Now Let's Be Nice
The Facade of Mormonism


Provides essential discipline and self loathing - See back panel for terms of exhaltation.

Nice is considered a negative trait in this section. Add your commnets specifically addressing the "nice" issue at the bottom of this page.

First Presidency - Ignores victims

12/30/2003 - from doogerdonut

I knew someone who was abused by her father for years. When it finally came out, the church disfellowshipped him. Although the father admited freely to having done the awful deed, he remained disfellowship (not excommunicated!) until he was actually sent to prison. It was then that the image-conscious LDS excommunicated him. Why did they wait? What other reason could it be other than the image they want to keep?

I know the church policy is that anyone who goes to Prison must be excommunicated.

I guess it makes me wonder what happens if someone goes to jail for something they didn't do? And what happens if someone who is guilty of an awful crime somehow escapes being sentenced to prison? Why does the LAW affect a moral punishment?

btw, the father was rebaptized this year.

The girl had to write a letter to the First Presidencey...I guess any time a pedophile wants to return to the church, the offended has to write a letter about what she wants. She stated clearly that she didn't want him to be allowed back and that her beliefs would be severely challenged should he be re-admitted.

But it didn't matter? Why?

My father was one of those Dr.Jekyll and Mr. Hyde types

09/22/2003 - anon

How true everything that I have been reading on your website. I'll comment on number ten with regards to the post titled; The Price of Being Nice.

My father was one of those Dr.Jekyll and Mr. Hyde types, who was a terror at home, and an angel at church. My father served as Bishop for many years, and also as Mission President, and few knew what kind of person he really was. No one at church believed me when I would mention what homelife was like, with all the physical, and emotional abuse that I and my other siblings were given. After all these years, I truly hope that my dad has changed, and isn't two faced anymore.

Mormonism is about control, and to you know where with free agency. At one time I joined another religion, and was kicked out of the condo which my father owns, and many of my siblings, looked down on me for the decision, that I had made. I eventually came back to Mormonism, but not as a true believer.

I remember, when I received my first temple recommend, since returning to the church, and telling the Stake counsellor about my abuse at the hands of my father. He just looked at me arrogantly and said, with referance to my Dad being called as a mission president,"God calls mission presidents."

In reality my father's large amount of tithing helped him and my mother to be chosen as mission presidents. Well, I do love my family, and my parents even with their imperfections. Thanks, for the wonderful website, and may more people open their eyes to the evils of and deceptions of religion in general.

Yes, to a moral and charitable life, and no, to religion.

Sitting LDS Bishop Accused of Pedophilia

01/01/2003 - anon

Editor's note: This post arrived this morning actually listing the bishop's name, ward and date of ordination as bishop. This identifying information has been deleted because the Lampoon is not a court of law or police authority and cannot level such a serious accusation on second hand information.

The Lampoon encourages this poster to contact local law enforcement agencies, the county attorney office or secure his/her own attorney, if serious about this charge. If this charge is in fact, true, The Lampoon is deeply concerned for the protection and welfare of potential victims and the welfare of past victims.

xxx xxx xxx is a pedophile. He molested his xxx daughters for years. He was made a bishop of xxx xxx ward on xxx, xx, 2002. The Church knows he's a pedophile. Elder Lance B. Wickman, and Elder Howard Brown, and church legal council; Randy T. Austin of Kirton and McConkie know xxx is a pedophile. Three victims have reported him. However, because his call to be a bishop is so recent, it would cause the Church embarrassment to release him. If you know someone in xxx xxx Ward especially if they have children...stand up for yourselves!!! There will be another lawsuit. Mark my word. I'm one of his victims.

How can this keep going on?

12/18/2002 - anon

For about the last 4 years I've heard stories from men and women, about being molested by Mormon leaders. Most of them were abused inside the church buildings. At first I found it hard to beleive myself. But as time went on and the reports of such accounts went on I became horrified.

I live in a small Utah town of 90 percent Mormons. No one seems to beleive such things could happen. Between 25 and 30 accounts of this has been related to me. The tears and heartache have been overwhelming , both to myself and the victims.

How can this keep going on ? It almost seems like some sort of sacrament or satanistic ritual. I also as a child was raped. Therefore I ask that someway this can be stopped! I also know that once these kind of beings are caught,they become child murders. The rate of recovery is small for these sick persons. So please keep up the good work.

Mormon and Catholics have remarkably similar problems

11/18/2002 - anon

Two churches--Mormon and Catholic--have remarkably similar problems in trying to keep sexual abuse secret. Neither is successful and the Catholic Church is undergoing some tremendous soul searching. The Mormon Church ought to revise its views on marriage and get rid of the probations against both polygamy and homosexuality. Utah should lead the nation to make marriage an contractual act between two parties and, if they want, their god. A change in policy won't get rid of pedophiles--they are a sick group within themselves but their problem is not caused by celibacy or polygamy. It is certainly countenanced by secrecy.

Mormon men's homes are a 16th century Quaker's wet dream.

10/24/2001 - anon

This week I discovered that my Mormon grandfather has been molesting boys and young men for about fifty years. Go figure.

Restrict every natural impulse a human has, and you'll spawn quite unnatural abominations.

I don't solely vilify Mormonism for his treachery though, for any fundamentalism so extreme stymies evolution.

I'm for forgiveness, but these men are predators, and must feed. By keeping their sordid secrets the church sets lions loose to prey in their pews.

A Mormon man is God in his home, and who is God accountable to? Well, nobody; as it goes, there is no God but God. These men's homes are a 16th century Quaker's wet dream.

Backward sects abound among us. I acknowledge that their flocks also chew the cud en route to slaughter, but this one; this one will not be marred. This lilly-white, righteous facade will not be pierced.

Not despite its intolerance;
Not despite its avarice;
Not despite its unrelenting indoctrination;
Not despite its unveiled civic interference;

I refuse to believe that you and me need
the infallible arbiter to justify us

Let us justify us
And every day

Don't behold a mystic superstition you can't see, and who won't embrace me

Instead be beholden to me, and my honor as my word, I'll pay back the turn

Because I see you
and you see me, and
it's all we need

But when we walk down our blocks
making our ways and counting the days
we can't see for our eyes
blinding pipedream haze
looking to them days with that one
pissing away these with this one

We scornfully nod
to our apparition god
passing on the tunnel walk

"God is the courage of unconscionable convictions."

____________________________

Having been molested by a Mormon elder at 4 years old. And not allowed to speak of it in the family let alone church. I appreciate these comments. - 05/31/2002 - anon

"Nice" Sexual Abuse

11/02/2001 - anon

Much of what is on this web site is juvenile, frivolous, and also plain gut-busting funny. Mormons are never more hilarious than when they are trying to be nice. However, I would like to comment on one topic where the actions of the Mormon church and its leaders trying to be nice are no laughing matter. I refer to the sexual abuse of children and its systematic cover-up by church leaders.

Legal action on numerous cases over the last few years indicate the Mormon church is more interested in protecting its squeaky clean image than protecting its children from further sexual abuse. The Mormon church has been confronted with numerous lawsuits recently, where quiet out of court settlements of millions of tithing dollars have been paid to the families of church members whose children have been sexually abused while the actions (or inactions) of? the secretive patriarchial leaders directly perpetuated the criminal abuse.? Some of these cases have been reported in the Salt Lake Tribune and others have been systematically collected by the Mormon Alliance into one volume. These perpetrators number in the dozens to hundreds, although in comparison to the tens of thousands of Mormon wards, they are relatively uncommon.

Each individual case is unique, complex and shrouded in secrecy and disgrace, but they all generally follow a familiar pattern. A pedophile gains the confidence of the local leaders through his seemingly faithfulness and devotion to the numerous rules and regulations of the church. (perfect home-teaching, tearful testimonies, etc.) He is given unsupervised access to some portion of the large flock of Mormon children at church. He targets his victim carefully and begins the abuse, in any one of a variety of creative ways according to his individual perverse tendencies. The abuse gradually increases to involve numerous children spanning many years. Predominantly sexual abuse is seldom physically damaging to a great extent and can go on for long periods of time undetected. Eventually the perpetrator slips up and a small part of his activity is detected by a parent or other adult who can not be intimidated into silence. Rather than reporting the abuse to the police/social agencies?required by law in every state), the Bishop is notified instead.

Few Bishops have any experience in real criminal investiagtion and they lack comprehension about the fundamental nature of pedophilia.?But they have Priesthood Authority and the Spirit and they assure everyone that they will handle the problem.?They hear the perpetrators confessions (often partial, self-serving) and quietly discipline them. They counsel the victim and family to forgive and rely on the Atonement to heal the damage. Some victims are admonished to repent of their part in the atrocity and are made to feel partially guilty.?The perpetrator humbly "repents"?and soon moves on to a new ward to strike again and again. Bishops have admitted in court that they were aware of prior criminal convictions for sexual molestation and possessed knowledge of prison terms and also strict probation requirements that the perpetrators never be allowed around children ever again. Yet these Bishops believed that the perpetrator had truely repented and they consider themselves above the law so they called them to positions that gave them sole responsibility over children. And the abuse was repeated.

In 1995, following a study at BYU of 70 former sexual abuse victims that demonstrated the complete ineptitude of Bishops handling these cases (which study was later criticized and renounced by the church leaders) a hotline was established for Bishops to call for advice on dealing with abuse. Hope for improvement vanished when attorneys, not professional therapists were assigned to answer the hotline calls.?The advice given to Bishops who call is mostly self-serving to the institution of the church and instructs Bishops how to quietly manipulate the victim and family into not pressing any legal charges against the church, above all else. Furthermore, in a couple of recent court cases there is indirect indications of possible witness tampering by the church. Faithful members were initially willing to testify in court, but later after private interviews with church leaders, refused or recanted their previous statements. The perpetrators became unprosecutable and were released. Utah law enforcement agencies are frustrated as hell with the church on this matter.

The Mormon church has gone to great lengths to protect the privacy and confidentiality of confessions to clergy of child abuse. Clerical confidentiality does not extend to situations where failure to notify the proper authorities will likely result in physical harm. Early this year (about March 2001), the Utah Supreme Court, consisting of 5 active Mormons, banned lawsuits against religious institutions over clerical mal-practice.?This ruling gives broad legal protection in Utah to church leaders as they (mis)advise their members.?Many people who monitor pedophiles have noticed that Utah is being promoted in their perverse publications, most of which are illegal, as a nice safe new haven.?Plenty of children who are generally poorly supervised. A culture where women, who are generally better at protecting children and more likely to discover a child abuser are subservient to more sympathetic men and easily silenced or manipulated by them. Prevalence of naive attitudes about sex and a general sunshine outlook. A weak one-party shadow government at the beck and call of a powerful church (partially above the law) that welcomes new converts with open arms after a few lessons and no real background screening. A clergy with little professional training that partially replaces law enforcement and social services. A theology that teaches premarital sex is the sin next to murder, so by extension child molestation is no worse and therefore repentance is equally easy, forgiveness similarily quick. Child molesters are now quietly flocking to nice Utah and being taught the six discussions by the missionaries while preparing to further practice their favorite hobby.

IF THE MORMON CHURCH IS SERIOUS ABOUT PROTECTING THEIR CHILDREN AGAINST SEXUAL ABUSE, THEY MUST INSTITUTE SOME OR MOST OF THE FOLLOWING SUGGESTIONS
(If any church bureaucrats are monitoring this web site, please take note!)


1. Fire all current church attorneys. Their advise has been poor and they are too intent on winning the latest little legal skirmish. They lack a vision of the big picture (where is the prophetic foresight?) and have positioned the church in the worst possible light by denial and trying to pretend that we are free from these serious problems.?Why does the Church need all these damn attorneys in the first place? (Of course you all remember the original nature of the relationship between President Gordon B. Hinckley and his favorite counselor James E. Faust, don't you?)

2. Excommunicate any Bishop who so botches up the problems of a ward member that it costs the church millions of dollars to settle subsequent lawsuits. Especially if the clerical misconduct involves a direct violation of the law such as not reporting sexual abuse of children to the proper civil authorities. If a Bishop was fiddling around with some illegal explosives and happened to blow up a new church building worth a million dollars, would the church attorneys defend him? Is not one child more valuable than one new building? Apparently not.

3. Offer a million dollar reward to the family of any victim of child abuse connected with the church who successfully prosecutes the damn pedophile and puts him behind bars. This may cost a lot the first year, but it would soon root out these pedophiles. If the church inadvertantly continues to coddle and protect them, they will continue to loose more and more lawsuits for many years to come. This will keep the attorneys busy and happy. The church is legally on the wrong side of this problem and should be willing to dig into their pockets as deeply as they have on the other side. Why is the church fighting legally against their own loyal tithe-paying people whom they have wronged irreparably? How can this be faith promoting?

4. Secrecy is the grease that lubricates the pedophile lifestyle. All cases need to be publicized.?Specific names of victims can be dropped to protect them.? Pedophiles deserve no such protection. Pedophiles should be permanently, openly, and harshly excommunicated.?They should be made to feel not welcome in our church.

5. Laws in Utah against child abuse should be strengthened. Reporting of all suspected cases should be mandatory with stiff penalties for non-compliance.?Personally, I would pass legislation mandating sharp force emasculation as the punishment for repetitive pedophilia. The medical community would definitely not lend us their expertise and without it, this would probably result in the bastards bleeding to death. But let it get out in the papers. Before the Supreme Court strikes it down as cruel and unusual. Send the pedophiles this message from Utah and then lock them up for fourty years a pop.

6. The practices and the beliefs of the Mormon church have resulted in a complete and miserable failure to help heal the victims of child sexual abuse.?In fact our practices have further harmed them in more cases than not. The church leaders need to recognize this weakness and get out of the business of counseling people in areas outside of theology.?Sexual abuse is not primarily a theological issue, although there are some serious ethical implications. The membership of the Mormon church has enormous unmet counseling needs in many areas, not just this specific one. The church could finance more research in these fields by the professionals at universities (where they have no control) even if it isn't faith promoting research. Utah is about the best place to study sexual abuse. Perhaps the church could establish a large foundation devoted to helping finance therapy for Mormons. Sounds bad on the surface, but it would give the PR folks a real challenge for once.

7.Most churches do pretty extensive background checks and training sessions before they allow anybody to teach or take care of their children.? (They also pay people for child care.) Perhaps Mormons need to take a hard look at independent screening of teachers, nursery leaders, new members, etc. and at how we train them.?Since the church has dificulty getting anyone to do these duties under the current lax system, this will probably require major structural changes in the church. Better training of Bishops and other local leaders is in order. Dare we cross the line and establish some professional clergy, whom we would have to pay?

In closing, unless drastic changes are undertaken, we Mormons can no longer put our children at the mercy of the image conscious Mormon Church and their self serving attorneys with their distorted sense of safety and justice for our children. I don't have to bear testimony of it, the facts and recent events speak for themselves.

The Price of Being Nice

05/27/2001 - FreeAtLast - gaelic4spot@yahoo.ca

Every person raised in patriarchal systems, including authoritarian religions like Mormonism, unconsciously knows that to be approved of and accepted by the group/collective, you must be "nice" and conform. Everything that the organization/ group deems to be "unworthy", "bad", "unrighteous", etc. is not tolerated. That means to be liked, a person must split off and repress every aspect of their humanity of which the collective disapproves, or outright condemns. That individual is not allowed to be authentic, i.e. their real self. They can only be the type of person that the religion/ organization/group says they can be - nice, obedient, self-sacrificing, etc.

Most people raised in such systems are allowed to express their individuality only to the degree that such self-assertion does not challenge the control which the authority figures and group/community have over them. For example, most young people in LDS families are given the freedom to choose the food that they want to eat, but modifying their appearance in a way that the Mormon collective considers to be "bad", "indecent", "sloppy", etc. quickly results in subtle and/or overt attempts to manipulate the individual into conformity. Guilt/toxic shame, fear, and putting the desires of authority figures and the group above those of the individual are commonly employed in the coercive process (e.g., "Wearing a mini-skirt is stepping on to the path of immorality!", "What will everyone at church think if you get your lip pierced?!, etc.)

In the LDS church, and other quasi-cults, you are not allowed to publicly share any thought, feeling, or experience that is not congruent with what is regarded as "faith-promoting" and "right". The following are examples of personal realities of Mormons whom I have known who did not share their thoughts, feelings, and experiences with the LDS community because it would not be nice (and for other reasons, like the fear of being ostracized by the LDS community, disciplined by the church, etc.):

1. Months of praying, fasting, and scripture-reading did not relieve an individual's depression.

2. Heavenly Father did not protect a girl from being sexually molested by her Mormon father.

3. A woman who joined the church prior to 1979 felt that the church's doctrine of denying the priesthood to "Negro" males was wrong. Privately, many members felt the same way, but the church never publicly acknowledged their feelings

4. A wife and husband who were converts and very active in the church went to the temple for the first time. Their visit occurred prior to April 1990, when the altered endowment ceremony was first presented in LDS temples. The simulated throat- and belly-slicing, strange temple clothing, people standing around the altar chanting, the depiction of a minister of another faith as a servant of Satan, and other elements of the endowment session disturbed the couple so much that they never returned to church. The truth about why the couple stopped participating was never publicly acknowledged.

5. A young man was told in a mission blessing by his father that if he was obedient and worked hard as a missionary, he would receive a testimony that the LDS church was true. He wanted to feel that the church was true, and did everything that he could to be a good missionary. However, he returned from the mission field with no such feeling/witness from God. Feeling fatigued, stressed, and emotionally/spiritually empty were how he felt upon returning home.

6. An Elder's mission president lied to him about a life-threatening disease that the Elder got shortly after entering the mission field as a result of being assigned by the mission president to live/proselytize in a slum. He was only told the truth about the disease at the end of his mission during his final interview with the mission president. Normally, people with the disease require extensive medical care, which was not available in the country; full recuperation takes about half a year. Two weeks after the Elder was rushed to a mini-hospital/clinic with the disease, he was back on the street doing missionary work because it was expected of him. It took him 15 years after his mission to fully recover from the effects of the disease and other health problems that he had as a missionary, which were a direct result of not being allowed to fully recover from the disease as well as being assigned to other unhealthy areas.

7. The MTC cultural preparation classes taught "green" missionaries nothing about the widespread poverty, disease, unsanitary conditions, and terrorism in the country to which they were being sent. A group of missionaries was nearly killed on their first morning in the country as they entered a street on which a terrorist attack was taking place against a government official.

8. A mission president, who later became a General Authority, did not properly investigate the reported sexual molestation of a Mormon boy by a 25-year old missionary. A warrant for the missionary's arrest was later issued.

9. A young man was told in a mission blessing that upon returning from his mission, he would find that things were essentially the same. While on his mission, his girlfriend, whom the young man had planned to marry after he returned, died. As well, a group of his closest friends were also killed in an unrelated incident while he was on his mission.

10. A priesthood holder (who was prominent in the stake) physically abused his wife but received no church disciplinary action. She, on the other hand, was excommun-icated for having a one-time sexual encounter with a man other than her husband (who rarely spent quality/leisure time with her because he was doing church business during the hours when he was not at work).

As a part of a controlling collective, the individual does not have a self in the fullest sense of the word. Until they fully question their values and beliefs, look at the person that they have become, and investigate how they became that way, all they really are is a creation of the authority figures in their life, e.g. the God of the religion in which they were raised/of their culture, their parents, church leaders, teachers, etc.

Regardless of their age, such people unconsciously live much of their lives by the minds of other people, afraid to fully assert themselves and fearful of the unknown of themselves. But they always act nicely while in the group. Regrettably, it's the people at home who most frequently experience the individual's emotional outbursts, irrational thinking/ behaviour, and pent-up rage resulting from having smothered their true self over and over so that they will receive the approval of others.

That we may each reclaim/liberate our true self with wisdom and share the fullness of our wonderful uniqueness with the world is my hope.

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