Hagoth wrote: ↑Sun Oct 01, 2017 4:07 pm
Wasn't Oaks the president of BYU when they were shocking the genitals of young gay men? Did he have any direct input on this?
Yes he was president at the time. I'd have a hard time believing that he didn't know this was taking place at the university (I believe it came from the top....maybe Packer and Kimball involved too, but I can't remember for sure). There also a spy ring of students set up to turn anyone in who was suspected of being gay.
Of course Oaks takes no responsibility and it's never brought up that this was when he was president. But if you read any of the student's experiences, there was definitely abuse taking place, in my opinion. They were threatened with being expelled if they didn't submit to the horrible treatment that left them with burns and scars. But according to Oaks "we don't accept responsibility for those abuses" (from aversion therapy):
What do church leaders think of reparative therapy? LDS spokespeople do not allow interviews with church leaders on the topic. Instead, officials referred Bay Area News Group to online transcripts of interviews with high-ranking LDS officials Elder Dallin Oaks, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church, and Elder Lance Wickman, a member of the “Seventy.”
Oaks says the church “rarely takes a position on which treatment techniques are appropriate, for medical doctors or for psychiatrists or psychologists and so on.”
Oaks did not specifically mention aversion therapy at BYU or conducted by Mormon groups, but did mention it generally.
“The aversive therapies that have been used in connection with same-sex attraction have contained some serious abuses that have been recognized over time within the professions,” Oaks says. “While we have no position about what the medical doctors do, we are conscious that there are abuses and we don’t accept responsibility for those abuses.”
http://www.mercurynews.com/2011/03/17/m ... e-therapy/
Under Oaks, a system of surveillance and searches of dorms of problem students, including suspected homosexuals, was implemented. This included electronic recording devices which BYU Security Chief Robert Kelshaw confirmed in 1975 had been planted on students to gather information. In reference to the widespread campaign to find homosexuals among BYU students, Oaks stated, "Two influences we wish to exclude from the BYU community are active homosexuals and drug users, and these subjects are therefore among those with which our security force is concerned." In 1979 Oaks asked BYU security to be "especially watchful" for any student homosexual infractions.[ Stake outs by BYU security looking for license plates of BYU students at gay bars in Salt Lake City and fake contact advertisements placed in gay publications attempting to ensnare BYU students were also reported
From 1971 to 1980 BYU's president Dallin Oaks[ had Gerald J. Dye over the University Standards Office (renamed the Honor Code Office in 1991). Dye stated that during that decade part of the "set process" for homosexual BYU students referred to his office for "less serious" offenses was to require that they undergo some form of therapy to remain at BYU, and that in special cases this included "electroshock and vomiting aversion therapies"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigham_Y ... BT_history
Apostle Oaks has been an influential figure in church interactions with homosexual people, instituting a system of surveillance to identify and expel or cure homosexual students as president of BYU in the '70s, and doing numerous important video interviews and articles on the topic in the '80s, '90s, and 2000s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexua ... day_Saints
