Surviving Mormonism with Heather Gay - Season 1 Episode 02- The Highest Level of Heaven
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00:00oh wow that is beautiful
00:11and still amidst it all i can't deny that god exists you know
00:18and i'm like still mad that they took god away from me
00:27i just feel like everything is loaded now you know like a sunset isn't just like a beautiful
00:35sunset it's like somehow tainted i used to just think god is good god is great you know he created
00:44the earth and the heavens and loves me unconditionally and if i just follow his plan
00:50everything will work out and i'm hearing more and more and more about people that follow this plan
00:56and it was a map to nowhere and now i have to like start rebuilding my connection to god
01:04with a completely different map and no compass and no idea how where to go or what direction
01:10you know i'm not sure what the next chapter will be but i just feel sad that i wasted so
01:18many years trying to be a good mormon rather than just trying to be a good person
01:22the house is on fire and if we don't pull these bodies out there's going to be devastation
01:37i get dms i get emails i hear over and over and over how the mormon church has affected and hurt so
01:46many people people are not born gay period end of discussion the guy that was teaching conversion
01:51therapy for and on behalf of the church was actually gay all along like if there's one message i want to
01:57make sure gets said over and over and over you cannot heal the gay out of a person you just can't
02:02hear it while i didn't experience conversion therapy i know a lot of people that did including
02:08ben i heard that ben had a story that was really critical of the church you know so many people reach
02:14out to me shane and like you and ben are the people in my life and i'm hearing stories from
02:21everyone all around the world and i'm not sitting down and hearing the most important stories
02:25would he be open to sharing it with me you know what i don't know what scared me so much about ben's
02:34story was that what he was talking about was so dark and that was just a reality that was
02:41overwhelming for me to face so i pulled away
02:44i told my bishop when i was 14 and also mentioned some sexual abuse that happened by my neighbors
02:55he didn't tell anyone not even my parents but put me into conversion therapy at that time
03:00seven years into my marriage i told my eternal campaigning about my desire to be with men
03:06she told me if i left i'd never see our daughter again so i stayed for eight more years
03:13my father confronted me and asked if i had same-sex attractions i denied it but he scolded me for being
03:20effeminate and my church bishop told me to control my mannerisms deep down inside i knew something just
03:27didn't feel right ended up coming out to my mission president and that was a horrible idea
03:33he would ask questions like do you masturbate do you you watch pornography are you sexually pure and if
03:41not what have you done there was still part of me that was wanting to destroy that feeling that i had
03:48towards men so i had discovered conversion therapy it feels more like an expression of faith
03:54um to go to conversion therapy um that's what motivates a lot of these men that's what motivated
04:00me i said i didn't want to go to conversion therapy and being forced into a camp to deprogram me
04:05struck the fear of god in me the next four years were the worst four years of my life
04:12i felt like i had to really fit this mold of like what a perfect little like mormon boy is i don't
04:20want to be that disappointment and ruin my whole family lineage because that's the whole thing if you
04:27if you don't finish your mission you disappoint not only yourself but your whole lineage
04:33you know when he kept saying like his letting down his entire lineage like i just know that just
04:48rings so true to me i mean that's how i feel every day because there's they don't know why they tell us
04:54that to us so much but like uh it's like we're holding up like the weight of all of our ancestors
05:05by our behavior here and we're sold it and we just readily readily buy into it
05:13talk to me about that i remember specifically when i realized that ben was in shane's life
05:37to stay i remember we were in london on a trip together and he confided in me that he and ben
05:46had said i love you the few things shane told me about ben was that he is successful and smart and
05:52came from a very very active mormon family and he just kind of alluded to that he had been really
05:58traumatized and abused by the church and i remember hearing it and just not wanting to hear it
06:07it's made me realize how much of my knee-jerk responses are not my own but what i've been
06:14trained to believe and do by virtue of being you know raised in the mormon church i mean i believed
06:22preposterous things in the name of religion mormons started originally back east the first vision
06:31happened in palmyra new york through joseph smith joseph smith claimed he was visited by
06:37angels who showed him and only him gold plates with ancient texts telling him the story of jesus's
06:43second coming in america my whole life i heard stories about joseph smith being tarred and feathered
06:51because he was a prophet and he was saying things that the people didn't want to hear they were
06:55reluctant to accept the gospel but the truth is he was tarred and feathered because two brothers found
07:02him sleeping with their 14 year old sister that's why they were run out of town they were run out of
07:10every town that they inhabited because the townspeople didn't want polygamy they didn't want joseph smith
07:17and his charlatan ways when joseph smith was killed in illinois brigham young decided that they were going
07:25to move the pioneers out west and create a new zion in utah and a new land where they would live and
07:32be able to worship freely without persecution this historical story of persecution is something
07:37that's deeply embedded in the mormon belief system even today and the idea of it colors how we see
07:43ourselves versus the outside world
07:45this is a process it's hard to detangle yourself from the identity that you crafted for
07:53your entire life and it reminds me of who i was when i first heard ben's story
08:00because those instincts kicked in way more than wait a second that's not right i should ask him more
08:07questions about it ben said he is ready to talk with me today driving up there i would hope that
08:18i'm in a place to talk about this now i know that whatever he was going to tell me is probably going
08:23to be a lot maybe more than i could handle
08:27do you want to get in your high chair
08:32should we try this let's try a banana
08:40do a little taste test oh good job yay such a big girl
08:50i mean i've known heather for like five years i don't know how she's gonna respond to my story
08:58i don't know what level she's at to look at the church in that way because it's hard even if you've
09:07left the church there's still an element of you that that's been a part of your life forever
09:14what i've learned that i feel like it's true for most people they don't like their beliefs to be
09:19challenged and i know with heather it's not been easy for her to walk away can i get this let's go
09:28get the door hello hi come on in hi hi dorothy say hi hi how are you it's so good to see you oh hi
09:38how are you how are you how are you good how are you i'm good it's so good to see you i'm glad to be
09:48here i'm gonna go put her down for now i'll just be upstairs let's just go sit in here
09:53i know i said it before but you've just been on my heart and mind so much there's something i never
10:02have told you when you first started dating shane i googled you and looked you up and i found
10:10uh interview you had done yeah on some of your abuse in the church and i didn't want to listen to
10:19it i just didn't want to believe it could be true it just scared me yeah it's difficult to hear these
10:29things like i didn't want to believe it was true either i spent most of my life running from my truth
10:36the thing that you and i have in common is our religion i mean you say our religion in common
10:42but our identity our identity there's no separation between your church community your school community
10:50your neighborhood my whole world was right there
10:55i am from american fork utah i am the fifth of eight children in the first neighborhood i lived in
11:05it was just a small community and the town's primarily mormon so everyone that i grew up around
11:11was mormon my family is very religious the religion bled into sports and school that started as soon as
11:21i can remember i don't even know that i looked at things as so much being like a neighborhood i was
11:28more like if you were a part of our ward there's a ward that's like your geographical area that you
11:34go to church with on sunday and then there's a stake which is also a geographical area which is made up
11:41of multiple words so awards that was supposed to kind of be like your extended family so if they
11:47were in your ward you could trust them i never had that pure childhood experience because when i was
11:57four is when i first was sexually abused by this man his name is jess hurtado
12:09it lasted till i was nine the first time i remember being abused i remember being in my sunday school class
12:20and a man coming in and getting me and another girl and taking us to a field by the church
12:29and i can just remember his face being right there above mine i would have been laying on the ground
12:35looking up and just seeing him i don't remember physically everything he did i just remember crying i
12:45remember looking at the girl next to me and she was crying and like i can never get that image out of
12:52my head jess was a member of our ward i knew who he was from church and as long as i was home by a
13:02certain time i pretty much ran free in that neighborhood and so it wasn't always at church or taking us from
13:11church it could have been when i was out playing and i got taken into this man's house
13:18sometimes i was abused alone sometimes i was abused with other kids sometimes i remember
13:26multiple adults being there but was this jess guy always there yes jess was always there i didn't tell
13:33anyone because i believed that i had committed sin that was next to murder because even though i was
13:43abused i had had sexual relations with other people i've always viewed that as something that i've
13:49needed to repent of and then being taught by my abusers that if i were to speak out i would get
13:59excommunicated so while i didn't fully understand what any of that meant i grew up my whole entire life
14:10fearing that if anybody knew that i would be separated from my family what we're taught in the
14:16mormon church they use this metaphor of like no empty chairs at the table and that chair at the table is
14:26supposed to represent you and your family in heaven most of my life i have lived in fear of being
14:33separated from my family so i was so terrified of ever talking about it or ever saying anything to
14:42anybody because i viewed it in the way that was in my head it's like it was sin right
14:48and if i told anyone like i would eternally be banished from my family and so the abuse continued
14:59oh my gosh this is one time i remember being taken away from church by jess and it was presented to me
15:08as like a sunday school lesson and
15:18he was there with another girl
15:23and i remember jess and a couple other men on each side of him i don't know who they were
15:32they were all like dressed in temple clothes and it being taught to us as it was like a sunday
15:41school lesson um that this is what like marriage looks like and she had like the veil like although
15:50this little 12 year old girl
15:57and he married her
16:02and then said this is what we do after we get married and he raped her my gosh ben
16:08i am i'm so sorry uh can i take a break
16:31oh
16:31that's a complicated answer
16:50i had been abused until i was nine in my teenage years i knew i had attraction to like
16:58men but my whole context of how i view everything is within the framework of the church
17:03i felt like i was born with a challenge that i needed to endure in this life and i somehow needed
17:11to overcome that so i could remain a member in good standing in the church
17:18when i was 23 and i came out it wasn't like a powerful moment for me of like oh i'm gay you know
17:26telling that to my parents it was more of a heartbreaking experience for me
17:33so when i told my parents i approached it as something that needed to be fixed
17:38my two choices were therapy to correct my sexual attractions or the consequences of not doing that
17:47were to like be eternally separated from my family and from my church
17:56so then i went to conversion therapy
18:00my parents ended up contacting my neighbor whose name is dean bird
18:05at the time and for many years he was the unofficial aficionado for like the lds church when it came to
18:13same gender attraction what is clear is that some people can and do change the risk for harm is not
18:21any different from any other intervention i didn't know anything really about conversion therapy but like
18:26to me it was like this is how i'm going to save my soul i'd go in i'd talk about my attractions they
18:33said you know maybe these attractions never go away but you can reduce them the stupid thing they told
18:40me is it's like petting a dragon it may be fun and it may be exciting but eventually the dragon will turn on you
18:47things didn't seem to be getting better i didn't stop trying to meet guys i felt like i was ping-ponged
18:58back and forth between living more of a gay life and then also going to church so these two parts of
19:05myself were just battling back and forth for years i honestly believed from some of my conversion therapy
19:15that my attractions or being gay only existed because of the abuse so i truly believe
19:26that if i healed from the abuse i'd be straight that you'd heal from the gayness
19:36so and the church felt like where i would do that it was like
19:42like over and over again sexuality the abuse go fix yourself and you can rejoin us it was taught to
19:52you too because we we teach in the church that if you are gay when you die you won't be yeah it'll go
20:02away the minute you die that's how i felt that's what the doctrine says it is an earthly affliction
20:11yeah i just knew that like part of the reason my life had gone the way it had gone is because i'd
20:20suffered trauma and so i was trying at that point to deal with that i decided i'm going to get the help
20:30that i need i know i was abused and i'm going to start reporting it and that's when you started
20:38disclosing what had happened to you as a little boy well how did that go over um it was hard
20:47i reported what i just told you to the bishop and jess was a member of my parents stake at that time
20:55and you named him yes and what happened when i reported that my bishop had told me that he was
21:03concerned because he was still a member of their state and i don't know i guess he was probably
21:09calling people but he obviously escalated to the stake president and my dad was in the stake presidency
21:16oh geez so he ended up going with the stake president to jess's house to confront jess
21:23they told jess that i remember being abused by him and jess said
21:31he must have me confused with someone else tell him to call me and i'll clear it up
21:39and that's where it stopped that's what they came back and said to you i had an expectation that
21:46people would take action and they didn't
21:54when i reported and i'm talking to people i'm really looking them to guide me on how to handle
21:59the situation i didn't even think at that point to take whatever information i give them and report
22:05it to the police the most important thing to me was to resolve it through the church
22:10why didn't they take that information and do something why didn't they give it to the police
22:16why didn't they discipline jess and when no one took action and no one helped me in that journey and
22:23they put it all back on me i felt like there was nothing i could do i felt helpless i felt like
22:30no one cared after that i never wanted to talk about jess again i was devastated the focus wasn't
22:42jess the focus wasn't like let's take these people down let's do this the focus was my sexuality how do
22:50we get you to be spiritually whole again was there a part of you that was just like you guys are missing
22:57the point yeah absolutely i was upset about it and it was really shocking to me because going into
23:04that was like these are spiritually chosen men who will guide me to spiritual safety and protect you
23:12and protect me and i 1000 believe that like with every single fiber of my being jess as a heterosexual
23:22head of household dad serves the image and purpose of the church growing up i believed that the head of
23:31the household direct your family to eternity to salvation and all that so you did not take down
23:38the men of a family the church was more important to protect than the children
24:00people never understand why we go back to you know the place where we were abused but that's the only place
24:07we were taught to look for answers it's the only structure and plan we were ever given and i honestly
24:13didn't think that i had the answers for myself after i reported my abuse they told me to make it to
24:20heaven that i needed to repent for being gay and for acting out on it looking back it was healing me
24:30enough so that i could go through a disciplinary council the disciplinary council is a public flame
24:38cataloging everything you've ever done wrong yeah and that you should be repentant for when you've
24:43done something more egregious than just a bishop at the local level can handle and that would be
24:48any sexual sin 12 church leaders from the general geographical area sit at a table in white shirt and tie
24:58and they're allowed to ask him any question they want they often do and it's basically a purging of
25:06every sexual sin in front of 12 men that you've may or may not have ever met before then they
25:14excuse you and convene and discuss amongst themselves what they believe the appropriate
25:18punishment should be and a disciplinary council can result in disfellowship which is abstaining from
25:24the sacrament and church callings excommunication or nothing at all go home and go with god
25:32this is kind of a summary of like the disciplinary council oh my god and you can just read like kind
25:39of what the summary was from their perspective it doesn't say anything about the abuse in the context
25:47of like punishing jess the lifestyle you have lived these pastures is not who you really are
25:55it will be very important for you to continue to walk toward the greater light to completely forsake
26:00the past you must now stay completely clear of any and all triggers that could tempt you back that
26:05could harm your progress on the path to the full light of the gospel reading it it's like because of the
26:11gospel and because of us you're going to be able to be forgiven it's just plug and play right this is
26:18how we deal with anything that doesn't fit the mold yeah and it's victimizing you all over again
26:27but at the same time i felt like i had sinned and i needed that repentance i let that be the focus too
26:36i believe this was my path back to the kingdom of god and you believe that because you were taught it
26:43yeah and everything and everyone in your life reinforced it to the point where you're willing
26:48to give up your future and your sexuality just to get let back into the doors yeah but everything that i
26:55was writing in my journal was like i'm miserable i'm unhappy i feel so lonely but this is what god wants
27:03me to do i was so proud of myself that i was able to make it back to the temple but it came at a cost
27:09that wasn't worth it for me and yeah if i look at what my life might look like in that context versus
27:17how i'm living it now i don't want that no one would want that for you it's an emotional prison
27:24i finally got to the point where i just broke i couldn't do it anymore and finally told myself
27:37you're gay and that's okay i felt free at that point i just left the church and i started dating
27:47i started dating yeah okay dorothy do you want to go outside come here let's put your sandals on
27:56come here do you want to go say hi to the horses yeah what does the horse say
28:03oh good job when i had gone back to church in 2012 these gay friends posted a bunch of pictures on
28:12facebook and in these pictures was the most beautiful shoe that i'd never seen and though i
28:23didn't know this at the time i just kept thinking where were you when i was gay which is funny and i
28:31never saw him again after that okay look you see the horses so fast forward four years later we matched on
28:40tinder and he accepted all of me and so i felt like shane's the first person i ever was able to truly
28:49be myself with we haven't been apart since then okay all done you go back in
28:59if you were to go back in through the doors today and say i have a beautiful daughter a companion who i
29:07love and cherish and i want to be active in the church we know what they would say to you yeah
29:14i'm not welcome it's the fact that jess seemed to have more value than i did because he was straight
29:23married man let's protect him i don't understand that we can believe that it happens in other
29:30religions but it can't happen in ours we're the true church right we have the spiritual guidance we have
29:36the true prophet we have the modern day revelation and they can't fully open the door to that happened
29:44and if it did happen it happened when i was a kid and it was bad but it doesn't continue anymore
29:51the fact that these things happened to me as a child now because i'm an adult they seem to not matter
29:59how many times was it reported before how many church leaders knew had they taken action
30:09and had they done the right thing could it have saved me
30:14could it have saved other kids from being abused because that's how i'm thinking about it where is
30:20this motherfucker like for real he still lives in their stake he's still walking among the living
30:27he could come up to my house today i cannot believe that ben i didn't feel like there was any justice
30:36jess was in their congregation and dinner eating dinner and you know and going to church yeah probably
30:44teaching kids yeah so i never felt safe publicly talking about this i have never named him outside of
30:54reporting but i have a friend who did take jess on who was abused by jess yes and accused him publicly
31:04and did take on the church in a sense when
31:14my friend ginger took jess on in 2017. there was a local news article that came out about someone who had
31:24won a civil case against jess and i felt vindicated
31:34i didn't know her before that but i reached out to her and said thank you for sticking up and standing
31:47up for herself and in that case
32:12doesn't that make you feel like everything i said was true yes let's go get them yeah
32:17and it encouraged me to keep speaking yeah naming jess so when i found that information out i sent it
32:27to my parents and i said look jess is capable of doing this type of stuff to people
32:35and it's now on public record that he did
32:38well now what do you think and they took that article and they went and they met with the stake
32:48president and said he's in our stake he's got this evidence against him now and then in 2019
32:58they started pursuing disciplinary action with jess
33:11so on the church level of excommunication that's like the worst you could get if you get excommunicated
33:18your baptism your temple covenants everything that you've done it's erased but they said this person's
33:26repenting this person did this but they're trying to do better everyone would have been on board with
33:33that he'd still be an active member of the community and go to church
33:42talking to the stake president i said what i would like you to do is take all the information i give you
33:48all the information anyone else gives you and i think you should turn this information over to the
33:52police that's what you should do he said they couldn't do that how are you still not taking
34:00legal action against him even if you can't press charges against him you can provide all this
34:06information to the police why are you not doing this i don't think they're interested in doing the
34:12right thing i think they're interested in protecting themselves
34:15i've reported to the church and just still lives in my parents stake and one of the reasons that the
34:29church can get away with it so much is because they have an attorney the church has directed them
34:37to poke as many holes as they can in the victim story and discredit them so much to where they can't
34:49stand a chance to protect the good name of the church they are a billion dollar institution no
34:56lone voice stands a chance no against that system these stories are hard to tell they're hard to hear
35:03and i just i'm like with you 100 i'm so grateful that we're able to have this conversation and i'm i
35:12do feel like it was long overdue and i want you to know that i believe you and i want to be here for
35:18you and i want to fight the people that hurt you and i wish i had protected you sooner
35:26and i'm sorry thank you and you don't need to apologize i do but i love you i love you too
35:39and it's journey and it's a journey for everyone
35:51gosh that was overwhelming to hear
35:56that was a lot
36:05i just feel like crying
36:14it's like all his dreams came true but he's still so sad you know and there's still so much pain
36:22and i want to help ease that
36:31i feel like i'm pulling back
36:32layer by layer and there were so many layers to ben's story that i just can't even
36:40i just can't process what to do next the church because there's so much familiarity and so little
36:49questioning of people's integrity if you're a member of the church we assume that you were honest right
36:54truthful and fair and true in all things you know we believe that about each other and so to think that
37:01that type of evil is lurking and able to like hide in plain sight it just made me question my entire
37:09childhood i went to church in my ward and it was always these charismatic guys that would have all the
37:16kids over for sleepovers and the kids would say he's coming out and sleeping with us on the tramp and
37:21we think oh he's such a nice guy i mean there was a youth leader throwing kool-aid parties all the time
37:28and we were all encouraged to attend it turned out years later that guy had been molesting girls in
37:33the ward you heard stories but you just thought not to me and not
37:37to mine and i just think that when you are in a church that values obedience over everything else
37:46it is a safe haven for adults to take advantage of children
37:51if this happened to ben it could have happened to thousands of children
38:00it happened from when i was six till 10. he abused me for a long time
38:06he was like giving me just really weird vibes he kept being like tickle my back and me no i don't
38:12want to when you go through things like what i went through as far as being raped the immediate
38:18thing that happened was my dad called the bishop i went and made an appointment with my bishop i
38:24remember telling his bishop hey he's he's done this to me i went to the bishop and i said this happened to
38:32me i didn't pursue it it it wasn't my fault but it happened to me my bishop was probably the closest
38:40one of the closest people to god in my mind and i trusted him he first lectured me on the importance
38:47of modest dress and standards and then counseled me to hurry up and get married so i'd stop being a
38:52temptation for the young men family members confessed abuse to their bishops and it was allowed to continue
38:58for years because the bishops aren't required to report it the bishop believed him he never asked
39:04for my side of the story the bishop basically talked me out of pressing charges the church does not
39:12care about crime they're not reporting crime they're not concerned with local law enforcement
39:19they're concerned with their set of rules and their church laws they're concerned about sin and compensation
39:26for sin and i think that is a scenario that allows predators to hide in plain sight
39:40as mormons we're taught that your bishop is there to serve your temporal spiritual emotional
39:45needs he can save your family he can save your marriage he can protect your child
39:50he can use god's wisdom and god's help to solve the problem i know when we had crises in our home or
39:59with our family first call was always to the bishop and he'll help us know what to do men are allowed to
40:07ask you any question they want to as they go around my whole life i assumed that the criminal authorities
40:13were never involved because nothing bad was ever happening i think that we are trained to just look the
40:18other way because no one ever talks about it and if they do talk about it we tend to just not believe
40:26them i feel guilty that i was so naive and i feel repulsed that i cared so little to look any further
40:35than what my church leaders told me i just took everything they told me as fact man's laws are nothing
40:42compared to god's laws the police aren't going to take as much action as my bishop is my bishop is
40:48speaks for god he's going to keep me safe he's going to guide us through this he's going to make sure
40:53that we can you know do this the right way so why are the bishops not reporting crime to law enforcement
41:04when somebody is physically abused whether it's a child or a woman or anybody when a bishop hears that
41:10they have to call the bishop's hotline there's so there's a hotline um that only bishops have
41:17access there's a church hotline you call for pretty much anything call the helpline when you believe
41:22there has been abuse and you need to talk with someone who can answer basic questions about this
41:27grievous problem the helpline stands at the center of an elaborate system to divert child sex abuse
41:33complaints away from law enforcement and instead send them to attorneys for the church they have
41:39lawyers on on staff 24 hours do kind of triage calls so the church's law firm the hotline would just
41:47basically give them advice but most of that advice amounted to helping them bury it even if you have
41:54experience dealing with abuse issues to protect the child yourself and the church you must call the
42:00abuse helpline as often as needed now what we're going to do is we're going to read the protocol
42:05for abuse helpline calls that is not public information that is not shared with all church
42:11members and i think it's scandalous the first question is did the abuse happen on church property
42:16question number two does your call concern child sexual abuse which may have occurred at a church
42:22sponsored activity i mean it's obvious that the focus is on things that would
42:27be most likely to make the church liable the church is very adamantly against bishops calling
42:33the grief that's why they want you calling the lawyer and the lawyer will say it's client attorney
42:38privilege now between me and you and you don't have to say a word and we're telling you not to
42:49i can wrap my mind around an institution or a corporation like protecting its interests
42:56but i cannot wrap my mind around a church instituting a system where you call lawyers to help with your
43:07abuse and thinking that that is you know what jesus would do i'm pretty sure jesus would not you know
43:17have a law firm suffer the needs of his disciples and there's a big disconnect there for me
43:26it should be when someone reports a crime you call the local authorities and then if you need
43:32spiritual help or guidance after you've reported it to the authorities then call us the last person
43:38in that equation should be a law firm that's there to serve and protect the interest and reputation of
43:44the church someone needs to serve and protect the interests of the children that are being cast around
43:49i owe it to my work family hearing from me
44:04i've been i've asked to be released
44:06there's just a few things that i've been required to do that i worship cannot morally stand by thank you
44:23so i need to step down
44:27for me and my families will be nick jones is a former bishop in the mormon church bishops never get up
44:36and step down from their position ever and they certainly don't do it at during testimony meeting
44:43it was a really big deal
44:49hi nick how are you good how are you
44:54i just watched your video for the first time of you at the pulpit yeah i had never seen it i know it
45:01went kind of viral but i thought it was just like balls of steel very very cool and you
45:06rarely see that well thank you you're just doing what you feel is the right thing to do
45:10well sometimes it looks like courage right it looked like courage i think it took a lot of courage i mean
45:15i have never spoken to a bishop that has left and like spoken on the other side i mean how long had
45:23you been a bishop when you when you left two and a half years two and a half years years i saw things
45:29that i just was like this is happening what you know eye opening on a number of levels because when
45:36you're a bishop you see it all you see the inner workings of it all and uh man it just didn't sit
45:43well with me i was a bishop for three weeks like my third sunday a 17 year old girl came to me who
45:50just had sex like the night before and she just felt terrible and she's just bawling and then she
45:58asked me this question that just triggered me she says well don't you need to know the details come to
46:02find out the previous bishop is asking details did he orgasm did you orgasm did you know that made my
46:09stomach sick but she looked at me like you don't need to know and i'm like no don't want to know
46:16when i look back at my childhood i got called in when i was a teenager all the time because my bishop
46:21kept having this spiritual impression that i was masturbating and he just wanted to make sure i wasn't
46:27i mean even though i was in a closed room with a 50 year old man who was my dad's best friend directly
46:33asking me about masturbating i made a choice right then and there to not feel weird about it and
46:38not make him creepy because that's the last thing i wanted is to feel that way about this my bishop
46:47i didn't want to be critical of him either i knew that wasn't allowed at all he's our bishop
46:54you know you didn't ask to be put in that position i'm assuming you got zero training
46:59in that position zero i mean i'm shooting from the hip yeah no idea 17 year old in my life and how to deal
47:07with that the system is set up to give ordinary men great power with zero training so your dentist
47:17pays his tithing shows up to church has well-behaved kids and all of a sudden he finds himself bishop of
47:23a ward and he's just a dentist and now he's dealing with sex abuse and crime and he has zero training
47:33zero instruction and except the hotline to call so when you were a bishop did you have access to
47:39like the helpline for sex abuse or what was what was that it's crazy i had a guy in the ward
47:46whose ex-wife called me saying my ex-husband is a pedophile and he's in your ward and i had an email
47:53from his daughter telling of all the abuse he did i ended up calling the hotline i asked him i said
48:00look what do i do well yeah i talked to the curtain mcconkey law firm curtain mcconkey is a renowned law
48:07firm in salt lake city i happen to know it on a personal level because one of the arms of curtain
48:12mcconkey is dedicated to like policing and protecting the word mormon and the trademarks of the mormon
48:19church so when i tried to sell sweatshirts and mugs with the word mormon on it you know they swooped in
48:25and sued me i talked to mcconkey maybe three or four times plus text messages and he basically said
48:32bishop you're pushing your limits now you cannot do anything unless you have proof of abuse and it's
48:39coming from somebody who you have stewardship over well his daughter lived in texas and she was grown at
48:45this time so unless the daughter actually filed for report i couldn't do anything this is just a
48:50guy who's just a bad guy and the church basically just said no you can't do anything about it it's
48:56not right yeah it's wrong it finally got to the point where i just couldn't do it anymore
49:02a convicted pedophile in my ward his wife died of covet when she had her fourth baby girl four girls and
49:10she's dead and he lives with four girls served seven years in prison and he calls me at one
49:16o'clock in the morning says he wants to throw his baby out the window because he can't take the crying
49:21what did you do put on my suit went to his house did what bishops do oh my gosh yeah it's what we do
49:29you know when we're in we're in you give him a blessing of course give him a blessing gave him the
49:33best advice i knew how to give him well yeah i mean it's it still haunts me still haunts me to this
49:39day he's on floodlit now and uh what's the other guy who raped his daughter stake presidency member
49:48and they're on there i put them both on there so that's like a pedophile list within the church
49:53100 yeah members in the church who have been convicted of forms of pedophilia whether it's
49:58child pornography or actually acts of sexual abuse wow when nick first mentioned floodlit on our call
50:08i thought it was some program the church had instituted in order to keep track of sexual
50:13predators within the church and to keep their members safe and i thought wow how progressive
50:19oh so this is not run by the church 367 times lds officials allegedly hid abuse oh my gosh oh my gosh i'm
50:34only through like the a's i'm not even there's so many i didn't have any idea that abuse was so
50:44prevalent in the church i heard about stories but never in numbers like this this guy was inseminating
50:54virgins with his sperm i mean what the and it got dismissed with prejudice in 2021 he admitted to it
51:03he admitted to it and it got dismissed a lawsuit filed by multiple families accusing the church
51:09of covering up sexual abuse yeah these families claim the lds church leaders knew that one of its
51:14old members was abusing children but did nothing to report the cross this church knew that these
51:20girls were being sexually abused and the subject of pornographic videos the mormon church did nothing
51:26to stop the rapes nothing was well known within the church that paul adams was abusing his children
51:32and referred to this abuse as paul adams misbehaving these bishops were told to keep this a secret
51:41for seven years family babysitter michael jensen sexually abused her four and six year old boys
51:46for two months back in 2008 how do you forgive something like that i don't think that i'll ever
51:53be able to forgive him five other families and nine children are suing the lds church their attorneys
52:00argue lds church members actively covered up the abuse which continued for over five years this mormon
52:07church tried to say that the church had a religious right to conceal sex abuse of children they knew
52:13about and children they cared for woman sexually abused for years by her father when she was a little
52:18girl is now suing the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints she was told along with her mother
52:24not to disclose not to report it how is it right that so many people knew what was happening
52:31and just let it happen it's almost like they cover up sex abusers and the system functions to cover up crime
52:45there was never a time that i remember not being abused my earliest memories are of abuse they
52:54reinforced to you as the victim and child a code of silence to protect him oh absolutely no one called the police
53:02and i feel sad that i was part of the problem for so long
53:09and i guess i know how devout i was and what it would have taken for someone to make me think or feel
53:16differently differently and i know deep down that that's what we're up against and i'm i'm scared that i'm not enough
53:32you
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