NOM

Just finished watching the film Roll Red Roll (https://rollredrollfilm.com/) about two high school football players who were accused of raping a drunk girl in Steubenville, OH, in August 2012. It's a disturbing movie, not just due to the nature of the crime, but the way that most of the town just wanted to look the other way and pretend it didn't happen, blaming the victim to protect their beloved high school football team and two of their star players. If it hadn't been for the intervention of those outside the community, it is likely that the evidence to convict these boys would not have been uncovered, and the rape would have been pushed under the rug (like tragically, that kind of thing gets swept under the rug all the time).

It was hard for me to not see the reaction of the people in the community who vilified the victim and anyone who was trying to get the truth of the matter, and not think about how it reflects the way most members of the Church attempt to protect Joseph Smith from charges of being a sexual predator. The way the town closed ranks to protect the guilty was so similar to the way I see believing members close ranks to try and protect Joseph. "Give Joseph a break" is just apostle-speak for "boys will be boys".

There are all kinds of reasons to disbelieve the Church's truth claims, but just as much as the mountain of evidence against them, the refusal of the Church to acknowledge the wrongness of Joseph's sexual exploitation of women and the membership's willingness to look the other way makes me feel like this is an organization I don't want to be associated with. Even without all the other evidence, the way the Church treats its founder's sexual predation is troubling enough to me that I want no part of it.

Sometimes I get the feeling that it's a bigger sin to call Joseph Smith a predator than for Joseph Smith to BE a predator.

Hagoth wrote: ↑

Fri Nov 01, 2019 1:19 pm

Sometimes I get the feeling that it's a bigger sin to call Joseph Smith a predator than for Joseph Smith to BE a predator.

Yep, I know that feeling. What he did isn't as big a deal as talking about what he did in the eyes of some members.

I’m not sure why some people get so upset over this...I’m sure like brother Joseph it was all consensual with the 14 year old girls.

2bizE wrote: ↑

Fri Nov 01, 2019 6:45 pm

I’m not sure why some people get so upset over this...I’m sure like brother Joseph it was all consensual with the 14 year old girls.

Well, he did ask (coerce) Helen's parents with a guaranteed ticket to the highest kingdom. So you're right, everything was copacetic.

Once when I was in grad school, I had to do some research and write a huge paper. I picked child sexual abuse. One guy who had worked with police, with therapists, and studied the subject said, “society claims to have a taboo against incest, against child sexual abuse, but we don’t. What we have is a huge taboo against talking about it.”

In my professional work, once I had to run the group of incest perpetrators. They started out not even comprehending that sex with their daughter was wrong. We have no real inborn taboo against sex with kids, especially the man’s own kids. He owns them. And society kind of has an “every man for himself” as far as who he has sex with. If you can get away with it, more power to you. Just don’t get caught so we have to talk about it. But dads will try to protect their daughters from other men, even my incestuous father did that. It is like society is still ruled by cave man rules. But we don’t talk about it.

That taboo against talking about it why when Joseph Smith got caught trying to seduce a girl by the last name of Johnson (iirc) and her dad and brothers decided to tar and feather and castrate the guy (doctor chickened out on the castration) and the incident comes down to us as “poor Joseph. They tarred and feathered him because of his religious beliefs” No, they tarred and feathered him because he was caught trying to seduce an under age girl. But we don’t talk about that.

alas wrote: ↑

Sat Nov 02, 2019 10:36 am

That taboo against talking about it why when Joseph Smith got caught trying to seduce a girl by the last name of Johnson (iirc) and her dad and brothers decided to tar and feather and castrate the guy (doctor chickened out on the castration) and the incident comes down to us as “poor Joseph. They tarred and feathered him because of his religious beliefs” No, they tarred and feathered him because he was caught trying to seduce an under age girl. But we don’t talk about that.

I really wish we had more info on that incident... since Rigdon got tarred/feathered at same event the apologists claim it had nothing to do with seducing Nancy Johnson, and some critics contend you can't make the seduction claim but it was actually about land

Either way that's a fascinating event that as you said above is instantly spun into religious persecution, when in reality it was almost certainly not about religion and either about seducing a young girl or fear or Mormons taking over their land.