NOM

Unless you've been living under a rock, you're aware of the furor over United Airlines forcibly removing a passenger from a flight, and it has turned into an epic public relations fiasco. Their customer service and PR awareness in general was beyond abysmal, and they are paying the price for it.

I was thinking this morning, their customer service approach in this situation isn't so far off from that of the LDS Church. Part of United's problem was an adherence to policy at the expense of compassion - much like the factors that caused the BYU Title IX/Honor Code scandal, for which the Salt Lake Tribune won a well-deserved Pulitzer on its reporting of that mess. United treated a customer like total crap - much like the Church often treats its "customers" like total crap, with little concern for their needs, making unreasonable demands regardless of how the member feels. The initial response from United's CEO was incredibly tone-deaf to public opinion - as the Church's responses often are, as in President Newsroom spending more time accusing the Tribune of "gotcha journalism" in response to the BYU Honor Code scandal, rather than focusing on the pain of the victims and the need to set right something that was very, very wrong. The rigid policy-bound behavior of the United employees and initial unapologetic statement of the CEO was so reminiscent to me of how the Church often approaches things.

Of course, there are differences too. United doesn't try and haul you into a Court of Love, publicly humiliate and demonize you, and try turn your family against you if you fly a different airline. It won't haul you off the plane for criticizing it publicly. It won't cancel your ticket if you drink coffee. In some ways, United is far kinder to its customers.

United Airlines didn't victim blame. The church does. However, in pre-i-phone days, United might have victim blamed​. I thought it was interesting they said that what they did was perfectly legal. I have learned many things the last four years. One of those things is what is legal and what is moral or ethical are two entirely different things.

United is also responding to the backlash. I saw a headline stating that United's CEO felt ashamed when he saw the video. I'm not sure if you'd get the same response from the church leaders. Case in point: the gay Mormon suicides. When asked about them, the response is a cold we just have our doctrines and policies, the choice to commit suicide is theirs. So, no remorse, no shame.

United doesn't believe it's led by God. It is not the one true airline. It know if has to compete.

As far as I know, no one is defending United. While, there are many who defend the church. Even if they see the church is wrong, they defend it. Kind of like that song from King And I.

The thoughtless things he'll do
Will hurt and worry you
Then, all at once he'll do
Something wonderful!

So, the members cling to a half-life in the harem.

I was going to wait until someone else posted, but there are some things that came up that need my attention.

I wonder if we all would be as outraged if it had been a woman dragged from her seat. We can't turn back time and change the choice, but I somehow think the scene would be considered comical rather than outrageous if it was a woman being dragged down the aisle. There might have been caveman jokes that the officers should have dragged her by the hair. I think there'd be a lot comments referring to the woman in pejorative terms that she should have just given up her seat, that perhaps she had it coming.

United Airlines implemented a policy. The policy was followed by the employees. The ticket has an agreement on it which the customers agree to in purchasing their tickets. He refused to leave the property of United Airlines and thus was forcibly removed by the airport security.

That's essentially what happened. I'm not saying that United Airlines was in the right, I'm saying that is what the root of the issue is.

Employees are required to follow company procedure, violation could cost them their job. They were not being asked to do something that was illegal, so they should not be punished. United Airlines did not punish their employees (the airport security did put the officer on paid leave pending review) but commended them in their internal memo for complying with company policy.

United Airlines also apologized to the family of, and the victim of, the fiasco. They are also addressing the issue directly with two immediate moves as of this morning (per NPR), the first is that they will not forcibly remove a passenger from a plane due to overbooking, and the second is that they will shift the overbooking issue to the gate, not on the plane itself. In other words, make it so that this situation doesn't happen again.

In my experience, the church generally does one of two things when a fiasco occurs in its ranks. The first is to BLAME the local leadership entirely without addressing their internal policy. The second is to BLAME the victim. Sometimes, they do both. They blame local leadership and then blame the victim at the same time.

United Airlines didn't do either, they did not blame, they issued an apology to the family and man (the church does not give apologies per Elder Oaks) and they commended their employees for doing their job. They addressed what the real issue was: a bad policy of bumping people off of flights when they are already situated on the plane.

My career has been heavily influenced by Concept of Operations (ConOps) and Human Performance Improvement (HPI). It shifts away from looking for a scapegoat and focuses on identifying how to avoid such actions in the future. When you study it, you look at a lot at things like plane crashes, industrial accidents, and other such catastrophes and figure out what went wrong. It shifts blame away from people (because people naturally error) and looks at processes and technology to account for human error. Much of this goes into looking at procedures and policies. A big HPI thing is when an accident / catastrophe occurs and everyone followed procedure, you look at the procedure because clearly it was at fault. The crew followed procedure, the ticketing folks followed procedure, the bump process was following procedure, and the airport security followed procedure. No _person_ was at fault, it was _procedural_. As my mentor (Navy Nuke guy) loves to say in these situations, "Ah, this is procedural, not personal".

So, change the procedure. From what I am reading, my HPI / ConOps background is nodding profusely at the response and saying, "Yes, the procedure sucked, let's not blame the crew but change the procedure". And...United is doing that. The church is the opposite of ConOps and HPI, if policy fails, then clearly you are at fault.

This isn't just institutional though, it is baked into the religion: "Read the book of Mormon and pray and God will tell you it is true". If you do the procedure and don't get the outcome, then the problem is you. So you do it again, and again, and again. It never comes out true. But in the eyes of the religion, the procedure for testimony isn't broken, YOU ARE.

Give It Time wrote: ↑Thu Apr 13, 2017 8:28 am I was going to wait until someone else posted, but there are some things that came up that need my attention.

I wonder if we all would be as outraged if it had been a woman dragged from her seat. We can't turn back time and change the choice, but I somehow think the scene would be considered comical rather than outrageous if it was a woman being dragged down the aisle. There might have been caveman jokes that the officers should have dragged her by the hair. I think there'd be a lot comments referring to the woman in pejorative terms that she should have just given up her seat, that perhaps she had it coming.

Or a black man. If it had been a black man, the reaction would not have been anything---look at the reactions of most whites when a black man is manhandled by police or killed and we have it all on video and the man didn't do anything, except perhaps give some lip to a police officer who stops him for no reason.

Yeah, sometimes the victim blaming in our culture is sickening. Oh, the security officers manhandled and dragged a woman off a plane? well, she should not have resisted when she was instructed to leave.

I think the huge outrage over this is, "OMG, if they will do that to a white, male, doctor, then none of us are safe!" That was my reaction, this could happen to any of us. And I imagined my DH being pulled from a flight where we have a connection and a cruise to catch, because if it happens to a high status while male, none of us are safe from this kind of brutality. Because, far as status in this world, white, male, Doctor is about as high as it gets.

Then secondly, I felt a bit disgusted that the white male doctor tried to use his status as a doctor to say that his making his flight was more important than the next guy making his. Doctors so often get preferential treatment, like when they testify in court, the whole court arranges things around the doctor, but every other witness gets to waste a whole day waiting around till the court gets to them. So, it bothered me to see him pull rank on all the other passengers to try to get out of being bumped, as if his getting back to see patients is more important than someone with a connecting flight, or a job to get to, or business meeting, or just the vacation they have saved for for the last twenty years, it kind of disgusted me that he thought he was more important than the other passengers.

But, yes, the church is an authoritarian organization that thinks it has every right to treat it's paying customers like crap. At least United doesn't have its customers scrubbing toilets.

Safety helmets for United Airlines passengers could still allow members to partake of the Communion Sacrament.

Doc, you nailed it. Airport security errored on the wrong side of physical extraction. Bad policy allowed the cops to get on the plane and caveman instincts took over from there.

alas wrote:Then secondly, I felt a bit disgusted that the white male doctor...

I don't think he was white, but I get your point.

He looks more Lamanite than Nephite.

I still think alas makes a good point. The doctor is Asian. I think he's Chinese and the Chinese, last I read, were looking to boycott. Yes, he did pull rank. I was thinking about times I wouldn't want to give up my seat: one of my parents was on life support and time was of the essence to get there for final goodbyes. Or being a single parent and needing to get home to my children who I've left in the care of a relative. The cruise is a good scenario, because the boat doesn't wait.

Yeah, I didn't like his pulling rank, either.

document wrote: ↑Thu Apr 13, 2017 10:37 am if policy fails, then clearly you are at fault.

I'm just full of double posts, today.

This comment was excellent. My issues with the church are the policy based on doctrines and how they fail many people. At first it looks like it's only policy or only leader roulette, but then when the problem is examined closely, it isn't human failing, but that the policy (and doctrine behind it) is wrong.

Of course, that isn't how it's viewed among the other "passengers" and the person being dragged from the plane is blamed (oh, and laughed at, too).

document wrote: ↑Thu Apr 13, 2017 10:37 am United Airlines didn't do either, they did not blame, they issued an apology to the family and man (the church does not give apologies per Elder Oaks) and they commended their employees for doing their job. They addressed what the real issue was: a bad policy of bumping people off of flights when they are already situated on the plane.
...
This isn't just institutional though, it is baked into the religion: "Read the book of Mormon and pray and God will tell you it is true". If you do the procedure and don't get the outcome, then the problem is you. So you do it again, and again, and again. It never comes out true. But in the eyes of the religion, the procedure for testimony isn't broken, YOU ARE.

Excellent analysis, Document. I don't think people spend enough time looking at systemic procedures and/or policies that may sound like a good idea from one point of view but can lead to disastrous outcomes in some cases. As a pilot, I'm often a little chagrined at NTSB accident investigation reports that place blame for an accident on a pilot as "failure to maintain control..." or some such after a pilot gets into a situation that no reasonable pilot could be expected to get out of. Someone always has to be to blame when in fact the guy may have been making reasonable decisions that ended up leading to a bad end anyway. Sometimes life just throws you a curve ball, but we like to think we have control and could have prevented any bad outcome had we just taken the proper course of action at some point. While that might be technically true in hind site, it's often hard to see going in.

Anyway, this ended up being a bit of a tangent, but maybe my point is just that it's human nature to blame the immediate actors when a confluence of secondary events combined with systemic constraints sometimes lead to an inevitable conclusion.

fh451

To continue your tangent...

You know those awful talks and lessons about the atonement where the point is always asserted that the atonement can heal your pain if you just repent? I hate those talks. The mother who lost her child in a drive-by shooting, the woman who was molested as a pre-schooler by her uncle, the man who's roof is destroyed when a tornado picks up his neighbor's car and it lands on his house. All these people experience pain that needs healing and telling them to repent is rubbing salt in their wounds. I'm sure there are even instances, in hindsight, where a circumstance simply could not be avoided. That's why, if you're ever called on to speak on repentance, this statement would be a really good one.

fh451 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 13, 2017 5:04 pm
As a pilot, I'm often a little chagrined at NTSB accident investigation reports that place blame for an accident on a pilot as "failure to maintain control..." or some such after a pilot gets into a situation that no reasonable pilot could be expected to get out of. Someone always has to be to blame when in fact the guy may have been making reasonable decisions that ended up leading to a bad end anyway. Sometimes life just throws you a curve ball, but we like to think we have control and could have prevented any bad outcome had we just taken the proper course of action at some point. While that might be technically true in hind site, it's often hard to see going in.


fh451

OK, here's an example of where a "system" in the Church leads to an outrageously harmful result. I shared this on the old board about a year and a half ago. My daughter's good friend was forced to have sex by her "good member" boyfriend. She was confused that someone she thought was "righteous", someone she cared about and thought he cared about her, would do something like that. It messed up her thinking for a while, understandably, and he was pretty smooth, as many sexual predators are. Thinking that the cupcake had already been licked, so to speak, she had consensual sex with him several times after. When she finally told the bishop, she got put on informal probation for a while and couldn't take the Sacrament. See, the fact she was raped the first time was somehow negated by the fact she had sex willingly afterwards, and Church policy said she had to be punished. Her rapist got a slap on the wrist and left on a mission six months ago to much praise and acclaim.

The "system" didn't know how to deal with the rape victim, and because it only knew how to punish the consensual sex, she was punished. Because she has received "counseling" from the bishop who punished her, she is not getting the professional help she probably needs. And apparently a few weeks without the Sacrament is enough to absolve a rapist and allow him to go on a mission with everyone going on about how noble he is.

There were good, kind men who did what the "system" dictated and inflicted a grievous wrong on a rape victim, and performed a gross miscarriage of justice for a rapist. Because those were the options that the "system" gave them.

Not Buying It wrote: ↑Thu Apr 13, 2017 9:18 pm OK, here's an example of where a "system" in the Church leads to an outrageously harmful result. I shared this on the old board about a year and a half ago. My daughter's good friend was forced to have sex by her "good member" boyfriend. She was confused that someone she thought was "righteous", someone she cared about and thought he cared about her, would do something like that. It messed up her thinking for a while, understandably, and he was pretty smooth, as many sexual predators are. Thinking that the cupcake had already been licked, so to speak, she had consensual sex with him several times after. When she finally told the bishop, she got put on informal probation for a while and couldn't take the Sacrament. See, the fact she was raped the first time was somehow negated by the fact she had sex willingly afterwards, and Church policy said she had to be punished. Her rapist got a slap on the wrist and left on a mission six months ago to much praise and acclaim.

The "system" didn't know how to deal with the rape victim, and because it only knew how to punish the consensual sex, she was punished. Because she has received "counseling" from the bishop who punished her, she is not getting the professional help she probably needs. And apparently a few weeks without the Sacrament is enough to absolve a rapist and allow him to go on a mission with everyone going on about how noble he is.

There were good, kind men who did what the "system" dictated and inflicted a grievous wrong on a rape victim, and performed a gross miscarriage of justice for a rapist. Because those were the options that the "system" gave them.

It's late and I'm too tired to write more at this time, but I agree with you. I could say so much more. The church is wrong on this. It's the reason I know longer believe and I don't think, in my example, it's just policy. From what I've learned in my example, it's founded in doctrine. I haven't considered the whole question from a standpoint of rape. I'll "sleep" on that. However, NBI, as wrong as the church is--and it is wrong--and as wrong as I see society as being (I say this because Donald Trump, an admitted sexual predator, was elected president), I've just come to the conclusion the church doesn't care, society doesn't care. That's why I pointed out the scenario of the scene being a woman. I could blame the church, but the problem is much wider.

My thoughts aren't as depressed on this as they'll come across at this late hour. I've just come to accept some facts and I make decisions from there.

More tomorrow.

Red Ryder wrote: ↑Thu Apr 13, 2017 11:44 am Doc, you nailed it. Airport security errored on the wrong side of physical extraction. Bad policy allowed the cops to get on the plane and caveman instincts took over from there.

alas wrote:Then secondly, I felt a bit disgusted that the white male doctor...

I don't think he was white, but I get your point.

He looks more Lamanite than Nephite.

Dr. Dao is Chinese American

I've been thinking, lately, about how afraid church members are to address the problems that come about as an effect of the doctrines and policies. Problems that need to be addressed, but when confronted with following that thought, the garden variety Mormon would rather cry or testify or accuse the person who has followed that thought and found the church wanting of apostasy or wanting to embarrass the church.

I'll address policy, first. I'll keep most of my comments to rape. For context purposes, I'll remind the group of my own rape. It was by the man who is now my ex-husband. We were married at the time. I was wearing sweats. I didn't feel well and turned in early because I didn't feel well. He came in, started making overtures. I told him no. He persisted. I told him no again. He said that because I didn't feel well, he wanted to make me feel good. I told him I didn't want to feel good, I wanted to feel better. He persisted. I didn't feel well and didn't have the strength to fight him off. If I'm sick, I shouldn't have to leave my own home to avoid sex. I acquiesced for reasons that were a combination of circumstances and doctrine and the word I used was to acquiesce was "whatever".

The church sure does love to blame rape victims. Society does, as well, but this is about the church. Actually, it's commendable that the church doesn't want our women and girls being raped. However, the church, like all of society, really, takes the wrong approach. Rather than telling the rapist he is out of line, they tell the victim she is. If the church truly didn't want women being raped, they would make several changes. I'll focus on what I see as the most important.

Young Women's would be martial arts training. All six years. Every weekly meeting would be training young women to take down an assailant. Let that presiding priesthood holder put on one of those padded suits and make himself useful. Let him see the fear and the anger in the young women's faces as he takes his pummeling. Let him hear about the degrading comments women are trained to accept as normal. Let him hear how, when a young woman plans to go anywhere, she has to have a safety plan in place.

An aspect of our culture that enables rape is the garment feel-up. Hugs, handshakes and touch are wonderful and needed things, but when they morph into the garment feel-up, that is touching the body without the other person's permission and the reason for the touch is to gain information (find out their secrets) against their will. It's kind of an emotional rape.

Another policy change that needs to take place are the stereotypes that surround rape. This one isn't just on the church, but the church certainly doesn't break any new ground in educating. There are shows that are doing an excellent job of teaching about rape and how the victim doesn't give consent. I have a problem with these portrayals because they have a tendency to rely on stereotypes: she was drunk at a party or she was alone in a hot tub with him. In some way or another, she was breaking a rule of common sense and, since she was breaking a rule of common sense, there was some rapist there to teach her a lesson.

However, in my own case, it's possible to be obeying all the rules of common sense and still get raped. Women in nursing homes get raped by CNAs. When a woman is portrayed as a possible rape victim in a scenario where she isn't disobeying the rules of common sense, the rape gets aborted. Either she is able to fight off her assailant, as The Bride did in Kill Bill, or the rapist thinks better of it as Walter did in Breaking Bad when he starts to rape Skyler when she's wearing a pink fuzzy robe and an avocado face mask. If she's not violating the bounds of propriety, she's somehow spared.

There are other aspects of rape culture that have been addressed on many other occasions. I'll move on to doctrine, instead.

There are two aspects of rape: the physical f*ck and the mind f*ck. The church's teachings support the latter. Here are sure if them.

Honor the priesthood-this was a factor in the example you provided. The females of the church are to honor the priesthood. That is interpreted as what he says goes. Even from the teenaged years. Our young men learn that his priesthood is his trump card.

Never say no-We have this in our never saying no to a calling. You can't say no to someone with priesthood authority over you. The reverse side of this is our young men being taught by this practice--and by society--to not take no for an answer. In our church, no is simply an unacceptable answer.

Obedience-It's the first law of Heaven for all of us and the first covenant in the temple. This makes the first two on this list something of a Heavenly order and not something I can see being changed in our church. However, this covenant is something that was exploited by my rapist in the mind f*ck aspect of my rape. I acquiesced, because I was weak and because he made it sound like he was trying to do me a favor. If you read the stories of rape victims, it isn't unusual to find that the rapist made it sound like he was doing them a favor. In my case, I reasoned that I don't have to obey him if he isn't being righteous. He made it sound like he was trying to be righteous. Like he was trying to be kind. He was doing a clumsy job of trying to do right. With that reasoning on the obedience covenant and the fact that I was too weak to fight him off at that moment, I acquiesced to my own rape. It sounds like a similar mind f*ck went on behind the scenes in your example.

It's not just the policy. The policies are a reflection of the doctrine. The doctrine won't change and the members and leaders are afraid to face the whole nasty truth of it. We've all been through similar facing the truth the church is wrong. We all know how painful that is.

Okay, so here's why I'm discouraged, but not depressed. I've learned all these things. I can now spot, early on, when a person is likely to be trouble. I know to remain politely aloof. I think that most people would want to know this. Would want to be able to prevent the victimization of themselves and those they love. Know what? They don't. The whole topic is too negative. They hear these kind of things and want the person speaking the truth to quit killing the buzz. Rapists are an aggressive, entitled lot. People with those personality traits have a tendency to be successful. People like associating with winners. They do things like make them President of the United States. So what if he's an admitted sexual predator. The man sees what he wants and takes it. Like I said. Society doesn't care. I find this discouraging. However, I still have the ability to see someone like this for what they are. I have the ability to hear it in teachings and discard those teachings. I've come to consider the ability, since society doesn't want to hear it, a bit of a super power.

First, I don't think an Asian male doctor is very far below a Caucasian male doctor on the social standing scale. An Asian male doctor is still above a white male plumber, or a white female doctor, or a black doctor. He might be half a step down from Caucasian male doctor, but is still pretty high up on the social class/racial scale.

Give it time, you are right that rape culture is built into church doctrine and policy. But I am going to disagree with you just a bit about your saying that Mormon men as a group don't care about rape. I think most care, but they Just. Don't. Get it. There is huge denial about the whole issue. And it isn't just the men. There is huge denial about rape in the women of the church too. We want to be safe and we want our children to be safe and we cannot stand the real answer that we are not safe, so we train in "rape prevention" is ways that end up blaming the victim when they fail. Because they will fail. Modesty does not prevent rape. In fact, over the top modesty is a signal rapists look for in a victim because it signals compliance, low self worth, and the kind of naive girl that fundamental religions like to bring up. It signals vulnerability, which is really what rapist look for.

I see several layers of denial.

1. Rape doesn't happen to good girls.
A. If you are obeying rules, you won't be in a situation
a. Modesty
b. Being where you are supposed to be.
Not out alone
Not out late
Being any where there is a rapist, or since you don't know who might be a rapist, being anywhere with anyone.
C. Not drinking, not leading him on, not cooperating with him, not.........
B. If you are righteous, God will protect you.
C. A woman can't be raped unless she cooperates a little.
(I heard one man insisting that a man could never get a woman's underpants off unless she lifted her hips)
2. It's not really rape if:
A. She knows him
B. She isn't badly beaten
C. They are married or have had sex before
D. She lives through it
3. It's no big deal. People minimize the impact or deny that there should be any impact
(rape culture jokes about relax and enjoy it, or a little sex never hurt anyone.)
(Rape is on one hand, the worst thing that can possibly happen,
to be avoided at all costs, but if it DOES happen, it's no big deal)
A. Forget about it
B. Forgive
C. Why aren't you over this yet?

It is like people don't know how to deal with it when it does happen, so they avoid looking at it. They look instead at the circumstances, that maybe in hindsight could have prevented it. I had one rape victim as a counseling client who was in her house, with all the doors locked, asleep in bed, at 2:00 am. She was almost killed, in fact, I think the man wanted her dead because she knew him and could testify. She was 87. People still asked her questions looking for how she screwed up and caused this man to do this.

BYU and the honor code mess is a good example of church policy and how victim blame is built into policy. They didn't examine how the policy of enforcing honor code (in the mistaken belief that good girls don't get raped) would impact real people, discourage reporting of sexual assault, and let rapists get away with rape, thus increasing rape on campus.

What makes me want to scream in the Mormon version of rape culture is that there is huge resistance to training our girls about protecting themselves. We don't want to "scare them" by having lessons on rape prevention or how to recognize abusive men so they don't date them. It isn't the girls we are protecting by not teaching them. It is the adults we are keeping in the "all is well is Zion" bubble that we are protecting by not having lessons that would shatter their belief that modesty prevents rape and keeping our girls safe is a matter of them not drinking.

And, Not Buying It, the business of letting the young man go on a mission after he rapes a date is part of the "no big deal" after it happens. They treat a rapist no differently than the boy who has consensual sex as far as his repentance goes, because they don't get the emotional damage of rape. They are in a form of denial about the impact of rape, so they cannot see that a sexual predator is not the same thing as too young people who just go too far.

Now, I have to wonder how this denial plays out when people look deeper at Joseph Smith.

You have all made some excellent points. And here is the kind of thing that a failure to recognize the seriousness of rape in the Church leads to:

http://kutv.com/news/local/judge-praise ... x-offender

alas, I like your wording better about the denial. I like that it's compassionate. It just isn't my experience.

If I say much more than that, I'll get quite negative and I really do consider myself to be in a place where I've just accepted this is how it is and I've let it go. I'm not happy this is how it is. I'll help when asked, but it's no longer my cause and I choose to find my bliss and purpose elsewhere.

Give It Time wrote: ↑Fri Apr 14, 2017 10:18 am alas, I like your wording better about the denial. I like that it's compassionate. It just isn't my experience.

If I say much more than that, I'll get quite negative and I really do consider myself to be in a place where I've just accepted this is how it is and I've let it go. I'm not happy this is how it is. I'll help when asked, but it's no longer my cause and I choose to find my bliss and purpose elsewhere.

Wel, you know it isn't my *experience* either. It is my after the fact choice to see things in a more positive way. Giving people more of the benifit of the doubt than they deserve helps me not to dislike human beings as much as I would if I went with how the experience felt. Because when you have a spiritual need and turn to the bishop as you have been trained to do, and he can't get past blaming you as his first reaction, then he criticizes you as unforgiving as his second reaction, then just cancels any appointment you try to make, yeah, it really feels like he doesn't care. Then your next bishop is no better and neither was most of the people that I reached out to. But rather than decide that my hubby is the only man on earth who isn't a jacka**, I made an effort to reframe it to save my opinion of the human race. I reframed it as them being ill equipped to deal with my situation. I couldn't deal with my situation, so why should I expect anyone else to? So, when I reached out for help, my college math teacher of a bishop turned into a gibbering idiot. The Air Force pilot of a bishop turned into a gibbering idiot. My relief society president turned into a gibbering idiot. These people were not equipped to deal with the harsh reality that I dumped in their laps, so, they retreated into self protection. Denial is a form of self protection.

I had a boss once when I worked as rape victim advocate at her agency. The agency had a battered woman's shelter, counseling for domestic violence, worked with homeless women, worked with women to complete their highschool degree or re-enter the work force. So, it wasn't just rape, but a whole host of women's issues. EVERYONE at the agency was required to be on the rape victim volunteer list to go to the hospital to be with a rape victim. But she wouldn't. She said that she just couldn't deal with it. It wasn't that she didn't care. She fought for funding for our agency, putting in 80-90 hour weeks and going up against politicians and city counsel. She was a strong caring woman, who became a gibbering idiot in the face of a rape victim or battered woman. Her training was in administration and her strengths were in funding and running an agency. But if she ever had ended up at the hospital, she would have done a TERRBLE job. It wasn't that she didn't care, it was she was in so far over her head that she just couldn't cope.

So, that is how I have chosen to see LDS men who accidently land in leadership in the church. Their strengths, what they were chosen for in LDS leadership is not their knowledge of abuse, rape, or any woman's issue. It is not their ability to express concern or compassion. Men are chosen as bishop because they are see as competent administrators and good with youth. The church decided some time ago that a bishop should be buddies to the youth so if there is sexual sin, they will confess to him. The rest of the ward's needs are nonexistent. The youth need someone they will confess to, so they pick bishops as if their only job is "president of the priests quorum". Which job I don't think should be the bishop's job at all, because it is way out of step with the whole organization of the church, but whatever.

It took me some twenty to thirty years to get to the point where I could see the problem first as not being my fault, second as not being that they were just uncaring jerks, and finally reframe it as they were so far over their heads they had to go into denial to protect their own ego. So, they went to the nearest form of denial, that it was really my fault somehow. To empathize with me would have caused them pain and rather than feel that pain, they protected themselves.

So, being in denial is a form of not caring, or rather shutting off the caring for the other person by blaming them or minimizing the problem. They shut off their caring because they can't or won't go through the pain it would take to put themselves in my shoes. But they lack the skills to do anything else.

Dr. David Dao, 69, suffered a concussion, broken nose, and damaged sinuses and lost two front teeth when he was dragged off a flight Sunday to make room for United personnel.

Fortunately, this does not happen when there is an overflow crowd for baby blessings and missionary returns.