Epic Mormonism Live on Rosebud Accusations

[Kishkumen]

LOL. Further evidence that you guys think you're the center of the universe. Talk about self-awareness.

Yeah, such a waste of time and hole in the wall! I guess the fact Rosebud posted here for years for the purpose of leaving documentation for “historians” really shows how bad her judgment was. Your fixation on it now is also not flattering of your judgment.

[Kishkumen]

You're the one who suggested that John's posts here about Rosebud are consequential in the least. They're not. Sorry to burst your bubble.

We tried to convince Rosebud they were inconsequential, but she wouldn’t listen. That’s OK!

[Kishkumen]

Man = smart

Woman = stupid, silly, crazy

This board is something!

Uh, this board is not a single person’s opinion, asshole. Many of us have called out JD for doing stupid things, behaving like a dumbass, etc. Some of our best, most active posters here are highly intelligent women. Now, Rosebud fits as far as being a smart, capable person, but, yeah, she does seem to have emotional problems.

[Kishkumen]

I responded that posting on MD hardly constitutes taking a public swing at anyone because this place (or the old place, whatever) is a hole in the wall that only six people really give a Crap about.

Then WHY are you here shilling for Rosebud as though it were time well spent?

[Kishkumen]

Now Kish and Doc and some other folks are going to do like they've done several times in this thread and scoff and guffaw at all of this because because "she's an adult!" and all sorts of other misogynistic arguments that ignore established research on predation and assault and harassment. But that's just because they're uneducated.

I’m sorry. She was a minor at the time? Wow! That changes everything!

I love how having a different opinion about one person’s case equals being an ignorant misogynist in the mind of a besotted ideologue.

[Kishkumen]

There are no bright lines here. No white hats. There's human complexity, complicated motivations and a motherload of nuance.

In other words, the kind of thing reasonable, intelligent people can disagree on, and only a fierce partisan would insist must be read in one way.

[Kishkumen]

This is not a case of "anything" being construed as sexual harassment. If a sexual encounter between a subordinate and a superior ends with the management arranging for the subordinate to lose her job, which her superior requested, while the superior retains his, it doesn't matter how smoothly the process went or how erratic the victim was during the process, it was sexual harassment.

The definition of subordinate and superior is complicated here. Certainly Rosebud does not see herself as a subordinate. Both are reporting to Joanna Brooks it seems to me. Management arranging for both people to resign and be rehired as independent contractors with their prior consent, not as described above. Then Rosebud retracts her agreement to resign and be rehired as an independent contractor. Only after all of that does she claim she was sexually harassed, and only after Open Stories Foundation does not bend to her will.

[Lem]

I'm not basing my conclusion of sexual harassment on how well or how badly the victim responded, or on her imaginations about how she was equal. I'm basing it on the acts of the superior and the Open Stories Foundation board. I agree the victim has problems in how she handled it, victims commonly do.

Bottom line is a superior had an improper relationship with a subordinate, and then he wanted it to end and he wanted her gone, and the Open Stories Foundation board facilitated that. The victim was removed from her job because of a sexual relationship with her superior. That's defined as sexual harassment.

[Kishkumen]

I'm not basing my conclusion of sexual harassment on how well or how badly the victim responded, or on her imaginations about how she was equal. I'm basing it on the acts of the superior and the Open Stories Foundation board. I agree the victim has problems in how she handled it, victims commonly do.

Bottom line is a superior had an improper relationship with a subordinate, and then he wanted it to end and he wanted her gone, and the Open Stories Foundation board facilitated that. The victim was removed from her job because of a sexual relationship with her superior. That's defined as sexual harassment.

Yeah, that's what I am stuck on. I am stuck on the sense in which he was a superior to her in the organization, such that it was. Both people were removed from their jobs because of the relationship, and I think that makes a difference. Both people were going to be hired back as independent contractors. Both people were sent termination letters at the same time with the same severance package. Open Stories Foundation seems to have gone out of its way to treat both parties relatively equally. Both parties were acting pretty much as equals in the situation, even cooperating with each other, until Rosebud decided that she wanted to force Joanna Brooks out and John did not agree to that plan.

[Lem]

It was clear from the documents and the podcast that the "equal" treatment was not equal. It is clear that Dehlin was considered more important. Earlier in this thread there was repeated insistence that an 8 month volunteer recently turned employee shouldn't be considered as the equal of the 6 year paid podcaster who started the foundation and was paid far more than anyone else. Their situations were not equal, and the superior wanted the subordinate "gone." I agree that the offering was a way to make a bad situation look better, but the intent and result was still the same. The subordinate lost her job as a result of an inappropriate sexual relationship with her superior.