Epic Mormonism Live on Rosebud Accusations

[Kishkumen]

What do you mean by winged monkeys?

Probably minions.

Ftr you have (or had) regular listeners who were disappointed by that decision.

Why?

[Kishkumen]

The fact that this thread has gone on for 60 pages kind of cuts into John's argument that any accusations of impropriety against him are baseless.

Wait? You mean everyone usually agrees about controversial issues in online discussions?

[Kishkumen]

Dehlin got you to defend him without even realizing you were defending him? And to help him trot out false testimony on top of that? Oh this is too good.

When all is said and done, just remember this: your family loves you. Now here’s a . Why don’t you play with it?

[Kishkumen]

Not sure. Either way "I didn't harass her because we hadn't implemented a sexual harassment policy yet" really instills a lot of confidence.

So does obsessively attacking someone over an affair that happened a decade ago, especially when you were not a participant in the affair.

[Kishkumen]

I didn't say she is wholly unreliable. Lem and I have confined our responses about her knowledge of those events to reliability re those events. I have not said (and as far as I know Lem has not said) she is an unreliable witness in any other context.

(Ftr as a therapist she might be criticised for her remarks on the podcast, but for issues unrelated to witness reliability.)

Well, yes, I meant wholly unreliable in regard to this situation, and I don’t agree with that.

[Dr Exiled]

I don't believe Forbes is the ultimate authority on anything and I don't think "fine" would be a word I would use in this context. Perhaps, "customary" would be a better word as in it is customary to have an ex sign a severance agreement when let go and receive severance payments because perhaps the other ex who remains may well have done something questionable during the relationship that might warrant a legal settlement some day if the fired ex sued. Exes have a tendency to mislead and lie when confronted, both those let go and those who remain. So, the prudent thing to do is to essentially buy silence as one cannot always trust the exes.

Employment in most states is at will. While obviously the Forbes article is not legally binding, it establishes that there is nothing illegal about firing your ex after a messy breakup. Now there may be other things here that rise to the level of sexual harassment, but being in a consensual relationship with your boss, ending said relationship, then being terminated is not sexual harassment by itself.

Yes, but companies and organizations have moved toward a non-fraternization policy, especially where there is a power differential. Under the law currently, just because someone is fired and that someone was in a prior relationship with the boss, doesn't automatically mean that there was something untoward. Even so, the litigation risk is a lot higher in those situations as divorces and break-ups are messy and both parties aren't always believable when emotions are involved. So, the safe route, to save the company money fighting these things out in court, is to prohibit these relationships in the first place.

JD and Rosebud had some sort of relationship that was consensual, Rosebud lost out in her quest to remain/control Open Stories Foundation. Paying her money to resolve any potential allegations with an iron clad severance agreement that prevents her from continually raising allegations like she is doing was the prudent approach 10 years ago from the Open Stories Foundation perspective. However, Rosebud refused, probably because she wanted to destroy JD for not allowing their relationship to continue and allowing her to run Open Stories Foundation with JD by her side.

She needs to give it up. At best her case was worth perhaps $20,000.00 back then, after spending more than that on attorney fees litigating the thing. I don't know what she can get now as the statutes of limitation have run and if she is claiming some sort of doxxing violation, then I think she is barking up the wrong tree as well.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

I think keeping this thing alive was just an Option 2 tactic. She wrote a book and was trying to parlay that, along with the background narrative of being a victim and how she’s stronk, into something. I’m not sure what. The marketplace for an incredibly niche ex-Mormon Patriarchy Killer isn't so lucrative as it turns out.

Additionally, JP’s testimonkey, while thoughtful and vigorously moving as the well-known Scottish folk song written by William Phelps - ‘Praise to the Man’ - <- am I doing this right Moksha?, doesn’t really move anything forward. He’s just a dude playing a dude dunking on another dude. <- Ha. Tropic Thunder reference, amirite?

So. Is this all the ‘evidence’ we got? Rosebud’s three hour walk through of the events as she describes them? Because if that’s all she’s got then she’s basically toast. I do feel a bit sorry for her in that she couldn’t get out of her own way. Like. She was married to an autist (who knows if that’s even the case), she’s a fangirl who gets to be a part of something she likes, she fools around with the not-an-autist-kinda-celebrity, it’s hot and then it’s not because JD is actually a human being with human characteristics (who’s the autist again?), she considers herself an equal because she can book some events or whatever, Open Stories Foundation board members who are acutely aware of the Patriarchy prop up the Patriarchy by firing Rosebud, Rosebud who’s totally-not-an-autist then details in an email how she’s going to obsessively spend the rest of her life harassing JD (because that’s what non-autists would do), and then gets herself into $350,000 of debt because something something wiretapping and it’s John Dehlin’s fault.

What the “F”.

And for some reason James Patterson thinks to himself, “Yeah. This is the hill I want to die on.”

Lol. This is awesome.

- Doc

[Kishkumen]

In the midst of this impassioned screed against John Dehlin, there are some things here that actually make a lot of sense:

5) I know that John and Rosebud were involved in an incredibly complex sexual relationship that cannot be boiled down to simple characterizations. Anyone who attempts to throw blanket statements around their relationship (it was all consensual or it was all sexual harassment/abuse) is being intellectually lazy. I also know that anyone using black-and-white arguments to criticize decision making in the midst of such a complex relationships (such as she consented once, so everything after that was fair game) is actively contributing to rape culture.

Yes. I agree that the relationship was very complicated, and that is the problem. John and Rosebud's actions were complicated all the way through. Rosebud came to this situation a troubled person, and she left it even more troubled than when she entered it. I don't believe that anyone among us would say that once you consent once you're fair game. Don't be an ass. What we are saying is that this is messy to the point of being one of those things people will essentially have to agree to disagree about. Rosebud clearly wants to wear out her days getting payback from Dehlin, and you have decided that you also hate Dehlin to the point that you are happy to join her in her crusade. I don't have any sympathy for obsessive vendettas, whether it is yours or Rosebud's, and I think a lot of other people part ways with you on that issue.

6) I know that trauma, especially related to sexual experiences or activity is also incredibly complicated, elicits intense feelings of shame which can warp perception and often takes a long time to sort through. I know that what someone believes about the nature of a relationship and specific interactions often look very, very different with time, separation and especially professional therapy. To make declarations about what someone believed or didn't believe while the person was in the midst of experiencing trauma and then assign finality to those beliefs, thus deriding any future insights they may form through time, separation and therapy is similarly shortsighted and completely flies in the face of published research about how our brains process trauma. I know that people who argue these issues in black and white (she said it was consensual at the time so she can't change her mind later) are either not arguing in good faith or are completely ignorant of the nuances of trauma and sexual violence. I know that power dynamics also play a major role in how consent is understood and processed in the moment and later.

Not only does the trauma of sexual abuse influence a person's experience of the trauma, but it also influences their experience of relationships afterward. In other words, Rosebud likely processes/d her relationship with JD through the lens of earlier abuse, and that means, unfortunately, that her view of it is likely distorted. She may seek to turn JD into a former abuser in order to give him the treatment she feels the past abuser deserved, and thus characterizes what were fairly normal interactions in a pretty twisted way. At the same time, it is possible that she was drawn to JD because of his own unhealthiness, and this results in really toxic relationship. Two unhealthy people getting together. What bugs me about how a lot of you are handling it is that you have these stark categories to which you assign JD and Rosebud, respectively. JD is the bad man, and Rosebud is the innocent victim of the bad man. At a certain point, you chuck nuance and complexity out the window because you have decided that JD is a bad man who needs to be taken out. For that reason, your whole take on this is unreliable and frankly unsympathetic.

13) I believe that Rosebud's relationship with John was both toxic and intoxicating. I believe they loved each other but were both very very bad for each other. I believe part of that was the fact that John was afraid if he had intercourse, he would be excommunicated for adultery. I believe John had pinned all his professional hopes on a honorable and public excommunication for agitating against the church. I believe Rosebud was being gaslighted on a frequent basis because of John's confliction between wanting to leave his wife and be with her and wanting to keep his family intact and get his honorable excommunication. I believe all of these elements caused him to toy with her on an ongoing basis. I believe this manipulation explains her irrational behavior at many turns and at many critical moments. I refer to No. 5 above.

Yeah, the term "gaslighted" is really overused. Here it means, "John was giving mixed signals because he was confused and undecided," but you don't see it in the more vanilla and probable light because you have decided that John is a bad man. Ergo, confused and undecided becomes "gaslighting."

14) I believe that the description Rosebud gives of her and John's sexual interaction in Idaho would, by most legal definitions, be considered at least misdemeanor sexual battery. I believe she is telling the truth about this encounter.

Good for you. That and a beanie pin will get you . . . (drum roll, please) . . . nothing. After a decade of her coming to us and involving us in this drama, only to refuse to share one piece of evidence that unequivocally backs up her claims, I have no reason to believe her. Therefore, I do not. Many of the old guard here do not believe her either, and for the same reason. There are some people who are inclined for various reasons to believe any claim of abuse is valid & probably true, and they feel like they must believe it because that is the right thing to do. I will believe it when I see the evidence. I don't believe in witches, and I don't join the crowd in burning them.

21) I believe Rosebud was well within her rights to file a sexual harassment claim, something that many victims can never bring themselves to do. I believe it was a brave act and any attempts to frame that act in a disparaging way (including by John) have a chilling effect on victims and contributes to a culture where harassment is allowed to thrive

I do too! Hell yes. And here's the thing, unless you are deeply disturbed or deeply unscrupulous, you will provide evidence to back up your claim. The filing of a claim is only ethically undertaken if there is evidence to support the claim, or there is high confidence that the claim can be supported with the accuser's cooperation in providing evidence. Rosebud has not cooperated with one investigation into her claim that I am aware of. She has never provided any evidence that supported her claim. She has provided evidence that Natasha was sloppy in using the word "we" in the Mormonism Live episode and that Joanna made the decision to have the two resign before most of the board knew anything about the situation. You can't build a case against John Dehlin on that. So what is this actually about?

She told us what it was about on October 17, 2012. The evidence we have shows that she did not believe John had done anything wrong in August of 2012, and the evidence we have shows that she threatened to accuse him of sexual harassment as blackmail to get what she felt was owed her in October of 2012. That is evidence. If you have other evidence, if Rosebud has other evidence, produce the evidence. File a claim if there is any viable legal path to do so. If you can argue with evidence that JD did something illegal and should be held accountable, please do so. Coming here and posting endless soliloquies in which you state your feelings and your beliefs is not even close to being the same thing.

I believe there is nothing more dehumanizing than trying to erase someone. I believe Rosebud, for all of her self-admitted faults, is someone who has experienced ten lifetimes of trauma. I believe her best days are ahead of her. And I believe not that she is stronger because of all of this, but that she has emerged and will continue to emerge from this because she is strong.

I am sure she will be happy to read all of that. I wish her the best in finding true health and happiness.

[Meadowchik]

What do you mean by winged monkeys?

Probably minions.

Ftr you have (or had) regular listeners who were disappointed by that decision.

Why?

Not everyone listens to the podcast live. So by not giving them advance notice, he prevented them from being able to call in and participate in the discussion.

[Meadowchik]

Well, yes, I meant wholly unreliable in regard to this situation, and I don’t agree with that.

Which part of her commentary in the podcast do you consider reliable, then?