Falling out between Dehlin and Kate Kelly?

[_lostindc]

The Kate Kelly/Dehlin showdown was a matter of time. I thought Kate Kelly would have attacked John for the LGBT platform John played with during his excommunication period.

Both are fighting for the same audience (and audience's money) and their legacies are on the line.

Kelly will lose this battle. Her following is sizable but nothing close to Delin's and Dehlin is better at business and selling himself.

Kelly is really trying to crush John's livlihood and reputation. Pretty nuts. Also, she is super petty over Dehlin having his wife take over a podcast show. Seems pretty lame to get upset about this type of thing, especially a podcast.

Both are kind of assholes. Two huge egos that don't understand how little they mattered to the transitioning out of Mormonism movement. This message board alone was more vital than those two crazy goons.

[_MsJack]

I haven't read every post in this thread, but here is where Kate Kelly criticized Dehlin (with a screenshot of her Facebook post):

https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comme ... _on_blast/

My respect for KK took a hit after she approvingly posted an awful New York Times editorial about strategically defaulting on your student loans---written by a freelance writer with three degrees from an Ivy League university. There's a good conversation to be held about college costs, student loan repayment, and whether any portion of college should be free, but the general public does not owe anyone three expensive degrees from a top-notch, private university.

She has mentioned having $345K in law school debt. I'm at a loss as to how her loans grew so high as she only attended from about 2008 to 2012, and tuition at her law school shouldn't have netted her more than half that amount. Regardless, she seems to think she is owed debt forgiveness just because, even without working a public service job for ten years (PSLF). I think there's a lot of room for student loan debt reform (especially private loans), but I don't think the general public owes anyone graduate degrees from expensive private schools without getting anything in return.

[_Rosebud]

Hey all,

Hope everyone is well. Count your many Joseph Smith blessings. ____ like that, life is going good here.

Rosebud,

As my history on this board shows, I think Dehlin is an attention whore that def comes across as a self serving ass, but your posts are not a record of anything. Saying something happened and then not clearing spelling it out doesn't help anyone, especially john and you. You need to clearly state what you believe happened and this can help stop whatever it is John is doing and consequentially protect others that may fall "victim."

Clearly some ____ went down and ur family and u were seriously impacted. I am sorry that happened.

Lost,

I trust you. Please ask what questions you think would be valuable. If I haven't already answered them, I will do so. If I have, and people care enough to know the answer, I will ask that they go look.

What I'm not going to do is interpret charges I make as I would expect a judge to. I am not the judge in this case, but a witness. I can say what happened and try to clearly explain what I know is the situation (and the way the law affects the situation), but readers need to decide for themselves. I expect each person to interpret differently based on his or her experience. That's what will happen anyway, right? My objective is to provide more information so more nuanced understandings can be had should people want to take the time to make them.

[_Madison54]

Tacenda is still wondering what happened!

I just saw that Calm put her back on limited (after she pretended to be her friend, then told Tacenda her thread was inappropriate for the social hall and locked it). Wow, that's not obvious

Then she tells Tacenda that she'd received her "last warning" last week and is being put on limited (in the mod red print).

Warned about what? Tacenda is one of the nicest and best posters over there. Calm and Juliann have treated her awful too (as they did you)!

[_Lemmie]

Lost,

I trust you. Please ask what questions you think would be valuable. If I haven't already answered them, I will do so. If I have, and people care enough to know the answer, I will ask that they go look.

Here we go again.

No more questions after this, please. It's not that I don't want to answer, it's that I do want to remove drama from my life because I have other things to focus on right now.

You prompt people to ask questions, you provide innuendo, then you dramatically declare yourself emotionally exhausted and cry "no more!" The attention dies down until you need another fix, and suddenly it's "ask away, it's what I'm here for."

Every time this cycle repeats your credibility takes another hit. I was sympathetic to you the first couple of cycles but this is getting ridiculous. Why you suppose you are creating a record that has any believability is beyond me.

[_Tator]

Juliann, Calm and Rosebud certainly are the trinity of Drama Queens on this thread.

[_Rosebud]

So...this relationship was consensual? This sounds so similar to another person on this site who blames their life failures on another person rather than sucking it up and accepting responsibility for their own decisions.

In 2012, I would have agreed with this as it applies to me. I believed, at the time, that I was completely responsible for what happened and I felt very guilty. As time went on, and I learned more about the world, the law, my husband, and John, and myself during that horrible time period and I began to have more compassion for my old self. I began to more clearly see the ways John intentionally used my vulnerabilities and even my tendency to take accountability for things I had done wrong against me in order to have power over me. I used my greater understanding of the world and thought back through what happened, and re-considered what John was doing and saying and became more aware of the ways he had exploited me.

I came to an understanding of my old self that was different than my understanding at the time and realized that John had used my "goodness," or tendency to feel guilty, against me. He said so many things that were, well, the best way to put it is "manipulative," but I didn't see the manipulations at the time.

And that made me angry.

From my perspective, I have grown up and now see the situation in a new, more accurate light that takes into account my older vulnerabilities and recognizes how he exploited them. That new understanding, however, does not make what happened non-consensual. It does make me protective of other people who are now where I was when I first met John.

Power differences are really important to consider when parsing these things out.

-------

And on the flip of that, my God, John and I did almost nothing sexually. Talk about a "miracle of forgiveness" Mormon drama. What a ridiculous price I've paid and I hardly got any sex!

One of the things I'm most pissed about is how he lied publicly about it. I knew he was lying about himself in order to gain followers and have influence over the church, "I'm a temple worthy man, Mr. Important Mormon So-and-so, and look at all of the people who follow me and believe in me because I'm so good. You need to listen to us."

Yet I knew it was a sham and I was in on the lie. I didn't want to be. I'd challenge him on it and he'd make some dumb excuse to justify it and would then keep lying. He's good at manipulating the public so he'd have all of this sales success. Then I learned what he's like when he's angry. Then I had no idea how to safely escape, how to manage all of the people I felt obligated to because they depended on the "movement," etc. (I was so ridiculously committed to that, looking back.)

I was in way over my head.

But I was not the one instigating what happened between us, lying to the public, making a false show of myself, breaking promises to stay away, etc.

I was the one feeling too guilty and being exploited in my sense of guilt.

------

^^^^ Readers can be their own judges, I have made my judgement(s). In 2012, I said (of myself) "guilty." Today I say, "vulnerable and targeted." ^^^^

[_Rosebud]

Juliann, Calm and Rosebud certainly are the trinity of Drama Queens on this thread.

Be fair, Tator. I don't even know who Calm is and I am not the creator of this drama. JD is. If anything, I have been overly quiet.

[_Rosebud]

Lost,

I trust you. Please ask what questions you think would be valuable. If I haven't already answered them, I will do so. If I have, and people care enough to know the answer, I will ask that they go look.

Here we go again.

No more questions after this, please. It's not that I don't want to answer, it's that I do want to remove drama from my life because I have other things to focus on right now.

You prompt people to ask questions, you provide innuendo, then you dramatically declare yourself emotionally exhausted and cry "no more!" The attention dies down until you need another fix, and suddenly it's "ask away, it's what I'm here for."

Every time this cycle repeats your credibility takes another hit. I was sympathetic to you the first couple of cycles but this is getting ridiculous. Why you suppose you are creating a record that has any believability is beyond me.

Lemmie,

Then don't follow. I'm not worried about message-board credibility or however things stack up between the posters here or on the other board. I'm not trying to convince you or the people posting of anything.

I am just keeping a record and I'm doing it for my reasons. The record exists, now, for readers, not writers. You don't have to approve or keep commenting on how you'd like me to behave so I can be more like someone you want me to be. Or, if you want to, you can, I guess. I just don't really see the point.

[_Rosebud]

And innuendo? Who cares? Almost nothing happened sexually. It was stupid.

The world isn't black and white so I cannot provide you black and white answers.