Sam Young’s Collection of Priesthood Interview Stories

[AllieOop]

Over on Reddit there has been talk of apologists planting fake stories in Sam’s collection in an attempt to discredit his work - “I submitted a fake story, how do we know they aren’t all fake?” sort of thing. Really upsets me, because I know stories like the ones Sam is collecting are true. My experience wasn’t as bad as some he has received, but I was asked probing, inappropriate questions about my sexual behavior as a teen in interviews with the bishop beginning at about 14. Honest answers to those questions led to periodic meetings with the bishop where my most secret, personal, private behaviors were discussed and I had all kinds of shame and guilt as a result. I’m lucky I wasn’t really messed up by it, and who knows, maybe I am more than I realize.

Anybody planting fake stories to discredit Sam is a creep, unequivocally and without question. The horrific amount of pain in some of those stories should not be mocked with that kind of disgusting deception.

Shameful. I'd imagine these are self proclaimed, righteous, good members of the church......lying.

[Jeffret]

Over on Reddit there has been talk of apologists planting fake stories in Sam’s collection in an attempt to discredit his work - “I submitted a fake story, how do we know they aren’t all fake?” sort of thing. Really upsets me, because I know stories like the ones Sam is collecting are true. My experience wasn’t as bad as some he has received, but I was asked probing, inappropriate questions about my sexual behavior as a teen in interviews with the bishop beginning at about 14. Honest answers to those questions led to periodic meetings with the bishop where my most secret, personal, private behaviors were discussed and I had all kinds of shame and guilt as a result. I’m lucky I wasn’t really messed up by it, and who knows, maybe I am more than I realize.

Anybody planting fake stories to discredit Sam is a creep, unequivocally and without question. The horrific amount of pain in some of those stories should not be mocked with that kind of disgusting deception.

I've wondered about that, but haven't been able to pick out any that seem clearly fabricated. Sometimes as I've started reading one I've thought it seemed a little fake, but then as I keep reading it seems pretty genuine and indistinguishable from the others. If apologists are submitting fake stories that are indistinguishable from the real ones, it seems like a losing approach. People who might be influenced by the stories aren't going to know the difference or really care. People who want to attack Sam's efforts might pat each other on the back, but that doesn't really accomplish much. Adding the stories, even if fake but indistinguishable from real, is more likely to help Sam's cause than hurt. And for almost everyone else, the fakers will look really, really bad.

[wtfluff]

Over on Reddit there has been talk of apologists planting fake stories in Sam’s collection in an attempt to discredit his work - “I submitted a fake story, how do we know they aren’t all fake?” sort of thing. Really upsets me, because I know stories like the ones Sam is collecting are true. My experience wasn’t as bad as some he has received, but I was asked probing, inappropriate questions about my sexual behavior as a teen in interviews with the bishop beginning at about 14. Honest answers to those questions led to periodic meetings with the bishop where my most secret, personal, private behaviors were discussed and I had all kinds of shame and guilt as a result. I’m lucky I wasn’t really messed up by it, and who knows, maybe I am more than I realize.

Anybody planting fake stories to discredit Sam is a creep, unequivocally and without question. The horrific amount of pain in some of those stories should not be mocked with that kind of disgusting deception.

Here is Sam's answer to fake stories:

Thanks for the heads up. They can fake their stories. Here is my response. If a grown man has the audacity and stupidity to take a child behind closed doors and ask sexual questions, I am going to believe the child or the story EVERY time. If they have made up a story where the bishop takes a child all alone and talks sex, they are basing their fiction on the reality of what is happening on the ground. So, when we deliver the stories to the church office building, will there be someone their to say, "Oh BTW, I wrote #249 and it's fake." What kind of credibility is that person going to have. These stories will be presented to the media. Does a practicing Mormon really want to go to the media and say, "Oh BTW, we take kids behind closed doors and talk to them about masturbation, but the #249 is totally fake."

It's idiotic. We have the moral high ground. Everybody outside the church knows it.

[Red Ryder]

Wait until someone fakes a perverted bishop's interview and releases that to the public through MormonLeaks.

That could be the fuel this unlit bonfire needs to make the church change.

Just saying...

Actually, it's probably a matter of time before a real life interview is recorded so no need to fake one. Ill bet Mike Norton is probably already working on it. Isn't he the audio/video specialist for the church?

[vankimber]

I'm not sure how a TBM could justify the planting of false stories in light of this verse from D&C section 10. Seems to me that lying to catch in a lie isn't the kind of thing they ought to be doing if they consider themselves valiant. Just sayin'.

"25 Yea, he saith unto them: Deceive and lie in wait to catch, that ye may destroy; behold, this is no harm. And thus he flattereth them, and telleth them that it is no sin to lie that they may catch a man in a lie, that they may destroy him."

[2bizE]

Why does religion feel it has to control human sexuality?

[Jeffret]

Why does religion feel it has to control human sexuality?

Because, as the saying goes, then you've got them by the balls.

[wtfluff]

Why does religion feel it has to control human sexuality?

Sexuality is just one tiny part of what religion tries to control.

[Reuben]

I think religions are a holdover from when life was shorter and more brutal, and humans had a lot less knowledge about themselves and the world around them.

In that environment, sexual control is crazy important because it helps guarantee your tribe's survival. Forget individual variation, needs, desires, and all that crap. Got to make a lot of babies and raise them right or we'll all die out. You there, Gayboy! You're with Ugette because I said so. Take one for the team!

It doesn't even need to be intentional. Tribes that didn't control sex are gone. Those that stumbled upon sexual control are still here. It's natural selection, but with a social construct. It happens to be associated with religion because everything used to be religion.

[slavereeno]

In the Michael Chrichton book Disclosure, a book about sexual harassment where the stereotypical gender roles are reversed, Chrichton claims that sexual harassment / assault is more about power than it is about sex.

Sexual Control = power

Control who's doing who, and how and when and you can exert all kinds of power over them.

[Thoughtful]

In the Michael Chrichton book Disclosure, a book about sexual harassment where the stereotypical gender roles are reversed, Chrichton claims that sexual harassment / assault is more about power than it is about sex.

Sexual Control = power

Control who's doing who, and how and when and you can exert all kinds of power over them.

Of course it is.

And as the saying goes, everything comes back to sex, except sex, that's about power. (Probably murdered the quote).

[alas]

I think religions are a holdover from when life was shorter and more brutal, and humans had a lot less knowledge about themselves and the world around them.

In that environment, sexual control is crazy important because it helps guarantee your tribe's survival. Forget individual variation, needs, desires, and all that crap. Got to make a lot of babies and raise them right or we'll all die out. You there, Gayboy! You're with Ugette because I said so. Take one for the team!

It doesn't even need to be intentional. Tribes that didn't control sex are gone. Those that stumbled upon sexual control are still here. It's natural selection, but with a social construct. It happens to be associated with religion because everything used to be religion.

Or, because they were on an island and could not afford to over populate the island, they limited the number of births with polygamy. It was very important to control who was having sex with fertile females. Desert populations often had to control population growth also, so they had polygamy. One group even had religious restrictions on what women of child baring age could eat. Which made them so malnourished that half the pregnancies miscarried and greater than average numbers of women died in childbirth. Other cultures made rules about not spilling your seed on the ground or wasting it on men. Or, they only controlled the women and who had sex with the women while young or single men were free and encouraged to have homosexual relations. It also had to do with how much warfare they engaged in and if they stole brides, or went for tribal purity by killing enemy women also. Some tribes also had religious/cultural things that tended to weed out weak babies, like the Stoics who put their newborns out in the cold and if they were weak, then the tribe did not waste resources on raising them.

So, really, it was more about keeping a good balance between the population and the environment, more than it was about shear tribe growth, because the tribe that out grew its environment was just as dead as the tribe that did not produce enough offspring. All these rules were carried in the culture and religion and the tribes environment.

[Reuben]

Nice! I hadn't thought of all those other scenarios and the social constructs they would engender.

[Not Buying It]

Over on Reddit several posters have noticed the suspicious timing of proposed legislation in the Utah State Legislature to end Utah being a one-party consent state for recordings just as several NOMs and ex-Mormons are suggesting that Bishop's interviews be recorded. See for yourself:

https://le.utah.gov/~2018/bills/static/HB0330.html


This is no coincidence - the Church wants to use some of its puppet Utah legislators to head off any embarrassing recordings. This didn't just spontaneously happen - it is being orchestrated by the Church.

Think about it for a minute - the Church has something it thinks is embarrassing, but rather than fix the problem they are seeking to keep the public from finding out about it. That says a lot, doesn't it?

[Linked]

Over on Reddit several posters have noticed the suspicious timing of proposed legislation in the Utah State Legislature to end Utah being a one-party consent state for recordings just as several NOMs and ex-Mormons are suggesting that Bishop's interviews be recorded. See for yourself:

https://le.utah.gov/~2018/bills/static/HB0330.html


This is no coincidence - the Church wants to use some of its puppet Utah legislators to head off any embarrassing recordings. This didn't just spontaneously happen - it is being orchestrated by the Church.

Think about it for a minute - the Church has something it thinks is embarrassing, but rather than fix the problem they are seeking to keep the public from finding out about it. That says a lot, doesn't it?

I saw that too. This is dystopian. It feels like a bad dream. I usually am ok with the idea of the church continuing its existence, but this pushed me over the edge. Not only does the church hide truth, now it is attempting to silence it at the expense of child victims. And the most amazing part is they will almost surely succeed with minimal backlash.

[alas]

Over on Reddit several posters have noticed the suspicious timing of proposed legislation in the Utah State Legislature to end Utah being a one-party consent state for recordings just as several NOMs and ex-Mormons are suggesting that Bishop's interviews be recorded. See for yourself:

https://le.utah.gov/~2018/bills/static/HB0330.html


This is no coincidence - the Church wants to use some of its puppet Utah legislators to head off any embarrassing recordings. This didn't just spontaneously happen - it is being orchestrated by the Church.

Think about it for a minute - the Church has something it thinks is embarrassing, but rather than fix the problem they are seeking to keep the public from finding out about it. That says a lot, doesn't it?

But look on the bright side. The church will inform bishops not to allow recording, just as they have gotten stinky about people recording stake conferences where their majesties are speaking. All you have to do is inform the bishop that "this interview may be recorded for quality control" and they will all start refusing to do them. Problem solved.

[Reuben]

But look on the bright side. The church will inform bishops not to allow recording, just as they have gotten stinky about people recording stake conferences where their majesties are speaking. All you have to do is inform the bishop that "this interview may be recorded for quality control" and they will all start refusing to do them. Problem solved.

And then they'll realize that missing out on certain membership privileges would make them second-class citizens, and most will cave.

I think anonymity is a better solution.

Anyone know if this new law would have made Mike Norton's temple videos illegal?

[FiveFingerMnemonic]

But look on the bright side. The church will inform bishops not to allow recording, just as they have gotten stinky about people recording stake conferences where their majesties are speaking. All you have to do is inform the bishop that "this interview may be recorded for quality control" and they will all start refusing to do them. Problem solved.

And then they'll realize that missing out on certain membership privileges would make them second-class citizens, and most will cave.

I think anonymity is a better solution.

Anyone know if this new law would have made Mike Norton's temple videos illegal?

Anyone living in Utah should contact their state representatives and oppose this bill. The consequences aren't just religious, it will promote corruption without accountability in other areas too.

[wtfluff]

Anyone living in Utah should contact their state representatives and oppose this bill. The consequences aren't just religious, it will promote corruption without accountability in other areas too.

Yep, if you live in the theocracy that is named Utah, contact your representatives. A quick email doesn't take a lot of time.

[StarbucksMom]

SOB lurkers: There are 49 other states not controlled by Mormon corruption. They sell recording devices too.

Legislation can take some time.
1-Is there anyone--like a male with a conscience or a female in Utah govt. who would worry about victims' rights and oppose this?

2-Can Sam Young find a brave person (Savanna where are you when we need you??) to do this sooner than later? Like I said, contrary to LDS inc beliefs, Utah isn't the center of the universe. There are other states. But a recorded youth interview would be a nice pre-emptive middle finger to the church.