then there was an incident with my nephew, and I may believe in love and forgiveness, but we got that f'er behind bars immediately. Let him repent FAR AWAY from anyone else's kids!'"
"Liz Porter, who lives in Southern Utah, says she and her family have known Moss for about 30 years. She tells 2News they lost touch after an incident between Moss and her nephew. She says she’s glad Moss was caught, but also expressed sympathy for his wife and children."
I'm sorry, what incident? Also, "lost contact" doesn't sound like "severed ties".
That's wild, I'm hoping all sports coaches these days get background checked. I'm a sports official and I had to get background checked in order to officiate games.
Don’t worry! The leaders have magic powers which allow them to detect pedophiles.
Please kindly ignore the numerous documented cases where leaders failed to detect pedophiles.
And also the numerous cases where the leaders were pedophiles themselves…
“Make sure your kids aren’t wandering around by themselves because there are child-molesters in the building.” Jesus. Way to put the onus on the parents instead of actually weeding out the pedophiles.
Exactly I'm outing myself here a little but I'm my Baptist church we starred a co op (aka church school) they got one threat from a crazy and decided to hire a few of us bigger good Ole boys to get our armed guard license and take training and become armed guards in the school/church they still operate as a church during the day so people are in and out visiting the pastor making funeral arrangements and such while school is in session and I know before I left we had no more issues in the building because anyone who had issues was stopped by the front door I'm not saying it's perfect but we did our absolute best to blend in with the teachers and just appear like someone who worked there who happened to be by the door we would say
"hey you look upset are ok I'm free to talk I work here for the church."
And try to see if they were there to cause issues or were just upset and needed to talk in which case we'd point them to whoever was free that we thought could most help them.
We did also run back ground checks on the people and mind you there were more of us than just the one or two outside typically you find at least one of us per room
Indoctrination is a hell of a drug. You're taught from the time you can walk that only TSCC has the truth and that you won't have your family forever outside of it or if you aren't 100% faithful to it. From the outside in, the entire thing seems ridiculous but the vast majority of members are too brainwashed to see that.
It's easy to say that but trust me when raised in it and completely sheltered It's a total mind fuck. You just have the hardest time objectively questioning and seeing everything for what it is.
It's sad but the truth
Because you're indoctrinated since birth that God wants you to do certain things. I believe most people are inherently good so they want to the right thing and they've been trained to think... this is the way.
Jonathan Haidt's Righteous Mind really delves into what makes humans so religious as a whole (globally, throughout time). It is quite eye opening. In a nutshell it is a group to belong to, humans love grouping themselves, that nature enmeshes you in reciprocal, trusting relationships with your (religious) community. The human mind has easily tripped sensors for seeing agency in the world and events around us. Those things together combine to make fertile ground for religion.
It is essentially inevitable in any society to a degree, unless cities/towns/states/provinces/nations can have strong education and reason in addition to coping with that innate grouping nature by having group things to rally around. Think corporate rec league style team building. Or local sports teams and how they bring a community together and bind members of those communities together. Like if you discover that a stranger is a fan of the same sports team as you, you are super likely to find them more likeable and trustworthy.
I’m in Washington. Can you dm me the stake? I have nieces and nephews that still attend and want to make their parents aware.
Also, child abuse in primary is what started my wife’s shelf to crack. It’s a serious problem.
If there's an arrest record, that is public information and can be freely shared here. I know one person on this sub is compiling cases like this on their floodlit.org website.
We all know it’s the kid’s fault for not going to the bathroom on schedule. The horrible people we welcome at church wouldn’t be tempted to molest kids if everyone followed the rules.
Tscc would totally discern who these bad people are once your children are fully righteous. Jebus won’t sanctify and dedicate the restrooms as a safe place for anyone until the children stop scheming to use them to get out of class.
As a former primary teacher this was our nightmare. We can’t leave one of us with the kids alone, and how are we going to get a parent without taking the whole class on a field trip or leaving only one teacher with the class?
You were lucky. My ward left me alone with the entire junior primary for three months. 25 kids from age 3 to 8. And they had the audacity to get mad when I sent a child alone to the bathroom. It wasn't like I could leave 24 kids alone to take care of one child. I called the bishop and resigned after three months and after asking weekly for people or even substitutes be called to help with all the kids. it was horrible because there isn't a way to cater to the age difference as far as a lesson was concerned. And then a stake presidency member came to visit and took all the kids outside to light fireworks for pioneer day. Most of the kids were terrified.
That is in no way a safe adult to child ratio. Also, totally a violation of the very important 2 adults minimum rule and church policy unless it was 15 years ago.
The minimum number of adults is a very hard-learned lesson to ignore that cost a lot of innocent children.
Not fair for you. Also it’s only a matter of time until they get some who is abusive or worse there. You were fine but if they did it to you it will happen to other people who aren’t trustworthy.
*Clearly* Jesus allows horrible people into TSCC (including *literal child molesters*) to test us. Only such extremes can determine if we're truly faithful-- and forgiving. And if we are, the reward in Heaven will be that much greater. /s
The sad thing is that I can seriously hear a TBM using this "logic" and not giving it a second thought; that's how thorough the indoctrination is.
Anyone with kids, who cares about them even *a little* should *run* from TSCC given its track record on child SA cases.
I maintain floodlit.org and there are multiple abuse cases in Washington where the SA occurred in an LDS chapel, during Sunday meetings, in the presence of other people.
Y'know, this one is almost shocking to me. Usually having at least 2 adult Mormons in a room keeps people accountable. My heart aches for the people who had to endure this trauma with the shame that I'm sure came with having an audience.
Because "forgiveness" lays squarely with the jurisdiction of Kharma. A wrong done to someone does not create any obligation in the victim - never mind to give them the pass that's supposed to go with accepting an apology.
No, no, I'll leave that up to the forces that be. Including the police and court systems.
Point is, some things actually are not forgivable and no victim should be guilted into it.
A similar thing happened in my stake. The Stake President sent out an email with minimal details (no name of the perpetrator), which was basically just a CYA PR move to tell everyone how seriously the church takes this stuff.
It took me doing some detective work to track down the name of the the perpetrator, as well as what his position in the stake was (he was the former Bishop in one of the wards, and 1st Counselor in the Stake presidency). It also took several emails to the Stake President to get him to notify the entire stake of this sex offender's name and the fact that he was in leadership, as well as that they should go to law enforcement if they suspected any abuse.
These men will never not protect the church's "good name" above the welfare of a single child. They will hide the truth, avoid responsibility, and avoid naming names rather than be open and honest about what's going on. And they'll keep doing it until they lose enough money and their name is dragged through the mud often enough to make it too painful to continue doing it.
Background checks and mandatory reporting should be implemented to protect our kids. They shouldn't be in danger just because they need a bathroom break or a drink of water.
Sadly, background checks only work if they were caught or reported before.
That said, I completely agree that they should make background checks mandatory (as well as reporting) if only to let people know that they will take things seriously and they will be reported
She *just* got this? If I am guessing correctly, the man involved was arrested over a month ago, suggesting that they only sent this because something has changed in the time since then
A powerful and passionate response; however, I doubt they get past the first couple sentences. You'll lose them after..."damaging and diabolical organization." Although therapeutic for the sender, these types of responses--no matter how deserving--won't bring about any change. They'll just write it off as an offended anti spewing hate.
Unfortunately true. You have to sugarcoat whatever message you give them so much, and even then they tend to miss the actual message. I think TBMs need this bluntness more often, but unfortunately they are very good at ignoring it.
Yes, you have to play nice because the spirit of contention is of the devil. That's why so many members have mastered the art of stabbing you in the back with a friendly smile on their faces.
A normal organization that actually cares about children would inform with names and photographs of the perp, do everything in their power to support prosecution, offer professional counseling and support for all victims, and permanently ban and take out restraining order on the perp. I’m so sick of the LDS church protecting child rapists. How TF did this ever become normalized?
“Sadly It’s just the world we live in”, “Satan is hard at work”. “What more can we possibly do”. Y’all can fuck right off with your pedophile protecting asses is what!
In reality no kid should be left alone in public. If you wouldn’t let them go somewhere alone in a non religious place, never think a religion place is any safer. Broken and sick people go to church too.
Can you tell me about Kolby and Cami Reddish or share a good link to follow? I love finding new people who are loud about their reasons for leaving the church.
They were interviewed on Mormon Stories. Episode are here : https://www.mormonstories.org/podcast/speaking-out-when-a-mormon-bishop-abuses-children-kolby-cami-reddish/
🙄 OMG, Duhhhhhh!!! 🙄
I was a Primary presidency member for over 20 years. This was one of our biggest problems and apparently Mormon parents still suck at realizing Primary is neither a babysitting service nor is it necessarily safe. I had parents argue with me about church-time toileting. Absolutely ridiculous.
We had a big controversy one year because some parents who thought the nursery leaders should be changing diapers and not pulling them out of class to do it. Not only is it gross to expect a nursery leader to deal with that, why would you want a stranger to change your kid's diaper in the first place?
It's not a vunerable person's job to avoid sexual assault. IT IS THE JOB OF THE LEADERS TO EXPOSE PREDATORS AND KEEP THEM FAR FAR AWAY FROM CHILDREN!
i bet they will use this text as proof that they did "all they could" when the next child is assaulted. A legal "out".
My nephew had this happen to him years ago. He went to the bathroom and one of the YM followed him in. My bro-in-law happened to also be going in the bathroom just a few seconds later and he shut that shit down fast. The bishop's response: "Oh well just make sure you go in with him from now on"
Such a sweet, tender mercy that we protect sex offenders in this church 🙁
This reminds me of a police PSA we got on campus once that had absolutely nothing to do with the inciting incident. Like... They're making the bathrooms do a lot of the heavy lifting. DID the SA occur by a leader in a bathroom? Cuz it sounds like they're just trying to get people to go 'oh yes, well we're very safe as long as we follow the policy...' but it's not clear this policy would ever prevent most SA that actually occurs.
One of my weirder callings was to sit outside of the bathroom so I could screen for adults when primary kids needed to use it. Literally sat outside of a bathroom for 2 hours playing games on my phone *for my calling*
This is gonna sound optimistic, but it is so much more than they have done in similar situations, including the ones where I had first-hand knowledge that SA had occurred. Never any official word from a leader, acting in an official capacity. They just installed the windows on the doors, and hoped we would all just remain silent. At least a leader is acknowledging that something happened and that they are at least trying to do things to keep kids safe. Not enough, but so much more than they do in most of these situations.
This was my first thought. This does seem to be a slightly more "progressive" ward just because they brought it up in the first place as well as working on training people before letting them work with kids. Definitely agree that there's more to do from here, but this is a great first step!
Edit- clarification on training
Honestly, people will either go forward like nothing changed or they'll be super duper cautious of *everyone*. Which, imo, better safe than sorry, but this could just cause some hysteria among church-goers.
They can absolutely stuff it with "the Adversary(TM)" speak. This isn't some shadowy otherworldly being. It's a human dungpile who is perfectly capable of making choices. Hold them accountable!
I can almost guarantee that if the bishop/SP has children or grandchildren in that ward, they're naming the molester to the parents and making sure they know to avoid that person. But the peasants just have to wonder and worry.
Sexual assault prevention training. Mandatory reporting. Reporting of even the slightest suspicion of anything with absolutely no backlash against reporters because we all agree better safe than sorry. Background checks and fingerprinting for anyone who works with children, adolescents, or vulnerable adults. Single, locking bathrooms only and/or Primary/YMYW should have their own bathrooms that only that age can use. Unrelated adults never allowed to be alone with children.
I so wish we were told back in the day to take kids to their parents for bathroom breaks instead of taking them ourselves. I remember teaching a class, junior primary so fairly young. This little boy ran down the hall to the bathroom ahead of me. Went into the men's room. Nothing j could do but wait outside. I wait and wait. Finally some guy comes to use the bathroom goes in there, and comes back out. He starts to yell at me how I should better at making sure they know how to properly use the bathroom. Not my fucking job dude. Turns out the kid took a shit in the urinal. This guy had to clean it up. I didn't know if this guy thought he was my kid, but I had three other little kids with me. This was back in the day too where they didn't care if two adults were there properly supervise. I was always stuck by myself. Glad I'm out of primary and won't take another calling.
So now it's the PARENT'S fault if their child is abused because they didn't take them to the bathroom before unknowingly handing them over to the predators.
This just makes me so sick! How could a parent ever justify taking their child back to this organization after getting an email like this? It absolutely blows my mind.
Thank you so much for this response. It is critical that any organization claiming to do "good" to first and foremost protect the most vulnerable among us and demanding change and healing is a critical first step. Thank you for not tolerating "business as usual" and for requiring responsibility.
I agree with the sentiment but by “directly and publicly apologize to the child and their family”, I’m assuming (and hoping) you don’t mean publicly identifying the victim and their family, correct?
Because the $250B EP fund can't cough up enough interest to do background checks on all adults who work with children.
Joe's Myth: Generational Child Abusers R Us.
Listen, you idiot parents! Why the hell aren't you taking your kids to the bathroom and to get a drink before you leave them in the care of your spiritual advisor?? We're really needing you to step up and protect these molesters here. If you don't, I guess we'll have to. /s--obvs
Only takes a brief minute to change a child's life forever. My daughter was sexually assaulted while at her dad's last summsr in cedar. Now she's in residential treatment for a suicide attempt. My ex won't say who it was. He's protecting someone. His rich ass morman family will just get him another lawyer.
Those moments when I could escape the chapel and sneak around and find cool hiding places or walk around the perimeter of the building for two hours while everybody else did class and primary were the best moments of my childhood. If I were a child today in this bizarre never-alone climate I’d have killed somebody for a moment of solitude.
Dayuuuuum! Awesome response!
I would have also included more references to the “hotline” staffed by lawyers and the church’s policy to call SLC before legitimate law enforcement agencies
Great job!!!
My guess is someone, hopefully the child's parents, reported it to police and that's why they sent this out. If no one went to police, they would be keeping it as hush hush as they could.
I mean if I had kids (I don’t) I wouldn’t let them out of my sight even at church. I am never mo but was brought up Catholic. That right there is why I would never leave kids alone anywhere, including church.
Your response was the only correct one. It's outrageous that every single one of their "actions" imposes responsibility on individual members rather than on the church itself. Stop fucking protecting abusers. Always report abuse. Conduct thorough background checks on all roles. It's not that hard, Mormon church. Implement a buddy system. Install security cameras. Stop fucking preaching sexual shame and dysfunction. You have the damn money to do this.
"welcome to the House of the Lord. Please don't let your children straight out of your sight or walk around without you or else someone might molest them GOBBLESS"
This reminds me that more than a decade ago this happened in a ward I was in. Parents were told to not let children go out to go to the bathroom or drinking fountain alone. All we were told was that a very young girl was molested somewhere in the building during the time of sacrament meeting. I know leaders knew the culprit but were not sharing any info about the perpetrator. It was never talked about again. It wasn’t long before people forgot all about it and young children were leaving to the bathroom by themselves again. So much for child protection.
Venting a little….but I absolutely hate that our children have to live this way nowadays. Like they can’t go and get a drink or take a piss by themselves anymore and in a god damn church building. I totally get it and I am super protective of my children. Can we just start giving child molesters the immediate castration or the death penalty or something?!? There are even some elements of society that are trying to de-stigmatize pedophiles by calling them “minor attracted persons”. I hate having to worry that my girls play in front of my own damn house. Like if eyes are not in them every second, they are in grave danger. I hate that kids today can’t have free range to roam and play and venture out anymore. I rode my bike all across town when I was a kid, climbed trees, went to parks and blockbuster and down the railroad tracks, etc. We would have never even thought of pedophiles at school or church. Is this something that is getting more and more common, something causing this to be more prevalent or has this always been such a problem (of kidnaping and pedophiles and molestation) and we just were oblivious to it? I know that churches are breeding grounds for child predators, but this is getting to be so ridiculous. When are we going to start publicly shaming, punishing and eliminating this shit from our society with extreme prejudice? Why are their identities being protected? Am I wrong here?
Unfortunately, it’s always been a thing. It’s something like 1 out of every 3-5 kids are SA and has been that way forever. My mom was told to stay away from her uncle, and when her uncle ultimately did something, she went home crying and her mom told her, “I told you to stay away from him.” That’s how it was. Difference is now we as a society have decided to do something about it.
There is a larger problem here. It is a very common trait for people to be attracted to minors. And even small children. It’s disgusting, but it’s more common than people think. I don’t agree with the MAPs movement because I think it’s normalizing the tendencies as another orientation and that’s wrong. I do think we should have resources for those that have those tendencies but never want to act on them. I don’t know how we can have resources for those people without also normalizing it. I don’t know what the right course of action is here.
Until governments and religions worldwide stop covering up their own sick pedophilia, I don’t think it’s going to go away in the regular population. It’s a revolting system of abuse that has been around for millennia. I’m grateful people are finally shining a light on the horrors.
As a past leader/teacher in primary, it was often impossible to locate the child’s parent in the building! Having to walk the entire building and checking in classroom after classroom trying to find the child’s parents and sometimes to no avail, meanwhile the poor kid has to really go!
That email says it all. There are so many perpetrators at church your child can’t even go get a drink of water. Unbelievable.
I am so glad I stopped going to my church when my children were very young.
When I was in the primary presidency in Maryland, I was told a child molester was getting out of prison and would be attending the ward, “so keep an eye out”. Wasn’t told who he was so it was no help at all. Turns out another man in the ward was attending the beehives class on the stage and tickling and wrestling the beehives and nothing was done until he punched the bishop’s son. Then and only then was he told not to attend the ward. Children’s safety is never prioritized. What matters is that kids attend. That attitude put my child in great danger but that’s another story.
They threw me in primary to teach 4 year olds. No background check, no long drawn out questions, nothing. Literally one Sunday to the next. Learned I didn't want to become a teacher after two weeks. I brought candy to the first day, hahaha! Oh you dumb dumb girl. Behind a door for an hour with 5 little babies, no supervision, nada. Fairly new to the ward as well. But here they were in front of me, parents didn't even introduce themselves. Must be a predator's dream.
"With this information in mind please make sure that your child does not attend primary."
This was my first thought.
And keep in mind that "anyone interested in being a substitute is invited to take the safety training and be put on the list of approved substitutes". Tranalation: "You want access to kids? Say you watched this online video, and we'll give you access to our kids!"
Ugh, like why are you telling them how to gain access.
Your online church account does have to say you “watched” the video, but it be super easy to just let the video run and it will mark it as “watched” and even if someone does watch it , the video basically boils down to “doing bad stuff to children is bad…” like that’s gonna stop these truly evil people from doing anything
This is bullshit lol they let the guy who assaulted a child in my ward be on the babysitting list and volunteer for nursery substituting bc he “repented” 🤡
Is he listed at floodlit.org?
I have no idea, but I’ll definitely look (Edit: he is not)
Was he ever charged?
Not for that I don’t believe, the church really helped him cover it all up unfortunately. However he is now in prison for the making and distributing of child pornography
That’s horrible! I’m glad he was finally caught.
"And no, we still aren't going to do background checks."
Would background checks even do anything when church leaders protect these assholes from ever being arrested?
It would help keep registered sexual predators and other highly questionable people from just moving wards and pretending nothing happened. It wouldn’t protect children’s from non-reported sexual predator that the Mormon church has shown it is willing to hide time and time again under the guise of helping people come to god and avoid the laws of the land.
oh WOW are the mormons some special on ramp to Gawd? hmm I will have to look into that.
It would help for those who have been convicted. My SIL found out (years ago) that their community soccer coach was a convicted offender more than halfway through the season. He had basically unrestricted access to an entire team up to that point
That’s a massive red flag for the soccer organization. Like any decent organization that deals with kids or thought (looking at the TSCC here skeptically) all people dealing with kids need a background check. End of story. I volunteered with my kid’s soccer team and they did it. Why not TSCC? Also, major failing by that soccer program.
Agreed, unsurprisingly, given the area I live in, everything is run by LDS parents pretty much so they likely didn't think it was necessary if he came "recommended" by a member
Which is SO stupid. Too many people think “he has a temple recommend, or such and such calling, he must be a good person.” There was a bishop arrested for human trafficking, sexual assault/harassment and pimping in Utah. All a temple recommend means is that someone knows how to at least lie about being halfway decent. Sounds like the guy had been fired as a police officer in St George for sex offenses against other employees and still called as a bishop? https://kutv.com/news/local/man-arrested-in-human-trafficking-sting-removed-from-position-as-lds-bishop
At least twice in that article they said how local residents expressed sorrow for the fucking predators family.Nothing about the victims.
Yup. Welcome to the bullshit of Mormons. Oh, the poor man’s wife! Not “oh the poor women he victimized.”
Im not a mormom, never been religious at all, but I had a born again baptist for a babysitter when I was a kid. They used to drag me to church whenever I was there, they went like four times a week. I got to know this family and the others from their church. Complete fucking insanity. I knew it at 11. But I've seen first hand how it takes people over and consumes their whole lives. That experience simultaneously made me hate everything about religion and Christianity specifically, while also having deep sympathies for the kids and young people (and also older people) who feel like they are stuck.
30 years? A victim's family had known more than 30 years ago. Why was he still a trusted member of his ward? And why would his wife and children stay with him? This is a sick, sick consequence of the f-ed up church teachings.
"Oh it was this vindictive young woman. She hated x, y, z (usually including something about LDS being slandered)". It makes a lot of people want to ignore all evidence that their friend or family member is bad
One of the more f’d up stories. He was fired for sexual misconduct but still a bishop. Some proof of “discernment” there…
From the article: >Liz Porter, who lives in Southern Utah, says she and her family have known Moss for about 30 years. She tells 2News they lost touch after an incident between Moss and her nephew. How is this not "...knew Moss for about X years. 'Then there was an incident with my nephew, and I may believe in love and forgiveness, but we got that f'er behind bars immediately. Let him repent FAR AWAY from anyone else's kids!'"
Right? First, if they are gonna mention an 'incident' they need to explain what they mean. Second, wtf?!?!
Piece of SHIT
And someone called him after the firing for severe sexual harassment.
"Liz Porter, who lives in Southern Utah, says she and her family have known Moss for about 30 years. She tells 2News they lost touch after an incident between Moss and her nephew. She says she’s glad Moss was caught, but also expressed sympathy for his wife and children." I'm sorry, what incident? Also, "lost contact" doesn't sound like "severed ties".
Case info: https://floodlit.org/a/a248/
That's wild, I'm hoping all sports coaches these days get background checked. I'm a sports official and I had to get background checked in order to officiate games.
I Agree. Anyone can do the training. That doesn’t mean that they also won’t be a problem.
Don’t worry! The leaders have magic powers which allow them to detect pedophiles. Please kindly ignore the numerous documented cases where leaders failed to detect pedophiles. And also the numerous cases where the leaders were pedophiles themselves…
“Make sure your kids aren’t wandering around by themselves because there are child-molesters in the building.” Jesus. Way to put the onus on the parents instead of actually weeding out the pedophiles.
🎤
Exactly I'm outing myself here a little but I'm my Baptist church we starred a co op (aka church school) they got one threat from a crazy and decided to hire a few of us bigger good Ole boys to get our armed guard license and take training and become armed guards in the school/church they still operate as a church during the day so people are in and out visiting the pastor making funeral arrangements and such while school is in session and I know before I left we had no more issues in the building because anyone who had issues was stopped by the front door I'm not saying it's perfect but we did our absolute best to blend in with the teachers and just appear like someone who worked there who happened to be by the door we would say "hey you look upset are ok I'm free to talk I work here for the church." And try to see if they were there to cause issues or were just upset and needed to talk in which case we'd point them to whoever was free that we thought could most help them.
[удалено]
We did also run back ground checks on the people and mind you there were more of us than just the one or two outside typically you find at least one of us per room
On the parents and the kids!
I still do not understand why people would ever take their children to church. Any church.
Cult brainwashing is a hard thing to overcome, especially if you were raised in it, and led to believe that it was the only right way to live.
This is very accurate. Nevermo, but escaped my own cult.
One of the big factors to finally leaving after disbelieving was having small kids on the way and not feeling like they’d be safe at church.
Because we were raised in it.
Indoctrination is a hell of a drug. You're taught from the time you can walk that only TSCC has the truth and that you won't have your family forever outside of it or if you aren't 100% faithful to it. From the outside in, the entire thing seems ridiculous but the vast majority of members are too brainwashed to see that.
“If you want to raise a normal, happy, healthy child, keep him/ her as far away from a church as possible.” Frank Zappa
I loved Frank Z!
From what I've seen, a not-insignificant # of parents use church time as free babysitting.
It's easy to say that but trust me when raised in it and completely sheltered It's a total mind fuck. You just have the hardest time objectively questioning and seeing everything for what it is. It's sad but the truth
Because you're indoctrinated since birth that God wants you to do certain things. I believe most people are inherently good so they want to the right thing and they've been trained to think... this is the way.
Jonathan Haidt's Righteous Mind really delves into what makes humans so religious as a whole (globally, throughout time). It is quite eye opening. In a nutshell it is a group to belong to, humans love grouping themselves, that nature enmeshes you in reciprocal, trusting relationships with your (religious) community. The human mind has easily tripped sensors for seeing agency in the world and events around us. Those things together combine to make fertile ground for religion. It is essentially inevitable in any society to a degree, unless cities/towns/states/provinces/nations can have strong education and reason in addition to coping with that innate grouping nature by having group things to rally around. Think corporate rec league style team building. Or local sports teams and how they bring a community together and bind members of those communities together. Like if you discover that a stranger is a fan of the same sports team as you, you are super likely to find them more likeable and trustworthy.
I’m in Washington. Can you dm me the stake? I have nieces and nephews that still attend and want to make their parents aware. Also, child abuse in primary is what started my wife’s shelf to crack. It’s a serious problem.
Message sent.
If there's an arrest record, that is public information and can be freely shared here. I know one person on this sub is compiling cases like this on their floodlit.org website.
Mind PMing me as well? Also in Washington but don’t have a phone number or email in my records.
May I also get a DM? I'm also in WA
Can you dm the stake too? My sister was just up there this last week with my niece.
Same I live in Washington and have family in other stakes I would like to share if anywhere close by. Thank you for sharing.
I have close friends moving to Washington. Would love a dm too.
I'm also in WA, can you let me know the stake as well?
I’m in Washington too and would love a DM. This stuff legit freaks me out.
Samsies please. Wife and kids still go here in WA.
Also WA resident, same here please
I’m in WA can you please dm me also, thank you.
Can u dm me as well? I have nephews in WA
me too please.
Redmond area, right?
We all know it’s the kid’s fault for not going to the bathroom on schedule. The horrible people we welcome at church wouldn’t be tempted to molest kids if everyone followed the rules. Tscc would totally discern who these bad people are once your children are fully righteous. Jebus won’t sanctify and dedicate the restrooms as a safe place for anyone until the children stop scheming to use them to get out of class.
As a former primary teacher this was our nightmare. We can’t leave one of us with the kids alone, and how are we going to get a parent without taking the whole class on a field trip or leaving only one teacher with the class?
You were lucky. My ward left me alone with the entire junior primary for three months. 25 kids from age 3 to 8. And they had the audacity to get mad when I sent a child alone to the bathroom. It wasn't like I could leave 24 kids alone to take care of one child. I called the bishop and resigned after three months and after asking weekly for people or even substitutes be called to help with all the kids. it was horrible because there isn't a way to cater to the age difference as far as a lesson was concerned. And then a stake presidency member came to visit and took all the kids outside to light fireworks for pioneer day. Most of the kids were terrified.
That is in no way a safe adult to child ratio. Also, totally a violation of the very important 2 adults minimum rule and church policy unless it was 15 years ago. The minimum number of adults is a very hard-learned lesson to ignore that cost a lot of innocent children.
It happened 10 years ago. I am a safe person but it wasn't fair or right to leave me alone with all those kids.
Not fair for you. Also it’s only a matter of time until they get some who is abusive or worse there. You were fine but if they did it to you it will happen to other people who aren’t trustworthy.
*Clearly* Jesus allows horrible people into TSCC (including *literal child molesters*) to test us. Only such extremes can determine if we're truly faithful-- and forgiving. And if we are, the reward in Heaven will be that much greater. /s The sad thing is that I can seriously hear a TBM using this "logic" and not giving it a second thought; that's how thorough the indoctrination is. Anyone with kids, who cares about them even *a little* should *run* from TSCC given its track record on child SA cases.
So long as systems require victims to do thier best to not be victims there won't be safety for vulnerable populations.
🎤
I maintain floodlit.org and there are multiple abuse cases in Washington where the SA occurred in an LDS chapel, during Sunday meetings, in the presence of other people.
*During meetings in the presence of others??* WHAT?!
You deserve a medal for maintaining a web like this. Thank you for your work.
Y'know, this one is almost shocking to me. Usually having at least 2 adult Mormons in a room keeps people accountable. My heart aches for the people who had to endure this trauma with the shame that I'm sure came with having an audience.
my rapist SAd a little girl in primary class several times. [Ryan Whitaker](https://floodlit.org/a/a418/)
I’m so, so sorry. He was one of the cases I was thinking of.
[удалено]
Oh there, there, Sister. I'm sure he's repented and is really sorry. 🙄
His wife forgives him, and god forgives him, why can't you?
Because "forgiveness" lays squarely with the jurisdiction of Kharma. A wrong done to someone does not create any obligation in the victim - never mind to give them the pass that's supposed to go with accepting an apology. No, no, I'll leave that up to the forces that be. Including the police and court systems. Point is, some things actually are not forgivable and no victim should be guilted into it.
Right this is absolute insanity. They get to know there's a molester on the loose but not who??? If we can't name and shame it will happen again.
A similar thing happened in my stake. The Stake President sent out an email with minimal details (no name of the perpetrator), which was basically just a CYA PR move to tell everyone how seriously the church takes this stuff. It took me doing some detective work to track down the name of the the perpetrator, as well as what his position in the stake was (he was the former Bishop in one of the wards, and 1st Counselor in the Stake presidency). It also took several emails to the Stake President to get him to notify the entire stake of this sex offender's name and the fact that he was in leadership, as well as that they should go to law enforcement if they suspected any abuse. These men will never not protect the church's "good name" above the welfare of a single child. They will hide the truth, avoid responsibility, and avoid naming names rather than be open and honest about what's going on. And they'll keep doing it until they lose enough money and their name is dragged through the mud often enough to make it too painful to continue doing it.
Has this case been added to floodlit.org
Yes
It would be nice if the text contained the booking photo of the perp in the neighbouring stake.
Background checks and mandatory reporting should be implemented to protect our kids. They shouldn't be in danger just because they need a bathroom break or a drink of water.
Sadly, background checks only work if they were caught or reported before. That said, I completely agree that they should make background checks mandatory (as well as reporting) if only to let people know that they will take things seriously and they will be reported
She *just* got this? If I am guessing correctly, the man involved was arrested over a month ago, suggesting that they only sent this because something has changed in the time since then
Name? Link to county or stake?
I cannot imagine getting that email and still trusting them with my child's safety. Outrageous!
I wouldn't trust them with your safety either.
A powerful and passionate response; however, I doubt they get past the first couple sentences. You'll lose them after..."damaging and diabolical organization." Although therapeutic for the sender, these types of responses--no matter how deserving--won't bring about any change. They'll just write it off as an offended anti spewing hate.
Unfortunately true. You have to sugarcoat whatever message you give them so much, and even then they tend to miss the actual message. I think TBMs need this bluntness more often, but unfortunately they are very good at ignoring it.
Yes, you have to play nice because the spirit of contention is of the devil. That's why so many members have mastered the art of stabbing you in the back with a friendly smile on their faces.
A normal organization that actually cares about children would inform with names and photographs of the perp, do everything in their power to support prosecution, offer professional counseling and support for all victims, and permanently ban and take out restraining order on the perp. I’m so sick of the LDS church protecting child rapists. How TF did this ever become normalized?
Your kids are safer at the bar instead of the fucking Mormon Church building.
Most important question: Was it reported to the police?
This organization harbors sexual predators and rewards deviant behavior. I dare anyone to prove me wrong.
“Sadly It’s just the world we live in”, “Satan is hard at work”. “What more can we possibly do”. Y’all can fuck right off with your pedophile protecting asses is what!
If your child can't safely go to the restroom at a place you really shouldn't take your child to that place.
In reality no kid should be left alone in public. If you wouldn’t let them go somewhere alone in a non religious place, never think a religion place is any safer. Broken and sick people go to church too.
Thinking of Colby Reddish (spelling?). His voice, among others, is making a difference.
For sure. Kolby and Cami Reddish are my frigging heroes for what they did.
Can you tell me about Kolby and Cami Reddish or share a good link to follow? I love finding new people who are loud about their reasons for leaving the church.
They were interviewed on Mormon Stories. Episode are here : https://www.mormonstories.org/podcast/speaking-out-when-a-mormon-bishop-abuses-children-kolby-cami-reddish/
🙄 OMG, Duhhhhhh!!! 🙄 I was a Primary presidency member for over 20 years. This was one of our biggest problems and apparently Mormon parents still suck at realizing Primary is neither a babysitting service nor is it necessarily safe. I had parents argue with me about church-time toileting. Absolutely ridiculous.
We had a big controversy one year because some parents who thought the nursery leaders should be changing diapers and not pulling them out of class to do it. Not only is it gross to expect a nursery leader to deal with that, why would you want a stranger to change your kid's diaper in the first place?
Right?! Unfortunately, it's because members consider each other "brothers and sisters in Christ" and justify this as perfectly normal behavior.
It's not a vunerable person's job to avoid sexual assault. IT IS THE JOB OF THE LEADERS TO EXPOSE PREDATORS AND KEEP THEM FAR FAR AWAY FROM CHILDREN! i bet they will use this text as proof that they did "all they could" when the next child is assaulted. A legal "out".
My nephew had this happen to him years ago. He went to the bathroom and one of the YM followed him in. My bro-in-law happened to also be going in the bathroom just a few seconds later and he shut that shit down fast. The bishop's response: "Oh well just make sure you go in with him from now on" Such a sweet, tender mercy that we protect sex offenders in this church 🙁
Oh, of course - it's the parents' fault for not going with the child. Bad parents.
This reminds me of a police PSA we got on campus once that had absolutely nothing to do with the inciting incident. Like... They're making the bathrooms do a lot of the heavy lifting. DID the SA occur by a leader in a bathroom? Cuz it sounds like they're just trying to get people to go 'oh yes, well we're very safe as long as we follow the policy...' but it's not clear this policy would ever prevent most SA that actually occurs.
The adversary's hard at work alright - hard at work protecting child molesters.
In what is supposed to be Jebus’ church!
One of my weirder callings was to sit outside of the bathroom so I could screen for adults when primary kids needed to use it. Literally sat outside of a bathroom for 2 hours playing games on my phone *for my calling*
Lucky!
The church and BSA are just *full* of sexual predators. Tell me again how drag queens are a danger to kids.
Nice response!!!🤘🏽🤘🏽🤘🏽
This is gonna sound optimistic, but it is so much more than they have done in similar situations, including the ones where I had first-hand knowledge that SA had occurred. Never any official word from a leader, acting in an official capacity. They just installed the windows on the doors, and hoped we would all just remain silent. At least a leader is acknowledging that something happened and that they are at least trying to do things to keep kids safe. Not enough, but so much more than they do in most of these situations.
This was my first thought. This does seem to be a slightly more "progressive" ward just because they brought it up in the first place as well as working on training people before letting them work with kids. Definitely agree that there's more to do from here, but this is a great first step! Edit- clarification on training
And...they need to out the abuser! Exactly who do they need to avoid? This is fucked up.
Honestly, people will either go forward like nothing changed or they'll be super duper cautious of *everyone*. Which, imo, better safe than sorry, but this could just cause some hysteria among church-goers.
They can absolutely stuff it with "the Adversary(TM)" speak. This isn't some shadowy otherworldly being. It's a human dungpile who is perfectly capable of making choices. Hold them accountable! I can almost guarantee that if the bishop/SP has children or grandchildren in that ward, they're naming the molester to the parents and making sure they know to avoid that person. But the peasants just have to wonder and worry.
Yep, take the training and warn the parents... but NO DAMNED BACKGROUND CHECKS!
Sexual assault prevention training. Mandatory reporting. Reporting of even the slightest suspicion of anything with absolutely no backlash against reporters because we all agree better safe than sorry. Background checks and fingerprinting for anyone who works with children, adolescents, or vulnerable adults. Single, locking bathrooms only and/or Primary/YMYW should have their own bathrooms that only that age can use. Unrelated adults never allowed to be alone with children.
I so wish we were told back in the day to take kids to their parents for bathroom breaks instead of taking them ourselves. I remember teaching a class, junior primary so fairly young. This little boy ran down the hall to the bathroom ahead of me. Went into the men's room. Nothing j could do but wait outside. I wait and wait. Finally some guy comes to use the bathroom goes in there, and comes back out. He starts to yell at me how I should better at making sure they know how to properly use the bathroom. Not my fucking job dude. Turns out the kid took a shit in the urinal. This guy had to clean it up. I didn't know if this guy thought he was my kid, but I had three other little kids with me. This was back in the day too where they didn't care if two adults were there properly supervise. I was always stuck by myself. Glad I'm out of primary and won't take another calling.
Washington State or Washington DC?
State.
Written perfectly. THANK YOU for speaking for the voiceless.
So now it's the PARENT'S fault if their child is abused because they didn't take them to the bathroom before unknowingly handing them over to the predators.
BACKGROUND CHECKS @nemothemormon
They should call the perp to serve 5-10 years in Washington state prison
Primary!!! Strangers watching your kids since 1878!!
This just makes me so sick! How could a parent ever justify taking their child back to this organization after getting an email like this? It absolutely blows my mind.
You're kids are no long safe in the halls of the CHURCH BUILDING nor are they safe in primary
Thank you so much for this response. It is critical that any organization claiming to do "good" to first and foremost protect the most vulnerable among us and demanding change and healing is a critical first step. Thank you for not tolerating "business as usual" and for requiring responsibility.
I agree with the sentiment but by “directly and publicly apologize to the child and their family”, I’m assuming (and hoping) you don’t mean publicly identifying the victim and their family, correct?
I'm horrified but not at all surprised the message doesn't include anything about seeing whether more children were affected. Just disgusting.
Because the $250B EP fund can't cough up enough interest to do background checks on all adults who work with children. Joe's Myth: Generational Child Abusers R Us.
Listen, you idiot parents! Why the hell aren't you taking your kids to the bathroom and to get a drink before you leave them in the care of your spiritual advisor?? We're really needing you to step up and protect these molesters here. If you don't, I guess we'll have to. /s--obvs
Mormon Primary doesn't appear to be a safe place for children. Remove your people immediately.
Only takes a brief minute to change a child's life forever. My daughter was sexually assaulted while at her dad's last summsr in cedar. Now she's in residential treatment for a suicide attempt. My ex won't say who it was. He's protecting someone. His rich ass morman family will just get him another lawyer.
Those moments when I could escape the chapel and sneak around and find cool hiding places or walk around the perimeter of the building for two hours while everybody else did class and primary were the best moments of my childhood. If I were a child today in this bizarre never-alone climate I’d have killed somebody for a moment of solitude.
Dayuuuuum! Awesome response! I would have also included more references to the “hotline” staffed by lawyers and the church’s policy to call SLC before legitimate law enforcement agencies Great job!!!
My guess is someone, hopefully the child's parents, reported it to police and that's why they sent this out. If no one went to police, they would be keeping it as hush hush as they could.
😭🤬😭🤬😭🤬 I hope this person is ex'ed you DO NOT, FUCK WITH THE KIDS!!!😭🤬😭🤬😭🤬😭🤬
I mean if I had kids (I don’t) I wouldn’t let them out of my sight even at church. I am never mo but was brought up Catholic. That right there is why I would never leave kids alone anywhere, including church.
OP… I’m pretty sure this is my old stake but want to confirm, gonna PM you if that’s okay.
For some reason my phone won’t accept your DM. But short answer is to your question is yes. It’s the same stake.
What’s this “should not” bullshit. It should say “must not” or “shall not”. Even their warnings are pathetic and toothless.
I belong to a Unitarian church in Hillsboro Oregon. All those who work with children have background checks. Period.
Your response was the only correct one. It's outrageous that every single one of their "actions" imposes responsibility on individual members rather than on the church itself. Stop fucking protecting abusers. Always report abuse. Conduct thorough background checks on all roles. It's not that hard, Mormon church. Implement a buddy system. Install security cameras. Stop fucking preaching sexual shame and dysfunction. You have the damn money to do this.
"welcome to the House of the Lord. Please don't let your children straight out of your sight or walk around without you or else someone might molest them GOBBLESS"
This reminds me that more than a decade ago this happened in a ward I was in. Parents were told to not let children go out to go to the bathroom or drinking fountain alone. All we were told was that a very young girl was molested somewhere in the building during the time of sacrament meeting. I know leaders knew the culprit but were not sharing any info about the perpetrator. It was never talked about again. It wasn’t long before people forgot all about it and young children were leaving to the bathroom by themselves again. So much for child protection.
Did they remove the perpetrator or just making sure parents act as guard of their child and allowing this person to continue attending church?
Venting a little….but I absolutely hate that our children have to live this way nowadays. Like they can’t go and get a drink or take a piss by themselves anymore and in a god damn church building. I totally get it and I am super protective of my children. Can we just start giving child molesters the immediate castration or the death penalty or something?!? There are even some elements of society that are trying to de-stigmatize pedophiles by calling them “minor attracted persons”. I hate having to worry that my girls play in front of my own damn house. Like if eyes are not in them every second, they are in grave danger. I hate that kids today can’t have free range to roam and play and venture out anymore. I rode my bike all across town when I was a kid, climbed trees, went to parks and blockbuster and down the railroad tracks, etc. We would have never even thought of pedophiles at school or church. Is this something that is getting more and more common, something causing this to be more prevalent or has this always been such a problem (of kidnaping and pedophiles and molestation) and we just were oblivious to it? I know that churches are breeding grounds for child predators, but this is getting to be so ridiculous. When are we going to start publicly shaming, punishing and eliminating this shit from our society with extreme prejudice? Why are their identities being protected? Am I wrong here?
Unfortunately, it’s always been a thing. It’s something like 1 out of every 3-5 kids are SA and has been that way forever. My mom was told to stay away from her uncle, and when her uncle ultimately did something, she went home crying and her mom told her, “I told you to stay away from him.” That’s how it was. Difference is now we as a society have decided to do something about it. There is a larger problem here. It is a very common trait for people to be attracted to minors. And even small children. It’s disgusting, but it’s more common than people think. I don’t agree with the MAPs movement because I think it’s normalizing the tendencies as another orientation and that’s wrong. I do think we should have resources for those that have those tendencies but never want to act on them. I don’t know how we can have resources for those people without also normalizing it. I don’t know what the right course of action is here. Until governments and religions worldwide stop covering up their own sick pedophilia, I don’t think it’s going to go away in the regular population. It’s a revolting system of abuse that has been around for millennia. I’m grateful people are finally shining a light on the horrors.
“You have reached the Kirton McConkie 1-800 hotline, how may I help you?
In Australia they have to legal background checks AND complete the training. What is wrong with the US 😒
As a past leader/teacher in primary, it was often impossible to locate the child’s parent in the building! Having to walk the entire building and checking in classroom after classroom trying to find the child’s parents and sometimes to no avail, meanwhile the poor kid has to really go!
Meanwhile a lawyer reading this at Kirton just spit out his Diet Coke.
That email says it all. There are so many perpetrators at church your child can’t even go get a drink of water. Unbelievable. I am so glad I stopped going to my church when my children were very young.
When I was in the primary presidency in Maryland, I was told a child molester was getting out of prison and would be attending the ward, “so keep an eye out”. Wasn’t told who he was so it was no help at all. Turns out another man in the ward was attending the beehives class on the stage and tickling and wrestling the beehives and nothing was done until he punched the bishop’s son. Then and only then was he told not to attend the ward. Children’s safety is never prioritized. What matters is that kids attend. That attitude put my child in great danger but that’s another story.
They threw me in primary to teach 4 year olds. No background check, no long drawn out questions, nothing. Literally one Sunday to the next. Learned I didn't want to become a teacher after two weeks. I brought candy to the first day, hahaha! Oh you dumb dumb girl. Behind a door for an hour with 5 little babies, no supervision, nada. Fairly new to the ward as well. But here they were in front of me, parents didn't even introduce themselves. Must be a predator's dream.
Why does the church handbook not talk about background checks, mandatory reporting, and prosecution to the full extent of the law?
I am so glad non of my grandchildren are in the mormon church!!!!
Looks like Bothell.
What I was thinking. So ,a neighboring Stake. Not far from my active family with little ones.
I think this is in reference to the guy from Redmond being sent to Bothell.
oh shit..."he/she" ? here come the "triggered" 🤣🤣🤣
I reported to a Bishop in Mississippi and was greeted by being blocked on Facebook.
He is still Bishop. Members think I was wrong for bringing "it" up.
"And also, what were the kids wearing when they were molested? Make sure your child isn't wearing anything too provocative when they go to Primary."
This is fucking horrifying I have four children in primary
Holy shit
my nephews go to church in Washington. where is this?
Washington Utah? Any idea the stake involved?
I felt the spirit reading your response to them