Texas Mormons For Child Abuse

Sam Young - Excommunicated for defending children.

The Mormon Church Just Excommunicated a Man Who Was Trying to Protect Children | Hemant Mehta.

Like so many other Christian churches, the Mormons also have a problem with child abuse and, like other church authorities where the cat is out of the bag and the abuses they thought they were hiding from public view are now common knowledge, the Mormons are acting swiftly. They have taken decisive steps to ensure it carries on by excommunicating a member, Sam Young, who has been campaigning to stop it.

These child abuses are the mental abuses that Mormon children are subjected to in the so-called "Worthiness Interviews" or "Mormon Masturbation Interviews". These discussions between bishops and children, some as young as 8, are intended to probe the child's religious commitment, obedience to Church's rules, attendance at church, etc., but in many cases they become a detailed and highly personal interrogation about their sex lives.

Children are asked if they touch themselves, if they have had sex and if so with someone of the same gender, if they have orgasms, how often and even in what position.

As Young says, what are supposed to be checks on chastity turn into a bunch of perverts asking children for intimate details of their sex lives under the guise of pleasing the Heavenly Father.

Having discovered that his 12 year-old daughter had been asked about masturbation in one such interview and then, not knowing what it meant had gone home and Googled it, only to discover porographic sites, Young decided this was unacceptable; children were in effect being introduced to masturbation and pornography by the bishop. Asking around he discovered examples such as a 17 year-old girl whom the bishop had discovered was sexually active with her boyfriend. She was then asked for details such as, “How many times did you orgasm?” “Did your boyfriend orgasm?” “How did he orgasm?” “What kind of sexual positions were involved?” All of this is of course irrelevant to the fact that she was in a sexual relationship and appears to be mere voyeurism.

In an effort to stop this practice Young launched an online petition which called on the Mormon Church to stop these one-to-one interviews which take place between an older man and a child as young as 8 years old, alone and behind closed doors and often without the knowledge or consent of the parents:

This petition is not meant to disparage the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or its leaders in anyway. Rather, its purpose is to call for major changes to one particular practice.

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For decades, it has been common place for Bishops and other local leaders to pose questions of a sexual nature to children. There are reports of this happening to children as young as age 8. These questions are being asked by an older man, all alone with the child, behind closed doors and often without the knowledge or permission of the parents. Almost universally, these men have no comprehensive training.

Here is a list of potential harm. All the risks below are actual consequences that have been experienced from sexually oriented interviews with LDS children.

1. Suicide.
2. Attempted suicide.
3. Suicidal ideation.
4. Inappropriate shame and guilt.
5. Childhood filled with self loathing.
6. Adulthood filled with self loathing.
7. Normalizing children to sexual questions by adult men. (Grooming)
8. Sexual abuse. (Pedophilia)
9. Impaired sexual relations after marriage.
10. Years of recovery from childhood shaming. Often lasting decades.

Society-at-large recognizes that the Mormon practice of sexual interviews with children is wholly inappropriate. It's a dangerous and damaging practice.

It's time for us, as Mormons, and friends of Mormons, to stand up for our children...to stand up and require that children be protected.

We call on the LDS Church to immediately cease the practice of subjecting children to questions about masturbation, orgasm, ejaculation, sexual positions or anything else of a sexual nature. This applies to all children up to and including age 17. There should be no one-on-one interviews with children. A parent or other trusted adult of the child's choosing is to be present.

We call on the LDS Church to publicly disavow this practice.

We call on the LDS Church to ensure that all congregational leaders, as well the general membership, are informed that this practice is prohibited.

Having been warned to desist or face a 'disciplinary council' last July, he has now been formally excommunicated. For a practicing Mormon, excommunication is almost the worst thing imaginable; it could affect his social status and standing in the community, he relationship with family and friends, his employment prospects. As a believer, it will affect his expectation of what awaits in in some presumed afterlife.

The Mormons have wreaked a terrible revenge on one of their members for the 'crime' of seeking to protect children - and the 'crime' of bringing their routine child abuse to the attention of a wider audience.

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