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 | Saturday, Jan 3, 2009, at 12:41 PM Trapped In A Mormon Gulag - A Utah Boys Ranch - Chris Buttars Was The Executive Director Posted By Eric Norwood CHILDREN AND MORMONISM - SECTION 2 -Guid- | ↑ |
| His filthy digit tasted like rust and fish. "I can hurt you without leaving any marks," Brent growled as I writhed in agony on the ground. I struggled for breath as he mounted my back, put his finger in my mouth, and pulled back on my cheek, fish-hooking me. The pain was incredible. I tried to beg him to stop, but the words would not come.
After he finished beating and bludgeoning submissiveness into me, he pulled me up by the rope that was lassoed around my waist. The wool army blanket I had fashioned as a skirt had shifted askew and I stood there in my boxers bleeding from my nose, humiliated. My green Utah Boys Ranch t-shirt had been ridiculously stretched out and looked more like a low cut blouse. I loosened the noose around my waist and pulled the itchy blanket through the loop and folded it over so it looked like a brown bath towel secured by a belt. He wasn't satisfied, he wanted more. I just wanted out of this classroom. I started to think about how I got here. The Utah Boys Ranch appears to be a kind of tough-love school with a Christian-esque undertow. My parents thought as much when they employed its services in hopes of corralling their spiritually wayward son. Being kidnapped was probably the last thing I was worried about at 15 years old. I was staying at my grandma's house that fateful night. My step-dad and I had been at war since I had refused to go to seminary, a church service for Mormon kids in high school that began at the ungodly hour of six in the morning. I loathed early morning seminary more than the three hours of my Sunday regular LDS church service consumed, or the three hours on Wednesday nights. My opposition, paired with my step-dad's religious fanaticism, resulted in being grounded almost to the point of indentured servitude. Grandma's house was my sanctuary. Ironically, when I looked up at the clock that next morning - as two imposing silhouettes entered the house my mom grew up in - it was five minutes to 6 a.m. on Valentine's Day. I was camped out on the sofa bed in the TV room with a plate of leftover lasagna from the fridge. It was half eaten and a Roseanne re-run was playing when they first walked in. They looked around as if they had been told where to go, but hadn't quite envisioned it right. They looked to their left, saw the terrified eyes of a 15-year-old, and pounced. They shoved clothes and shoes on me and I was gone before I was able to think about which way I should run. They told me very little. Their first names were Paul and Barry. Barry was a white guy, a big mother. At least 6'5", and I would not be surprised to hear that he weighed more than 300 pounds, but he was not fat. Paul was shorter and had a darker complexion. He was big too, and meaner than Barry. He turned to me when we first got into their white mid-sized rental car and said, "You have a choice. You can be cool and get on an airplane with us and be there in a couple of hours, or you can sit back there with handcuffs on for the next 12 hours. Non-stop." "Where are we going," I asked, still in shock. "Utah," Barry answered casually from the passenger seat, without turning his head. "We are from the Utah Boys Ranch, Eric, and your parents have asked us to take you back with us." "What?" My head was spinning. I felt like I was going to throw up. There is no way that this was happening. My mom would never allow this. Utah? What the hell is a Boys Ranch? I couldn't breathe. "I guess we're driving," Paul said odiously. I knew the child-lock would be on and as I saw the familiar houses of my grandmother's street pass by, I started to roll down the window. We weren't going fast enough for them to notice yet and the warm Agoura Hills climate didn't tip them off. I rolled it down enough to fit my arm out and open the door from the outside when Paul paused at the stop sign at the bottom of the hill, looked back at me, and stopped the car. He shoved the gear into park and pulled handcuffs out of somewhere and told me to give him my wrists. I sat there cuffed for a moment when I realized that I really would die from this feeling in my chest - a physical manifestation of angst. My heart was beating furiously, and I knew that I couldn't last 12 hours. "You can take me on a plane. I'll be cool." "Now that's more like it," Barry said kindly. "My wife will be happy." The first person I met in Utah was Senator Chris Buttars. I had no idea who he was until that point. All I knew was that he was to be feared, and I was scared to death of him from the moment I first saw him. "Sit down," he squawked in a loud, high pitched, galling voice that sounded like a cross between a buzzard and an old cowboy. He continued to make it very clear that I was at his mercy. He told me who he was - politically - and the influence he had. If I ever wanted to leave I was to do what he said. "How old are you?" "Fifteen," I mumbled. "Three years might not be enough for you. I can have a judge order you to be here until you are 21," he croaked. With that he sent me off to be "changed and put on work crew." I was led down a long hall of doors with nameplates. I had no clue what kind of place this was. I didn't see any cows or horses...no sign of what I thought a "ranch" would resemble. Paul took me into a small room that was no bigger than a broom closet, which was stacked to the ceiling with three colors of cloth, blue, green and brown. There were green t-shirts, blue t-shirts, and blue jeans. There were also brown army wool blankets, and I remember thinking that I didn't want to sleep under such a coarse covering before I was told to "put it on." I was told to wrap a thick, itchy blanket around my waist like a towel and wear it like a dress. I was then given a "leash" made of climbing rope and what I think was a square knot to tie around my waist. I had never imagined being tethered and walked like a dog, but here I was, being walked like a dog towards a cluster of about 12 other boys. They were lined up facing a wall while two large men in red sweatshirts watched them from a couple of chairs off to the side. Some of the boys had camouflage pants on, a few others wore dresses. I wondered how long I was to be in this blanket dress. I was later told that it was so I wouldn't run away - and they were right - I literally could not run in this humiliating getup. I could barely get a full stride walking. That's when I saw Brent - or 'Captain America,' as he was called disparagingly - for the first time. My leash was handed off to him, but he told me to wrap it around my waist and go join the group of young men who were standing with their noses touching the wall, all spread out about arms length from each other. I turned to the boy who was standing to my right and asked him how long he had been here, but before I could get my question all the way out, my forehead careened into the carpeted wall in front of me. A sharp pain stabbed the back of my head, and suddenly bad breath filled my nostrils. "Are you talking on my work crew, boy?" a red-shirted man screamed at me. My head was ringing. I was still trying to piece together what had just happened when I looked behind me and massaged the pain in my head. Suddenly my legs fell out from underneath me and I was on my back. He had just slammed my forehead into the wall, and now he had put his foot behind mine and pushed me, sending me to the floor flat on my back. He stood over me and bawled, "Don't look at me. Don't look around. Don't you MOVE without permission! You don't do anything without permission! If you talk, I think you are talking about running away, and I will restrain you. Do you understand?" I nodded. I knew then that I had to get out of this place. I wasn't going to last here. It was only my second week on work crew when Neil Westwood refused to turn his back to Brent and place his nose on the wall, which is what the command "face the wall" plainly meant. It was a Mexican standoff for a few moments. Stunningly it seemed like Brent was going to let Neil get his way. I had never seen an older boy in a pissing contest with a staff member before. The younger kids refused commands, but they were always quickly thumped into docility. Neil was a big kid, a lot bigger than me - probably 230 pounds or so, and over six-feet tall, but dispelled any image of toughness with his glasses, disproportionately small arms, and frizzy hairdo. Neil was as obnoxious as he was an easy target, but I still can't believe that no one reacted when Brent stood up in a flash of rage and chucked a full, unopened gallon of milk at Neil's face from about five feet away, crumbling him to a pitiful puddle of tears, blood, and non-fat milk. The work crew was depraved. When they didn't have us facing the wall for hours at a time we were digging ditches with spoons, only to fill them back in again. We made huge piles of heavy rocks taken from the field, the field that both surrounded and contained us, only to be told to move the massive mound to another location. They worked us in ways redolent of Stalin's gulags. There was an agonizing week of all-day sod laying - with bits of mud and grass sticking to the inside of my wool dress - in preparation for some ceremony the work crew boys weren't privy to. The Scarecrow Festival was even worse. We worked for weeks from eight in the morning till eight at night in preparation and to take down that contrived fall carnival/ fundraiser. Boys wished for death. There was also a dry-cleaning service that they operated somewhere in town, which was supposedly much better than any job on campus - even kitchen duty. Getting off from work crew meant school during the day, and considerably less work. Some sadist there created a t-shirt caste system that involved wearing either a blue t-shirt or green t-shirt. "Blue shirts" could talk, receive letters (which were opened and read first), talk to their parents, and possibly go off campus. "Green shirts" were allowed into school, but that was about it. No speaking, sitting, or anything but working or reading LDS literature. A "green shirt" was forced to read the Book of Mormon, in particular the first 22 chapters. We were interviewed by one of the four full-time Mormon missionaries that worked there and had to paraphrase all of "First Nephi" before receiving a blue t-shirt. What good derives from reading the Book of Mormon under duress is anyone's guess, but I did it. I had to. I had to go to church and seminary too. It turns out that any form of decadence - smoking a little grass, telling your math teacher to sit on it, being gay or bi-curious, sexually assaulting a family member or young girl - is curable by a little hard work, tough love, and Mormon doctrine. Boys with "sexual issues" are housed together in what could only be some cruel showing of satire. They were constantly being caught jerking each other off onto each other, or, more tragically, assaulting younger boys. Whatever it was, they would be shoved into blankets and thrown on work crew. On Tuesday night they would meet with all the boys with sexual issues and provide remedies like IcyHot on the penis to stifle homosexual urges. I was kept there until they couldn't keep me any longer, and on my 18th birthday I walked out the front doors into a cold October morning with nowhere to go and nothing but my freedom. If I didn't experience it myself I would not believe a place like this exists. A Mormon gulag. How do they get away with all of the abuse? The forced religion, the stifling of freedom of speech? Was it legal to prevent us from reporting abuse to authorities, or to restrain us with ropes, wool blankets, and duct tape? Is it legal to force young boys to talk about masturbation with Mormon clergy and missionaries? How does all of this go unnoticed? We were young and naive and didn't know that most of what they did to us was illegal. Buttars was famous for telling us that we had only three rights: food, safety, and shelter. They failed to even live up to those standards. Besides being callow, we hardly had the chance to report any abuse. They instruct parents to ignore any claims of abuse from their children. They call any complaints from children a manipulation tool - "fear factor" - and instruct parents to be wary of the "tactic" they say they encounter most. There were also no phones to call the police. No nurses or medical examiners to talk to. No government authorities to check in on us. Incongruously, this Orwellian facility desperately needs government oversight. Sen. Buttars said it all when he told a reporter, "What sets us apart is that we're the only residential treatment facility that doesn't seek or accept government funding. If we did, they'd control us." http://orato.com/lifestyles/2009/01/0... |
| | Tuesday, Jan 6, 2009, at 08:05 AM Mormon Girls Camp Posted By trinity3infinity CHILDREN AND MORMONISM - SECTION 2 -Guid- | ↑ |
| Camp was probably some of the worst experiences I've ever had. I am grateful for the basic camping skills I learned, but other than that, it was utterly horrible. I watched as this transition happened. Each year became more and more dreadful. Each each, everything that used to be fun slowly became more and more about testimony building.
When I started going to camp, there were just simply fun nights: a night for skits; a night for bonding with your cabin mates, and so on. As the years progressed, skit night became skits about the theme that year... then they had to specifically have a spiritual message. One year, they made quite a few girls cry because of their program that was related to the theme and it wasn't a good cry either. They literally played out the parable of the ten virgins. We each had lamps and had to earn oil throughout the week. Then the last night, we lit our lamps, and those who had lamps still burning literally got to go to dinner with one of the priesthood leaders dressed up as jesus. I went to the dinner (because I lied and earned my oil). Apparently the girls who didn't get to go got lectured to about how they were bad people. |
| | Monday, Jan 26, 2009, at 07:59 AM My Experience With Seminary - Are They Damaging Our Children? Posted By Tauna CHILDREN AND MORMONISM - SECTION 2 -Guid- | ↑ |
I have heard a lot of really sick extreme doctrines come out of the mouths of local level church leaders, especially seminary teachers. I want to focus on seminary teachers (released time ST’s, aka CES employees) because;
My questions are... Are seminary teachers getting less extreme? Did anyone else feel that seminary made them start to dislike the mormon church? |
| | Thursday, Jun 25, 2009, at 09:49 AM Stupid Statements By Adult Leaders At Youth Conference Posted By Anonymous CHILDREN AND MORMONISM - SECTION 2 -Guid- | ↑ |
| A friend of mine I'll call Angie, lives in the next stake over and invited me to attend the opening party for her stake youth conference. Youth conference, in our area, is a two day campout for ages 14 to 18, filled with faith promoting meetings, fun crafts and games and testimony bearing. Angie was very excited about her part in planning the opening activity and thought I'd like to come get some ideas for our stake for next year. She has NO idea I'm questioning the church.
Actually, the first part was nice. The kids checked in at the stake center, got a souveneir t-shirt, played games at the booths set up in the gym, went to a "restaurant" to snack and talk with their friends - even did a fun craft. Then, about 45 min later when it seemed everyone had arrived and mixed and mingled, they announced a program. They thanked planners then had the stake president say a few words. He bore his testimony of the BoM then said "I promise you that as you keep the commandments, you will prosper and as you fail to keep the commandments, you will fail in your endevours." WTF? So all people who aren't successful are sinners who don't keep the commandments? The next item on the program was truly creepy. All the bishop's from the 9 wards participating came on stage, dressed almost identically in dark suits and bore their testimonies in a sort of pre-written, chant form. They looked like mafia hit men and read from sheets of paper. It went sort of like this: Bishop #1 I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God. Bishop #7 I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God. Bishop #4 If we read the Book of Mormon, we will come closer to our Savior, Jesus Christ. Bishop #9 The Book of Mormon is another testiment of Jesus Christ. All Bishops in Unison: The Book of Mormon IS another testiment of Jesus Christ. It went along in this vein for several minutes. It's actually giving me the creeps to type this. They chanted this in a sing-song voice. Two highlights from this were the bishop who said he'd loved reading the BoM since his days on a mission in South Dakota to the Lamanite people. It strengthened his testimony to work with these wonderful sons and daughters of Father Lehi. But my favorite WTF statement was the bishop who said "I know the church is true independent of any other source." What does that even MEAN? Is that because every independent source has proved the LDS church FALSE? Wow, once you go through to the side of truth, it's amazing what you see and how weird Mormonism is when you look at it objectively. I felt so sorry for those kids who are in for two days of this - of brainwashing with half-truths and word game BS. I could hardly wait to get out of there. It seemed, as someone else here put it, so sinister. |
| | Tuesday, Aug 11, 2009, at 08:03 AM The Dehumanizing Effect Of Mormonism On Children Posted By Anonymous CHILDREN AND MORMONISM - SECTION 2 -Guid- | ↑ |
| After some thought on the matter I have decided that the two most harmful beliefs of Mormonism (and in a broader sense Christianity) are the Atonement and the Holy Spirit. I decided on these two ideas because they striped me of identity in my youth. The Atonement is supposed to be the greatest gift that God has given, but in my eyes it is a constant reminder of my worthlessness.
The Holy Spirit however takes the cake. Two weeks in a row at church someone from the pulpit has reminded me that unless I am worthy I will be unable to have the Holy Spirit, and without the Holy Spirit it is unlikely that any of my decisions will be what God wants. To these two concepts I add in my adolescence, and the process of puberty and you have someone who Jesus died for in vain, and also doesn’t have the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Why, because my fourth grade teacher was beautiful, or because I took to long cleaning my nether regions while bathing. In addition to all the minor sins like swearing, wishing your dad would get off your back and hating your sister for the afternoon. While it appears that most of us suffered and may have overcome there are a lot of children, mine included who should be spared the dehumanizing and humiliating teachings of a church who openly declares that the natural man is an enemy of God. |
| | Wednesday, Aug 19, 2009, at 08:11 AM Try Being An Inactive Teen Posted By elee CHILDREN AND MORMONISM - SECTION 2 -Guid- | ↑ |
| I was the ward project for 4 years, from age 14 to 18. The entire YWs organization was working on bringing me back to the fold.
They started by giving me callings. I accepted one and refused the others. They assigned me to speak in SM. I did this once and did not use the assigned topic. LOL, I basically chastised the entire ward for being judgmental. Ah, to be 16 and absolutely sure of yourself again. They got the YM involved and tried to get the various males in the ward to ask me out and fellowship me. I was told this by one of the guys in the ward who was my age. I refused all dates, though I did manage to get sucked into their stupid Gold & Green ball. Yuck. I still cannot believe I caved on that one. But I was too young to stick up for myself and too unsure to just say "no". They called constantly and used a variety of coercive techniques to get me to participate. When I stopped answering the phone, they began showing up at my house, often times on Sunday morning bringing me clothes to wear to church, as I'd told them I no longer had any appropriate dresses for church. On at least 3 occasions that I can clearly recall, I was "kidnapped" and taken to activities. On Saturday nights, I was always the last one to bed. I would disconnect the telephone lines and the doorbell in preparation of their Sunday visits. Then there was the bishopric. Also constantly calling me and any time they saw me at church, on those rare occasions, they would immediately usher me into the office for an interview, where I would be interrogated about drinking, doing drugs, sex and the music I listened to. I was a good kid, a good student, but I looked a little different and didn't want to be Mormon. Therefore, I must be a filthy drunken/stoner whore. Personally, I don't know if stalking is strong enough a word to describe what I went through for 4 years. I don't know what to call it, but it left an indelible mark on me. It simultaneously made me angry and self-conscious, to the point I felt I could only blame myself for their perceptions of me. It took me many years to get past it. |
| | Friday, Oct 2, 2009, at 07:46 AM Daughter's Bizarre Youth Conference Experience Posted By ShocknAwe CHILDREN AND MORMONISM - SECTION 2 -Guid- | ↑ |
| Since leaving the church, I've been leading by example and patiently waiting for the church to shoot itself in the foot for my family. Its starting to happen.
My daughter's Youth Conference this year was after her school began, so she missed the first half, but came up for the weekend activities. She is a upbeat and really great all around girl, but she had a cold and may have not been fully up to her game. The one activity that really shook her and my husband up was an event they held on the last day. They made up the building to be the 3 kingdoms and took the kids through them explaining what types of people will end up in each kingdom (i.e., murderers and sinners in telestial). The big kicker was that at the end, each child was given a slip of paper with their name written on it and the kingdom they had been chosen to attend. The leaders explained that they had been judging them throughout the week and their kingdom was based on their actions. My daughter was one of only a few that got Telestial, she was very hurt. The kicker for her was her close friend who was chosen for Celestial and could see no wrong in the leaders judging everyone. It really opened my daughter's eyes as to how brainwashed members are. My husband was very irritated, but blames individuals, not the church as a whole. Baby steps. Anyhow, my daughter has started fresh research and discussions with me. She can now see how irrational and impossible it all is and we are working together to remove her from the church's clutches (will be really ugly for a while). Social aspects had kept her playing the game until now, but they've even made those so ridiculous its hard not to see the cult aspects. |
| | Tuesday, Oct 20, 2009, at 07:50 AM Is This Type Of Brainwashing Commonplace In Nursery? Posted By De-Programmed CHILDREN AND MORMONISM - SECTION 2 -Guid- | ↑ |
| I decided to check on my child in nursery yesterday. When I arrived, the little children were gathered together to learn about the First Vision. The children first held hands in a circle, then raised their hands high in the air and repeated aloud the words, "I'm a tree." They they knelt on the ground together to pray like Joseph Smith in the grove. The nursery leader then told these 18 month to 36 month old children that when Joseph asked Heavenly Father and Jesus which church he should join, he was told that all the churches on the earth were wrong.
Wow! I thought nursery was merely for entertaining children too young to atttend or understand primary. My limited memories of nursery include eating saltine crackers with chocolate spread and fighting over the best toys. There might have been a mini-lesson or two on how Jesus loves us, but NOTHING about other churches being an abomination in the Lord's sight! The children then looked on as the leaders put on a CD and sung the ever-repetitive primary song, "Follow the Prophet. Follow the Prophet. Follow the Prophet! Don't go astray! Follow the Prophet! Follow the Prophet! Follow the Prophet! He knows the way!" It really hit me just how cultish this song is. It is really spooky that the song is written in a sad, minor key. Over the course of all the verses of the song, the children repeat the phrase, "Follow the Prophet" over 50 times! Wow! These kids are way too young for such religious indoctrination. I can't stand for this. I'm gradually on may way out of Mormonism. Those with TBM spouses can understand the complexities of this. The experience above may serve to accelerate things. |
| | Thursday, Oct 22, 2009, at 11:36 AM There's No Good Reason To Expose Children To The Mormon Cult Posted By Cheryl CHILDREN AND MORMONISM - SECTION 2 -Guid- | ↑ |
| Unless at least one parent fully believes in it and is strenuously instisting.
Once the parents realize that mormonism is false, they owe it to their children to pull them out. Yes, some older very indoctrinated kids won't want to leave cold turkey. Parents will have to use their judgment on dealing with this problem. But the mormon SS and primary program strives to indoctrinate children from babyhood on. Indoctrination is inevitable in life. I did it as a teacher when I taught songs and stories about respecting the environment and building esteem, honoring learning, and building study skills. The indoctrination in mormonism teaches kids to disrespect nonmormons. This is especially hurtful to them when grandparents, neighbors, or one or both parents are nonbelievers. Kids should not be taught that they are responsible for saving or judging adults who care for them. Other aspects of the morg children's program which are unhealthy: 1. The mormon church doesn't respect normal differences or normal levels of child development. Young kids shouldn't be expected to routinely attend a three hour program where they're expected to be so-called "reverent," and they have no chance to run, play hard, climb, or make noise. 2. The mormon church program favors kids who happen to have compliant subservient personalities. Highly individualisc and boistrous kids are frequently marginalized. 3. The program doesn't make it easy for parents to observe or participate in the program. Parents are generally expected to blindly trust those who are in charge of the program, no questions asked. Good programs for children require professional planning and training. Young children can suffer if the teacher has no idea about norms for what to expect and how best to deal with kids of different ages. It's wrong to say that it doesn't hurt kids to put them in a program that is far beyond their stage of development. What this says to the child is that their needs are not important and that they are not measuring up when they can't understand and comply with what's going on. If it's wrong for bishops without training to interview minor children, it's also wrong for untrained church persons to take charge of even younger kids. Some of the nursery and primary leaders will be good and acceptable, but that doesn't have to be a criteria for choosing them for the jobs they do. Our kids deserve the best. |
| | Wednesday, Jul 14, 2010, at 07:58 AM Youth Temple Trips - Oakland Style Posted By TheDrive CHILDREN AND MORMONISM - SECTION 2 -Guid- | ↑ |
| When I was a Deacon and Teacher our assigned temple was the Oakland Temple in California. It was a 8-9 hour drive from our area in Oregon so we would drive down on the first day, do baptisms the second, and go back home on the third. Usually, we were done with baptisms by noon or one on the second day which gave our leaders time to plan activities. One time we went to Marriot's Great America. Another time we went to the Golden Gate Bridge. We always stayed in Marriotts because we got great discounts and free breakfasts. But we always looked frward to the afternoon after the temple because that's when the real fun happened.
We had a new YM President who had moved from the Bay Area and he had a true dislike for "the Gays" as he called them. The Gays were going to lead to the downfall of the country, The Gays were given AIDS as a "reward" for having anal sex. The Gays were Democrats. Every lesson had to mention The Gays and as a young man in the early-80's I was easily swayed by his persuasive arguments. I just knew The Gays would infiltrate our town and ruin everything and give us all AIDS through blood transfusions. As we were getting ready to go on the temple trip he decided that we would make a list of phrases or questions that he would let us yell at The Gays as we drove by them on the street or passed them on the sidewalk. Our afternoon following the temple was going to be at Pier 39 and Fisherman's Wharf and he told us that there would be plenty of Gays to yell at. So our list consisted of the following:
The afternoon arrived and we were excited to head down to the waterfront for shopping and seeing what The Gays looked like. I was sure that The Gays would stand out like a sore thumb because we knew that they wore rainbow clothing and had funny colored hair. Plus they held hands a lot and kissed each other on the lips in public. We unloaded from the van and headed off to look for The Gays and practiced our newly learned insults on each other. We were laughing and thought it would be fun to see the reactions as we yelled at The Gays. But a funny thing happened. We didn't see any Gays. We saw a lot of families and kids, and grandmas but no Gays holding hands, kissing, or with funny colored hair. We asked our YM President where the Gays were and he said that The Gays were sneaky and tried to blend in with the normal people. So we spent the next few hours looking for any suspicious characters who looked Gay. But we didn't see any. We soon lost interest in The Gays and decided to do some shopping and touristing. Around 6 in the afternoon we met up back at the van with all the other kids and adults and headed off to the hotel. As we were leaving the parking garage our fearless leader excitingly exclaimed, "There's some!!", pointing at a group of guys walking together on the sidewalk near the exit to our parking garage. He told us to get ready and when he gave us the signal we could yell out to them. As we turned onto the street he said, "OK, NOW!" We all looked at each other, then at the guys on the sidewalk, and yelled out our greatest insults and then ducked down and hid on the floor so The Gays wouldn't see us. Our leader drove away laughing and telling us that we showed them. We were sworn to secrecy that we wouldn't tell our parents and we all agreed that that would be a good idea. As I look back on that experience I can understand the power a youth leader has over the young men he has stewardship over. We looked up to him and thought he was cool. But he wasn't cool. He was a bigot. And the saddest part of the whole experience was that as all of us grew older two of our group came out and openly disclosed their homosexuality. And they were some of the most vocal of the group that day in San Francisco. Group think and peer pressure made them lash out as people just like them. The YM President moved back to California a few years later and I saw his name recently as a leader on the Prop H8 movement in California. I guess some people never change. |
| | Tuesday, Aug 17, 2010, at 08:10 AM Youth "Activities" In The Mormon Church Posted By Makurosu CHILDREN AND MORMONISM - SECTION 2 -Guid- | ↑ |
| When I was a "youth" (teen), the leaders in my ward decided that they were going to do "mystery trips" one summer. They'd get all the teens who couldn't get out of it into cars and drive halfway across BFE and not tell anybody what we would be doing until we got there. Then we'd get out and canoe down 20 miles of a white water river or something without any adequate preparation whatsoever, because we had no idea what it was we would be doing. I can't watch the movie Deliverance without thinking about that canoing trip. It was terrible. After that experience, I absolutely refused to attend another one of these misadventures. I was thinking about that when bdawn was talking about her shithead ex forcing her 12 year old daughter on that stupid "trek", and if I'm not mistaken I don't think he even did it himself.
It makes me so mad, because that kind of thing went on all the time when I was a kid in the Mormon church. I never had any choice in the matter and was forced into these stupid things, whether it was a "mystery trip" or a weeklong scout camp or a "day camp" or whatever it was. All I knew was that it was always in the hot sun, there was never enough water or shade, and I couldn't say no. Another time when I was about 14, a car full of Mormons pulled up to my house and sat in the driveway beeping the horn until my mother came and got me. I got filled in on what we were doing on the drive over. We were cleaning up an overgrown cemetery for someone's Eagle project related to genealogy. Again, all day in the hot sun without enough water or shade and without adequate preparation. The shoe is on the other foot now that I'm a parent. I see the look on my son's face, and I know when he doesn't want to do something. Sometimes he needs to do things he doesn't want to do for his own good, and I understand that. He understands that too. But there are times when I know some activity is unreasonable and he will hate it, and I don't make him go if he doesn't want to. I don't understand what makes a parent put a cult ahead of their own kids. |