541
submitted 11 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

Paul Rytting listened as a woman, voice quavering, told him her story.

When she was a child, her father, a former bishop in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, had routinely slipped into bed with her while he was aroused, she said.

It was March 2017 and Rytting offered his sympathies as 31-year-old Chelsea Goodrich spoke. A Utah attorney and head of the church’s Risk Management Division, Rytting had spent about 15 years protecting the organization, widely known as the Mormon church, from costly claims, including sexual abuse lawsuits.

Audio recordings of the meetings over the next four months, obtained by The Associated Press, show how Rytting, despite expressing concern for what he called John’s “significant sexual transgression,” would employ the risk management playbook that has helped the church keep child sexual abuse cases secret. In particular, the church would discourage Miller from testifying, citing a law that exempts clergy from having to divulge information about child sex abuse that is gleaned in a confession. Without Miller’s testimony, prosecutors dropped the charges, telling Lorraine that her impending divorce and the years that had passed since Chelsea’s alleged abuse might prejudice jurors.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] BaldProphet@kbin.social 3 points 11 months ago

@Jonny stated that all religious people are evil because clergy-penitent privilege laws exist. I'm not arguing against mandatory reporting laws here (although I have reservations because of the First Amendment implications). Making a blanket statement that religious people are evil is bigotry.

[-] Jonny@kbin.social 11 points 11 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I did not state that. Your country is not the only country in the world. Not every religious person is part of the clergy.
I stated, and will state again. Those laws are evil and it taints all those who they protect.

[-] BaldProphet@kbin.social 2 points 11 months ago

The law protects penitents. That is its purpose. It protects them from having their private confessions revealed by trusted clergy members.

It's the same sort of law as client-attorney privilege or doctor-patient privilege. You're barking up the wrong tree (and your veiled claim of Americentrism is hilariously off-base here).

[-] Jonny@kbin.social 9 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

The only way you could think I said all religious people is if you assumed all of them had this law. Which would mean American centrism. You can't have got to that without it.

Those privileges should not protect (and in my country do not protect) suspicion of serious harm to others. You tell a member of your legal team or doctor that you abused a child, there is a duty to report.

[I'm not going to respond anymore. Partly because it's late and I have work. Partly because I think you are arguing in bad faith, as your conclusions repeatedly do not correlate with what I said]

[-] BaldProphet@kbin.social 3 points 11 months ago

You should probably brush up on your reading comprehension before engaging in debates online. You should also educate yourself on context before arguing about laws and their implications in a country with as different political paradigms from your own as the United States has. For example, there is no meaningful "freedom of speech" in the UK, while here it is largely held sacred on both sides of the political spectrum.

The law in question applies only to people in the US state of Idaho. It does not apply to people in California, Canada, or the UK. It applies to anyone, whether religious or not, who make confessions to members of the clergy in Idaho. It is assumed that one would only make such a confession because one is religious, but I suppose that isn't necessarily always the case. However, saying that all people who are protected by this law are evil is saying that all people who confess to their clergy are evil. Which is a small-minded, ignorant, bigoted thing to say.

Note again that the law really only exists to protect penitents, not the members of the clergy.

[-] Jonny@kbin.social 10 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

At this point I don't think you even know what your trying to say. None of that has any effect on anything I have said. In fact almost none of it even hardly applies to what I have said.

I am going to put it as simple as possible. If you are told about child abuse and do not report it, and therefore allow it to continue, you are evil. However that affects or upsets your worldview is not something I could care any less about.

[-] BaldProphet@kbin.social 2 points 11 months ago

Irrelevant. That's not what happened. No child abuse could have continued to occur because the confession was made over a decade later. This isn't a case of protecting a child who is currently being abused. It's about prosecuting a past instance of abuse.

Like I said, reading comprehension. It's like peoples brains melt when they see the word "Mormon" and they forget how to read.

[-] AnalogyAddict@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago

Downvotes don't make you less right. Basic comprehension is a vanishing skill. And people don't have the ability to think beyond their own narrow circumstance. There are reasons laws protecting criminals exist. People who fail to understand those reasons really don't have valid opinions.

[-] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 9 points 11 months ago

I don't see where they said that. Show me the exact quote that says "all religious people are evil".

For the record I would never say that. I don't think religion makes you a bad person, I think it makes it harder to be a good one.

this post was submitted on 04 Dec 2023
541 points (100.0% liked)

News

23281 readers
3469 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS