Page 1 of 2

It's official: Sam Young is excommunicated

Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2018 11:07 am
by jfro18
I think Sam knew it was headed this way when he started the Protect LDS Children movement, but man... so disgusting to watch the church do this as someone like Joseph Bishop sits in good standing.

Re: It's official: Sam Young is excommunicated

Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2018 12:06 pm
by hiding in plain sight
What cluster F for the church.

I know most mormons won't bat an eye.

But the optics of excommunicating someone who was calling out bishops asking sexually explicit questions is truly bizarre. They will try and spin it about going against the church.

But what was he against again?

Oh yeah. Stopping sexually explicit question of teenagers by middle age men.

Why does the church always have to take the wrong side???

Re: It's official: Sam Young is excommunicated

Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2018 12:55 pm
by Thoughtful
I loved that Sam told people to start calling the cops on bishops. The church will not stand up for them, let them stand up and protect themselves. Perfect.

Re: It's official: Sam Young is excommunicated

Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2018 1:04 pm
by Brent
Sam was absolutely spot on about hanging the Bishops out to dry. Imagine a world where young people actually make contact with people who take their mandatory reporter status seriously. The problem with the entire issue is that if Bishops only ask, "Do you live the saw of chastity?" and the answer is "No" the Church's system of "repentance" needs to know the severity of the infraction to decide the punishment...which leads to inappropriate questions.

The Mormon system of spiritual jurisprudence is based on a 2 tier misdemeanor/felony system modeled after the US criminal justice system. Intercourse outside marriage being a Class A felony, oral sex being a misdemeanor. How to spiritually punish someone is decided by a "Judge in Israel" and a judge needs to see evidence and motive and can't do that without "intimate" questions. If you're a 70s kid like me then you know that "necking", and "petting" and particularly "heavy petting" are the gateway actions to full on "penetration".

Awkward? Imagine being a 12 year old who is given a pamphlet about your "little factory". The point of the little factory parable was clear even then, "Save it for when you need it"! Or more appropriately "keep your mitts off yourself or you'll lose control and become a compulsive masturbatory maniac''. Unfortunately part of the Mormon position is to place the blame where it benefits males the most: Women. Due to our little factories we can be duped, deceived and used by woman, darn tarts dressing immodestly, having multiple earrings and wearing makeup and such--what's a boy to do? That's also the reason Bishops will give young men far more lenient treatment; somehow they're actually victims.

How do you parcel out "Justice & Mercy" if you do not know the extent of the crime? How do you determine the severity of the consequence if you don't know EXACTLY what happened?
The Mormon Church is in a bind here, a bind that may be equivalent to the Priesthood Ban because it's hard to defend the policy and practice.

Makes me feel sorry for the poor sons of guns in the PR department.

Re: It's official: Sam Young is excommunicated

Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2018 1:28 pm
by lostinmiddlemormonism
Here's the part I love:

1. They hold a disciplinary council. The Stake President, his councilors, and the high council discuss the charges, listen to "the evidence" and discuss what they should do.
2. The stake presidency adjourns to a separate room so that they can pray about what action G_d would have them take.
3. They return and discuss with the high council and ask for a sustaining vote.

4. They send a letter to the victim er....accused with what they have decided.

So these "men", supposedly shielded by the "whole armor of G_d" are to damn chickens**t to face the accused and share their decision and rational. Nope. They will let the US postal service do that for them.

They have no idea what state the individual is going to be in when the letter arrives that yanks their eternal family, their own salvation, and their religious identity out from under them. It would serve them right if one of the times they did this and the individual committed suicide and the surviving family members sued the pant of the so called church.

-Lost

Re: It's official: Sam Young is excommunicated

Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2018 1:32 pm
by Red Ryder
I guess that now means the most important question Sam must answer is:

Hanes or Fruit of the Loom?

Welcome Sam to normal underwear! It's great!

Re: It's official: Sam Young is excommunicated

Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2018 1:59 pm
by wtfluff
lostinmiddlemormonism wrote:
Sun Sep 16, 2018 1:28 pm
So these "men", supposedly shielded by the "whole armor of G_d" are to damn chickens**t to face the accused and share their decision and rational. Nope. They will let the US postal service do that for them.
Just an FYI: Sam's Steak President hand-delivered Sam's tribunal letter.

Re: It's official: Sam Young is excommunicated

Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2018 2:36 pm
by Spicy McHaggis
Infinite punishment for finite sins.

No other culture on earth allows this sort of thing to happen yet here it is in mormonism, perfectly acceptable. Sam is a hero, my guess is that in a few years when the story has died down the church will make some changes.

Re: It's official: Sam Young is excommunicated

Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2018 2:45 pm
by blazerb
wtfluff wrote:
Sun Sep 16, 2018 1:59 pm
lostinmiddlemormonism wrote:
Sun Sep 16, 2018 1:28 pm
So these "men", supposedly shielded by the "whole armor of G_d" are to damn chickens**t to face the accused and share their decision and rational. Nope. They will let the US postal service do that for them.
Just an FYI: Sam's Steak President hand-delivered Sam's tribunal letter.
I'm glad the SP did that. I don't think the SP was afraid of Sam's reaction. He, probably at the behest of church public affairs, was afraid of the reaction of all the vigils. Sam knows, though, that the people at the vigils have not gone away, nor have the many more that sympathize but could not attend one.

Re: It's official: Sam Young is excommunicated

Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2018 3:09 pm
by Kishkumen
Red Ryder wrote:
Sun Sep 16, 2018 1:32 pm
I guess that now means the most important question Sam must answer is:

Hanes or Fruit of the Loom?

Welcome Sam to normal underwear! It's great!
Hanes or Fruit if the Loom?

ExOfficio, Me Undies, Saxx, UnderArmor

Not to mention a dramatic reduction in laundry and increase in available suitcase space.

Re: It's official: Sam Young is excommunicated

Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2018 3:10 pm
by Mormorrisey
hiding in plain sight wrote:
Sun Sep 16, 2018 12:06 pm
What cluster F for the church.

I know most mormons won't bat an eye.

But the optics of excommunicating someone who was calling out bishops asking sexually explicit questions is truly bizarre. They will try and spin it about going against the church.

But what was he against again?

Oh yeah. Stopping sexually explicit question of teenagers by middle age men.

Why does the church always have to take the wrong side???
It seems almost ingrained in their DNA, to be 40 years behind the rest of society.

But I agree about the cluster$%*&. It looks just so bad. Glad that Sam had the stones to see this to completion, I will be interested in how his movement moves forward from the outside.

Re: It's official: Sam Young is excommunicated

Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2018 3:27 pm
by Not Buying It
And this, my friends, tells you everything you need to know about how much the Church cares about protecting children.

Sam - you wear this excommunication as the badge of honor it is. You took a brave stand and didn’t back down from what you knew was right. The Church doesn’t deserve you.

Re: It's official: Sam Young is excommunicated

Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2018 4:09 pm
by Reuben
Not Buying It wrote:
Sun Sep 16, 2018 3:27 pm
And this, my friends, tells you everything you need to know about how much the Church cares about protecting children.
I think they do care a lot about protecting children from abuse, but not as much as either of these two things:
  • Protecting children from the punishments of their abusive god
  • Protecting their authority
I'm sure they tell themselves that they protect their authority for the good of those they take it from.

Re: It's official: Sam Young is excommunicated

Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2018 5:24 pm
by slk
I've wondered if Sam being associated with "anti" sites such as reddit and mormon stories had a play in it. Sure he kept going when the Q15 asked him to cease but the fact that he was soliciting this on exmormon reddit and interviewed by JD had to have pissed the COB off. I really don't see how he could have found the same support had he stayed with mormon friendly sites. I really think his association with the exmormon community helped speed up the inevitable. And then Sam making the comment that the mormon church wasn't a safe church to join right now was used against him. The COB was waiting for a statement like that to pounce on.

Re: It's official: Sam Young is excommunicated

Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2018 5:31 pm
by Red Ryder
I just browsed FB to see what the common response has been. This captures the common response:
This is a sad day, our Hevenly Father deeply loves his children. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is a gift to the world. It is not a bussiness or a political party and is guided by a prophet. We have the choice to take part in this gift. The Lord is very clear with his commandments including living the law of chastity. To follow our Savior we make covenants and one of those is to follow his commandments. This is his Church meaning it is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day period. If you choose to speak against the Lord's anointed there are consequences.
Cult Brainwashing at its finest!

Re: It's official: Sam Young is excommunicated

Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2018 7:43 pm
by profit_seizer
As we go out and interact with folks who are in the early stages of their faith journeys or who have not yet started to move forward, let's remember that compassion and earnestness will go a long way. Posting and talking about your hurt in a way that doesn't draw a line between you and your friends/acquaintances can be hard, but is more likely to pay off in the form of dialogue that will either radicalize them in some small way OR make them more receptive to the idea of a mormon spectrum that includes your position, and makes the Church that much safer and less fundamentalist a space for people who remain in.

In this forum, though, I'm really appreciating all y'all blasting with both barrels. F**k these tools.

Re: It's official: Sam Young is excommunicated

Posted: Mon Sep 17, 2018 5:26 am
by Not Buying It
Reuben wrote:
Sun Sep 16, 2018 4:09 pm
Not Buying It wrote:
Sun Sep 16, 2018 3:27 pm
And this, my friends, tells you everything you need to know about how much the Church cares about protecting children.
I think they do care a lot about protecting children from abuse, but not as much as either of these two things:
  • Protecting children from the punishments of their abusive god
  • Protecting their authority
I'm sure they tell themselves that they protect their authority for the good of those they take it from.
No, they don’t really, they don’t care about protecting children at all. I’ve spent years teaching in Primary, and I can’t begin to tell you how many times my so-called partner just didn’t show and if it weren’t for my own efforts finding someone to be in there with me I would have been alone with a room full of children and no one seemed to know or care. Youth are assigned as Home teachers and spend a great deal of time alone with adult men visiting families, and the Church gives it no thought. The Brethren just completely ignored literally hundreds of stories Sam Young collected of inappropriate youth interviews. I am sorry, but you can not convince me that the Church cares at all about protecting children. If you want to know how much they care, look at what they do, not at what they say.

And that’s not even broaching the subject of times abuse of children was covered up in the Church, I personally know of an egregious instance of that, and there are hundreds of examples like it. And should abuse occur, who answers the phone on the hotline? What is the Church’s first line of defense? Lawyers. Not the law, not therapy for the victim, heaven forbid, but lawyers to protect the Church.

They do not care. If they did, things would be different.

Re: It's official: Sam Young is excommunicated

Posted: Mon Sep 17, 2018 8:50 am
by stealthbishop
Sam knew that this was highly likely but he cared more about children than his membership and was willing to take the risk. He turned himself into an outcast (Samaritan) in order to end this disgusting practice of asking children if they masturbate (and much much worse in many cases) behind closed doors. He believed in it so strongly he used his retirement savings to take this action. He has unbelievable courage. And I believe he has checkmated the church. They have nowhere else to move on this issue. This practice will end one way or another. One person can make a difference but the cost is that you become a leper to your tribe. A true prophet is without honor in their own tribe.

Re: It's official: Sam Young is excommunicated

Posted: Mon Sep 17, 2018 9:16 am
by alas
stealthbishop wrote:
Mon Sep 17, 2018 8:50 am
Sam knew that this was highly likely but he cared more about children than his membership and was willing to take the risk. He turned himself into an outcast (Samaritan) in order to end this disgusting practice of asking children if they masturbate (and much much worse in many cases) behind closed doors. He believed in it so strongly he used his retirement savings to take this action. He has unbelievable courage. And I believe he has checkmated the church. They have nowhere else to move on this issue. This practice will end one way or another. One person can make a difference but the cost is that you become a leper to your tribe. A true prophet is without honor in their own tribe.
Good to see you stealth.

My brother texted me, “Does the current prophet understand that Caiaphus was prophet of the church during the time of Jesus?”

That about sums it up.

Re: It's official: Sam Young is excommunicated

Posted: Mon Sep 17, 2018 9:17 am
by Not Buying It
stealthbishop wrote:
Mon Sep 17, 2018 8:50 am
Sam knew that this was highly likely but he cared more about children than his membership and was willing to take the risk. He turned himself into an outcast (Samaritan) in order to end this disgusting practice of asking children if they masturbate (and much much worse in many cases) behind closed doors. He believed in it so strongly he used his retirement savings to take this action. He has unbelievable courage. And I believe he has checkmated the church. They have nowhere else to move on this issue. This practice will end one way or another. One person can make a difference but the cost is that you become a leper to your tribe. A true prophet is without honor in their own tribe.
Stealth! Is that really you? If so, it has been far too long. Glad you are still around.

And second that on Sam - he paid the price I personally have not been willing to pay in my little part of the world. Sam will always be a hero to me.