FormerCubmaster

From the LDS standpoint—I don’t know that I’d phrase it *quite* that way. The LDS stayed in the BSA when it was announced that it would admit LGBTQ boys; it was when it announced that it would admit LGBTQ leaders that the church drew the line. Even then, I think this was less of a “red line” in and of itself than a straw that broke the camel’s back after a number of perceived problems and slights including: —perceived shabby treatment by the BSA national leadership, which had apparently promised the LDS that certain agenda items would *not* be brought up at board meetings that the LDS d

I should think it depends on whether joint and several liability is deemed to apply, which would differ by state. At the risk of grossly over-simplifying: If “pure joint and several liability” applies, then it’s easy peasy—the defendant who can pay (the church) pays the entire sum of damages, and the defendant who bankrupted out (BSA) walks away cleanly. If it doesn’t, the the jury has to allocate proportion of fault between each defendant; the award is allocated amongst the defendants in equal proportions, the church pays its portion and the bankrupt walks away with the plaintiff a haircut

Sort of. It’s had the same formal name since 1837-ish (“The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints”). The issue has always been that the full name is kind of a mouthful and lends itself to shortening; and there’s been some back-and-forth from the church leadership over the years about whether “Mormon” was an appropriate short form since the term as an appellation both was coined by detractors of the church and tends to distract from what we see as our commitment to Jesus. About every twenty or thirty years we get direction from church leaders saying “please, lay off the ‘Mormon’ thing”

Yeah, I’ve frankly never seen it outside of discussions of the BSA bankruptcy. But, when in Rome . . . 🙂

Yes. There is a single corporation sole out of Salt Lake City that holds the deed to every LDS meetinghouse [actually two or three, but they are all indisputably under the control of the church’s central governing body]. All member donations are forwarded to Salt Lake City each week, and the central church leadership then turns around and funds each congregation’s annual operating budget on a per capita basis. All congregational bishops, too, are individually formally approved by Salt Lake prior to their ordination. (That’s how it works in the LDS Church within the USA, anyways. Other

I think Kosnoff has suggested at times that the LDS church was the “power behind the throne” with the BSA and should be jointly and severally liable on every single claim against the BSA. If he has evidence of that, then I suppose it will come out through the legal system in due course. But the specific instances cited in the new article have to do with very narrow circumstances in which perpetrators made a confession to an ecclesiastical leader which, depending on the legal jurisdiction where it occurred, may have been subject to legal privilege; and it sounds like the church’s legal ad

Indeed; and the LDS have ample resources to address this sort of thing. If they bail, does that have any ramifications for other CORs? My understanding was that early on, there was talk that the LDS offer was seen as a sort of benchmark that other CORs would be expected to meet (and kind of a high one, at that). Does their absence create a space for the other CORs to renegotiate their own liability?

There’s little reason for them to participate now. The judge appeared to characterize “pure scouting” claims as scenarios where non-LDS kids participate in LDS units and are victimized by LDS unit leaders. This would likely be an infinitesimal percentage of claimants—the vast majority of claims involving LDS units will be “mixed claims”, because nearly all adult LDS males (including, sadly, the dirtbags who perpetrate SA) are ordained into the faith’s lay clergy. There’s simply no reason for the LDS church to help the BSA pay off the BSA’s obligation to LDS victims who are just going

At least in my state, CPS won’t investigate child-on-child verbal bullying unless there is an element of physicality to it or unless the victim and perp live together. (Threats of physical violence would be referred to law enforcement, not CPS.)

It seems to me that via manuals, charter agreements, etc. BSA has been telling the units sotto voce for a while that “all your toys REALLY belong to us”. The warnings/reminders seem to be getting increasingly intense, and are starting to smack of demands. It seems clear to me that with traditional chartering/sponsoring civic organizations—churches, Lions/Rotary clubs, Masonic lodges, etc—on the decline, and with the high startup costs for new units of an outdoors-based program like the BSA, BSA isn’t going to be able to attain its stated goal of better serving underprivileged kids unles

1. I suppose it depends on how carefully the distinction between the scouting unit and the CO is maintained. The old LDS paradigm, of course, was that the chartering org (church congregation) sponsored the unit with the intent and expectation that the unit would *be* the church youth program for the sons of the families in that particular congregation. Additional visitors who wanted to participate in that experience were welcome to join (just as they would be welcome to join Sunday worship services); but Scouting as a program was always subordinate the overall interests and needs and object

Yeah, that sounds accurate; but with the clarification that (at least when I was going through the program as a youth after the age of 12) there was basically no distinction, for practical purposes, between “weekly church night” and “weekly Scout meetings”. Any suggestion that there was a quid pro quo, “if you want to come to our Scouts meeting on Tuesday you must also come to our church youth group meeting on Wednesday”, doesn’t really capture the dynamic that was at play—the two were one and the same meeting.

For what it’s worth, when I was a cubmaster in an LDS congregation (and when I previously worked with 11 year olds in a different LDS congregation) (and when I grew up as a scout in yet another LDS congregation), church membership wasn’t a prerequisite for troop or pack membership. Non-LDS kids generally weren’t interested in our units precisely because of our religious affiliation; but the one or two who *did* show interest and didn’t mind being seen in the company of a bunch of Mormons were welcomed. We saw it as an outreach/fellowshipping opportunity. I suppose if a particular non-LDS ki

Or a “People who wouldn’t touch the clowns and grifters in National Leadership with a ten foot pole” group?

BSA was only supposed to be apolitical when its membership leaned rightward. As the organization’s demographics evolve, it will naturally be expected to take a greater role in social activism.

Or . . . maintain a 24-hour hotline that can connect them with jurisdiction-specific legal advice in almost-real time? I mean—if the BSA had contemporaneously, immediately referred every staffer who heard an abuse allegation to an actual lawyer who could advise the staff member of their legal obligations to report (as opposed to just falling back on policy and years-old trainings)—would the BSA be in the pickle it’s in? If any of the less-than-1/5 of states with “immediate” reporting requirements has an issue with the Church’s practice, they certainly have the information and resources

Hmm. That gets trickier in the case of Mormonism, since we have a lay clergy at the congregational level whose institutional training is almost nil and who are holding down day jobs while putting an additional 20-30+ hours per week into their ecclesiastical responsibilities. And again, as I pointed out above—there are practicing lawyers who get this stuff wrong unless or until they have a chance to do additions research and/or get advice from a colleague. I’m not sure it’s realistic or fair to hold some poor schcmuck who had the misfortune to be assigned the job of a Mormon bishop, to a hig

I’m not sure obeying a cop who is demanding you pull over right now, and a layman’s knowing the ins and outs of mandatory reporter statutes, are quite in the same category. I routinely interact professionally with people (including lawyers) who don’t know the reporting requirements in my own jurisdiction. Im not really “advocating” anything, just offering explanations for why the LDS church does things the way that they do. As I noted earlier—making a report of information received during a clerical confession when one is legally bound to keep it silent (as is the case in some jurisd

Sure; but to obey the law, a person first needs to know what the law is. Where a church stands liable for any failure of its functionaries to obey the law, it makes sense for the church to ensure that its functionaries have a means of learning the law—hence the hotline; which (as I think I pointed out earlier) takes pains to NOT actually receive “reports” of abuse in any meaningful way.

That’s probably why the LDS Church’s form explicitly tells the hotline worker *not* to take any personally identifying info as to the perp or victims. It’s not technically a report, it’s simply a person seeking legal guidance as to whether they are obligated to make a report (or, conversely, whether they are obligated to remain silent). At the end of that call, the church’s honchos still have no idea exactly where, to whom, or by whom the abuse was perpetrated.

If I may add some perspective here (I am a practicing Mormon and also a government attorney representing DCFS in my state): The reason the LDS legal hotline exists is that penitent-priest privilege laws differ by state. The Church was recently sued, for example, by a woman whose husband’s ecclesiastical leader *did* make a report to the authorities; she claimed he had violated the privilege and since he went to jail the wife demanded several million dollars in lost income, loss of consortium, ad nauseum. The attorneys staffing the legal hotline give church leaders the resources they nee