Hagoth wrote: ↑Sun Dec 06, 2020 8:07 am
"...so please don’t think I’m trying to say that Mormons in general try to shame rape victims or purposely think less of them."
Mormons in general, no, but not necessarily their beloved leaders.
David O. McKay said, “Your virtue is worth more than your life . . . preserve your virtue even if you lose your lives.”
Spencer Kimball taught this doctrine in
The Miracle of Forgiveness: “Also far-reaching is the effect of the loss of chastity. Once given or taken or stolen it can never be regained. Even in a forced contact such as rape or incest... It is better to die in defending one’s virtue than to live having lost it without a struggle.”
A 1974 First Presidency statement informed members that if a rape victim does not resist her attacker “with all her strength and energy” she would be “guilty of unchastity.”
This is so damaging. Based on this alone, these men should NEVER be taken seriously about anything they say. I'm sure they felt confident in what they were teaching because it is supported by the Book of Mormon. So maybe the Book of Mormon shouldn't be taken seriously either. Any leader who backs away from this horrific teaching is putting themselves in danger of teaching that the BoM teaches false doctrine.
Despite what anyone says, this stuff continues to be taught to young women every time a YM instructor passes around a licked cupcake.
I've wondered if there wasn't either a failure to differentiate between "virginity" and "virtue" in the mind of Joseph as he (or Sidney) wrote the BofM?
Or perhaps a "conflation" of the two? Or did Victorian times and minds actually see loss of virginity and loss of chastity as one and the same, even if that loss was made under duress? As long as the loss occurred outside the bonds of marriage, was the woman considered "fallen" regardless of the circumstances?
To me this enhances the proposition that the BofM was a product of the 1800's.
The Biblical scriptures seem to lean towards a woman who was forced as someone who had been shamed or humbled in the sense that their virginity had been stolen but not necessarily their virtue.
This from Deuteronomy (I think
)
23 "If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto an husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her;
24 Then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die; the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city; and the man, because he hath humbled his neighbour’s wife: so thou shalt put away evil from among you.
25 But if a man find a betrothed damsel in the field, and the man force her, and lie with her: then the man only that lay with her shall die.
26 But unto the damsel thou shalt do nothing; there is in the damsel no sin worthy of death: for as when a man riseth against his neighbour, and slayeth him, even so is this matter:
27 For he found her in the field, and the betrothed damsel cried, and there was none to save her."
So even under the law of Moses it appears to me that there is a more just and merciful approach to rape than under Mormon law.
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