Mormon abuse cases are cases of confirmed and alleged abuse, including child sexual abuse, by churches in the Latter Day Saint movement and its agents.
In March 2018, MormonLeaks, a watchdog website, released a December 2, 2017 recording, taken in a Chandler, Arizona hotel conference room, of an interview of Joseph Bishop, a former LDS Church mission president, then 85, by McKenna Denson, a 55-year-old woman from Pueblo, Colorado. In the recording, Denson, who first poses as a Latter-day Saint sectarian faith reporter, accuses Bishop of having abused her in January 1984, while he was her mission president at the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah, taking her to his private study with a day bed, tearing open her blouse pulling up her skirt, and successfully penetrated her against her will, [20] her being spared continuation of the rape due to his erectile dysfunction. [21] [22]
In December 2020, the case was dismissed at the request of both the church and Denson. [23]
Denson may have reported the abuse to her subsequent Washington, D.C., mission-field leader in 1984 or 1985. [24] In 1987, she reported it to her local congregation's bishop, Ron Leavitt, a microbiology professor at Brigham Young University (BYU). [25] (Leavitt told the Salt Lake Tribune in 2018, "I felt the allegations were groundless" because, among other factors, his assumption potential MTC presidents receive extensive vettings. [26] ) Per some reports, what Leavitt was told was that Denson and another missionary were taken by the MTC president to the basement of the MTC and shown pornography. [27] Denson says that in 1988 she told at least one LDS Church general authority, Carlos Asay. Asay has since passed away and the LDS Church states it has no record of Denson's meeting with Asay.
In 2010, Denson told her local Pleasant Grove, Utah, ecclesiastical leaders, who referred the matter to local police. Pleasant Grove police made a routine call to the Denson's home verifying she did not need emergency assistance and did not open an investigation of her accusations [28] [29] [30] because they had occurred outside of Pleasant Grove's jurisdiction. [31]
Within the recording, Joseph Bishop says he does not remember his interactions with Denson transpiring in the manner she describes. Bishop says that while president over the MTC he engaged in inappropriate behaviors of which he regrets, involving more than one young woman serving at the MTC, including having given a back rub that became "too frisky" to a young-woman once-missionary trainee who served as his and his wife's assistant at his family's home. [32] (This then-assistant to Bishop's family later reported the 1985 abuse by him to her bishop in 2010. [31] )
Bishop said that some young women missionary trainees at the MTC would have flashbacks to previous experiences of sexual trauma and would counsel with MTC leaders (in worthiness interviews) for spiritual guidance; he said he was "the last person who should have been" providing pastoral counseling to these young women. [33]
Joseph Bishop's son and attorney, Greg Bishop of Park City, Utah, [34] told reporters that at the time of the interview, his father and client was on medications and recovering from surgery, and lacked mental acuity, and that many of his statements in the recording reflect this confusion.
Furthermore, Greg Bishop said that sometime after Denson returned to Provo, Utah, from Washington D.C., she showed her breasts to Joseph Bishop without solicitation. [31] [35] [36] Denson has denied this, stating that the last time she met with Bishop was at the time of the assault: "I did not speak to that man again until Dec. 2, 2017." [37] BYU police stated that, during their 2017 investigation, Bishop told them that at the MTC, he asked Denson to show him her breasts. [38] (Bishop's son and attorney says his father and client does not remember making that statement to police. [24] ) The Utah County attorney's office said that it likely would have prosecuted Bishop if Utah's statute of limitations for rape (which up until the 1990s had been four years) had not expired. The case was closed December 23, 2017. [39]
Greg Bishop distributed to the news media excerpts from a dossier compiled by attorney David Jordan of Stoel Rives, who had been hired by the LDS Church, which contained Denson's LDS Church membership record, and which detailed the history of investigations of Denson's accusations within various jurisdictions, as well as for alleged crimes such as criminal fraud. Denson had reported over a half-dozen times that she was assaulted by numerous men on numerous separate occasions. Jordan's dossier says that Denson later retracted her initial accusations on certain occasions as having been false. None of these accusations have been prosecuted. [40] [41] [42] [43]
The accuser's legal counsel, Craig Vernon, made the LDS Church aware of the recording in January 2018. [44] Settlement negotiations between Denson and church were in progress when the recording was publicly released in March 2018 by MormonLeaks, which she had not initially authorized. [38] [45] but came to do so, after the fact. [46] After the recording became public, the negotiations stalled. On April 4, 2018, Denson filed civil suit in the U.S. District Court for Utah against the church and Joseph Bishop for redress with respect to her mental, physical, and economic hardships caused by the alleged sexual assault and battery, negligent and intentional infliction of emotional distress, fraud, fraudulent nondisclosure and fraudulent concealment. [47] [48] [20] [29] [49]
On May 15, 2018, attorneys representing both Joseph Bishop and the LDS Church filed motions to dismiss Denson's suit, arguing that the statute of limitations for Denson to file these claims had expired long before. [50] On August 13, 2018, U.S. District Judge Dale A. Kimball dismissed most of the lawsuit, except for its fraud allegations against the LDS Church. [51]
In May 2019, Denson's lawyers asked to be removed from the case with the judge approving the request on the same day. [52]
The church hired an outside law firm to interview Bishop, his accusers, and others. The church had been made aware of a second accuser in 2010. No action was taken at the time because of Bishop's adamant denial of the accusations. [53] Ron Leavitt stated that in the 1980s, while he was serving as Denson's bishop, she told him that Joseph Bishop had taken her and her missionary companion to the basement of the MTC, and showed them pornography. Leavitt stated that he did not share this information with anyone at the time. "I didn't think it had much credence. I wasn't going to risk sullying the reputation of someone based on that kind of a report," Leavitt told the news media in 2018. [27]
In March 2018, the LDS Church publicized its abuse resource hotline for use by local church leaders, and released a resource document that says, in part, "Church leaders should never disregard a report of abuse or counsel a member not to report criminal activity to law enforcement personnel." [54] [55]
The LDS Church states that abusive behavior, whether physical, sexual, verbal, or emotional, is a sin and is condemned unreservedly by the church. [56] The church teaches that victims of abuse should report it to their bishop or other trusted leadership, and should be assured that they are not to blame for the abuse. Bishops and other trusted leaders are told by the church to contact the church's Help Line before any further reporting takes place. [56] Abuse of any form should be reported not only by the bishop but also by the victim to local law enforcement. [56]
Newsletter author Meg Conley said she had heard from many women who reported abuse to their LDS bishop, and that bishops tended to have keeping the family together as a higher priority than physical safety. In some cases, she said they recommended marriage counseling so the family members being abused could avoid provoking their abuser. [14]
Donna Kelly, an attorney at the Utah Crime Victims Legal Clinic, said that in approximately 3,000 cases over three decades, bishops would sometimes show up to defend the abuser, but never the abused. She said church lawyers were more concerned about saving souls than protecting victims, and did not offer sufficient training to volunteer bishops to deal with abuse cases. Women were described by abusers and church leaders as "mouthy", and some were reportedly asked to leave their ward because they were being "too disruptive" by filing abuse allegations. [14]
All church members who work with children or youth in their callings are expected to complete an online training module titled “Protecting Children and Youth.” The basic training takes about half an hour to complete. [57]
In July 2023, a number of policies were put in place by the LDS Church in the United Kingdom to safeguard children and prevent abuse. Most notably, all British church members working with children, as well as members of bishoprics and stake presidencies, must now undergo a background check before beginning their callings. The changes came after several church members heavily lobbied both church and secular leaders for additional protections. [58]
A 2017 lawsuit alleges that polygamist leader Warren Jeffs, his brothers Lyle Jeffs and Seth Jeffs, and Wendell LeRoy Nielsen, along with 20 unnamed defendants, ritualistically sexually assaulted underaged female members of their religious denomination in the presence of other members and kept records about the abuse.
In September 2022, Colorado City, Arizona-based FLDS leader Samuel Bateman was arrested on charges of destroying evidence related to a federal investigation which alleged he sexually abused 10 underage girls who he took as his wives in "atonement" ceremonies. [59] Three reported accomplices of Bateman, Naomi Bistline, Donnae Barlow and Moretta Rose Johnson, were also arrested and charged with one count of obstructing a federal prosecution and on a second count of abducting eight girls. [59] He was later found to have 20 wives, which included underage girls, and, according to his family, also sought to marry his teenage daughter. [60] [61]
The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is a religious sect of the fundamentalist Mormon denominations whose members practice polygamy. It is variously defined as a cult, a sect, or a new religious movement.
The Indian Placement Program (IPP) or Indian Student Placement Program (ISPP), also called the Lamanite Placement Program, was operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the United States, officially operating from 1954 and virtually closed by 1996. It had its peak during the 1960s and 1970s. Native American students who were baptized members of the LDS Church were placed in foster homes of LDS members during the school year. They attended majority-white public schools, rather than the Indian boarding schools or local schools on the reservations.
The Apostolic United Brethren (AUB) is a Mormon fundamentalist group that practices polygamy. The AUB has had a temple in Mexico since at least the 1990s, an endowment house in Utah since the early 1980s, and several other locations of worship to accommodate their members in the US states of Wyoming, Arizona, and Montana.
Sexuality has a prominent role within the theology of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In its standards for sexual behavior called the law of chastity, top LDS leaders bar all premarital sex, all homosexual sexual activity, the viewing of pornography, masturbation, overtly sexual kissing, sexual dancing, and sexual touch outside of a heterosexual marriage. LDS Leaders teach that gender is defined in premortal life, and that part of the purpose of mortal life is for men and women to be sealed together in heterosexual marriages, progress eternally after death as gods together, and produce spiritual children in the afterlife. The church states that sexual relations within the framework of monogamous opposite-sex marriage are healthy, necessary, and approved by God. The LDS denomination of Mormonism places great emphasis on the sexual behavior of Mormon adherents, as a commitment to follow the law of chastity is required for baptism, adherence is required to receive a temple recommend, and is part of the temple endowment ceremony covenants devout participants promise by oath to keep.
All homosexual sexual activity is condemned as sinful by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in its law of chastity, and the church teaches that God does not approve of same-sex marriage. Adherents who participate in same-sex sexual behavior may face church discipline. Members of the church who experience homosexual attractions, including those who self-identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual remain in good standing in the church if they abstain from same-sex marriage and any homosexual sexual activity or sexual relationships outside an opposite-sex marriage. However, all people, including those in same-sex relationships and marriages, are permitted to attend the weekly Sunday meetings.
The Satanic panic in Utah is part of a broader moral panic that began in the 1980s as children in the United States, subjected to coercive interviewing techniques at the hands of zealous social workers, made unsubstantiated allegations of bizarre Satanic rituals and horrific sexual and physical abuse at the hands of day care workers. As the decade unfolded, clients of believing therapists began to make similar allegations, which are now generally seen as confabulations caused by iatrogenic therapeutic techniques such as hypnosis and automatic writing rather than the discovery of repressed memories. Despite the similarities between the allegations of adults and children, investigations produced only circumstantial, and in many cases contradictory evidence of the patients' disclosures. The court cases surrounding satanic ritual abuse (SRA) allegations were among the most expensive and lengthy in history and produced no convictions or convictions based solely on the testimony of children that were frequently overturned or dismissed upon appeal.
Carlos Egan Asay was a general authority of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1976 until his death.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been subject to criticism and sometimes discrimination since its inception.
Joseph Smith, the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, privately taught and practiced polygamy. After Smith's death in 1844, the church he established splintered into several competing groups. Disagreement over Smith's doctrine of "plural marriage" has been among the primary reasons for multiple church schisms.
David J. Jordan was the United States Attorney for the District of Utah from 1991-1993 and has been the Chair of the Board of Regents of the Utah System of Higher Education since 2010.
Merrill F. Nelson is an American politician and a former Republican member of the Utah House of Representatives representing District 68. Merrill announced he was not seeking re-election in 2022.
On many occasions spanning over a century, leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have taught that adherents should not masturbate as part of obedience to the code of conduct known as the law of chastity. This denomination within Mormonism places great emphasis on the sexual behavior of Mormon adherents as a commitment to follow the law of chastity is required for baptism, and adherence is required to receive a temple recommend, and is part of the temple endowment ceremony covenants devout participants promise by oath to keep. A 2011 church manual quotes former church president Spencer W. Kimball who taught that the law of chastity includes "masturbation ... and every hidden and secret sin and all unholy and impure thoughts and practices." Before serving full-time missions, young adults are required to abandon the practice as it is believed to be a gateway sin that dulls sensitivity to the guidance of the Holy Ghost. The first recorded public mention of masturbation by a general church leader to a broad audience was in 1952 by apostle J. Reuben Clark, and recent notable mentions include in 2016, 2019, and 2021.
Transgender people and other gender minorities currently face membership restrictions in access to priesthood and temple rites in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints —Mormonism's largest denomination. Church leaders have taught gender roles as an important part of their doctrine since its founding. Only recently have they begun directly addressing gender diversity and the experiences of transgender, non-binary, intersex, and other gender minorities whose gender identity and expression differ from the cisgender majority.
Joseph Layton Bishop Jr. is a retired administrator of colleges and other post-secondary educational institutions and a Latter-day Saint devotional and motivational author. His books include The Making of a Missionary and Peace be Unto Thy Soul.
This is a timeline of LGBT Mormon history in the 19th century, part of a series of timelines consisting of events, publications, and speeches about LGBTQ+ individuals, topics around sexual orientation and gender minorities, and the community of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Although the historical record is often scarce, evidence points to queer individuals having existed in the Mormon community since its beginnings. However, top LDS leaders only started regularly addressing queer topics in public in the late 1950s. Since 1970, the LDS Church has had at least one official publication or speech from a high-ranking leader referencing LGBT topics every year, and a greater number of LGBT Mormon and former Mormon individuals have received media coverage.
Barbara W. Snow is a practicing therapist based out of Salt Lake City, Utah. She was a central figure in the Satanic ritual abuse moral panic in Utah in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
This is a timeline of LGBT Mormon history in the 1980s, part of a series of timelines consisting of events, publications, and speeches about LGBTQ+ individuals, topics around sexual orientation and gender minorities, and the community of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Although the historical record is often scarce, evidence points to queer individuals having existed in the Mormon community since its beginnings. However, top LDS leaders only started regularly addressing queer topics in public in the late 1950s. Since 1970, the LDS Church has had at least one official publication or speech from a high-ranking leader referencing LGBT topics every year, and a greater number of LGBT Mormon and former Mormon individuals have received media coverage.
This is a timeline of LGBT Mormon history in the 2010s, part of a series of timelines consisting of events, publications, and speeches about LGBTQ+ individuals, topics around sexual orientation and gender minorities, and the community of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Kirton McConkie is an American law firm headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is the largest law firm in Utah, and it has long served as the external legal counsel for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was ranked the 300th largest law firm in the United States in 2022 by the National Law Journal.
