Bill Reel Recent Podcast

[Anonymous]

I agree. The thread has been productive.

It helps that Bill did not post the link himself so the self promotion bit it outside of the equation.

The podcast is also far from Anti-Mormon so that part is ok too.

I vote that we continue as is.

[Anonymous]

I didn’t want to post this in the Abuse thread, but wanted to see if any of you have thoughts on it…

…if we are talking about abuse and the church being abusive by it’s value system…I can see some parallels and situations where highly emotional people are throwing around terms and accusations that hurt the discussion, or take away from real situations of abuse.

I found this little blurg on the internet regarding Child Abuse allegations…

Quote:

Protecting Yourself from Allegations of Child Abuse

Employees Wrongfully Accuse Their Employer of Child Abuse

The owner of a childcare center was accused of physically abusing children by her employees. It was revealed at trial, however, the accusers fabricated their entire story in an effort to get rid of the owner in order to take over her business. The charges were eventually dropped, but the woman’s reputation was severely damaged. She was ultimately forced to move to a new community to escape the false allegations.

False allegations of abuse can have devastating life-long consequences. Even if an individual is acquitted, it can cost thousands of dollars to defend against the allegations and the damage to an organization or individual’s reputation cannot be undone. Anyone working with children should take steps to minimize this risk.

Reasons People Make Wrongful Accusations of Abuse

Wrongly Accused of Abusing a Child

False allegations of abuse can come from anyone for almost any reason.

—Children may make wrongful accusations because they’re being abused elsewhere, because they’re confused, or because they simply misunderstand the situation.

—Parents may wrongly accuse someone if they’re angry at an organization or individual, if they’re protecting an abuser in their own family, or if they’re trying to hide some of their own transgressions.

—Employees, like those referenced in the introductory story, may make false accusations as a form of retaliation against their employer.

Even someone with good intentions could misinterpret an interaction and decide it looked like abuse. These accusations are often the result of people having different opinions about what is or is not appropriate contact.

Of course, as I went through my divorce, this became part of what makes me sensitive about people throwing around abuse allegations. Society quickly runs to the aid of wanting to protect children and women from abusive men. Rightly so…as some men are creeps.

Unfortunately…not all allegations are real, just because a person “feels abused”.

That makes it complicated. Can you prove abuse? If you can’t prove it, are you blaming the victim?

Even more complicated is calling a culture the source of abuse and what to do about it.

There are so many facets of that discussion…and so many emotions.

I guess that is why the church has lawyers. It may sound non-spiritual to have lawyers…but it is necessary against accusations thrown it’s way…and when individuals do abuse others…how does the church protect itself from idiots who make mistakes.

[Anonymous]

Heber13 wrote:

…how does the church protect itself from idiots who make mistakes.

Often the church operates like a business because the church tends to ask members that have experience with running businesses to hep run the church. So to answer your question, how does the church protect itself from idiots who make mistakes? Simple. They give them promotions.

When it comes to false accusations I think there’s a difference between a person that “feels abused” but from another perspective wasn’t and a person that outright lies about being abused.

Going back to your point, the local (to me) case of the Duke Lacrosse team comes immediately to mind. A stripper made up a story. Mike Nifong, the prosecuting DA of Durham county saw opportunity, things got ugly with racial tensions in the community. The NAACP got involved. The kids were convicted in the minds of many before there were any facts because… well because of lots of reasons but one of the reasons is that people were still raw from obvious injustices of the past. Among people that were historically in the role of the victim it felt familiar. Among the people that weren’t in those groups there was an attitude of, “never on my watch.” So there was some overreaction.

But it was all a lie. The accuser didn’t have a consistent story but in the end someone had to be brought to trial so three (IIRC) kids were singled out by the accuser and they won the dang-it lottery.

A short summation of the rest of the story is that the DA got disbarred and as far as I know the alleged victim never got into any legal trouble for lying, which is a whole other debate – you don’t want to discourage real victims from coming forward because they think they won’t win a case… but the alleged victim would go on to get into other serious legal troubles for unrelated matters.

But did the alleged victim truly believe that they had been raped? Like from their perspective it really happened. I can’t say.

That’s an extreme example though. “I feel abused by the culture” is much more subjective and impossible to retort with a, “no you didn’t.” I don’t think there’s a criminal or civil case that could be brought forward but sometimes shocking people out of a stupor with a word like “abuse” might bring attention to areas that can change.

[Anonymous]

For me it is similar to the phrase “rape culture”. Unfortunately this term is both attention grabbing and provocative much more so than discussing “policy and cultural elements that discourage victims from reporting”. For the leaders of the cause they needed to draw attention towards important issues. Unfortunately, in regards to church institutions talking about “rape culture” will only increase defensiveness and stonewalling. However, it did not seem that having quiet respectful conversations behind closed doors was going to get any policy movement at BYU. So protest, get the attention of the news media, get government organizations to investigate possible conflict with Title 9, let settle for 6 months to a year and Presto Chango! BYU comes out with a much better policy.

“Rape culture” is not rape – nor is it necessarily a culture that condones or encourages rape.

Similarly, I do not believe that one can really compare organizational abuse to a man who beats his kids.

The examples Ray gave were excellent. His employers organizationally abused the employees, bbbbbuuuuuututttttt…..this is not equivalent to being a child that lives in fear of beatings. I wish there was a way to make that clear in the minds of all the stakeholders. I suppose if the goal was technical accuracy – i.e. to both send accurately and ensure that the message was received more or less as sent then the word “abuse” would not be a good word to use.

[Anonymous]

I agree with Ray. I was also just shaking my head, remembering when Bill first came to this site, how he (as a TBM) wanted to explain to those with doubts why they should stay even though he didn’t share those doubts. Well . . .

[Anonymous]

I have been out of town. I just read the thread. I am dang proud of our group. Good conversations. I won’t add anymore to the thread. You have done a great job moderating it.

As for Bill, I am sorry. I am also sorry for his family. I think this season of his life is going to be a bumpy ride.

[Anonymous]

mom3 wrote:

As for Bill, I am sorry. I am also sorry for his family. I think this season of his life is going to be a bumpy ride.

I think so too. I think he has been hoping to try to avoid that painful part…but…seems like it comes to that at times, as much as we hope to avoid it. You have to pass through some things for experience.

[Author]

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