Craig Paxton wrote:Again we seem to have an institutional detachment from reality within the churches all male hierarchy. Church claims that there is zero tolerance for abuse and that they always believe the women who are reporting abuse. Reality shows something quite different. Women are reporting multiple incidence of having reporting their abuse to their bishops only to run into brick walls, being told its their fault and told to stay in these abusive marriages and victimizing the victims of the abuse. The stake president mentioned in this thread is only being consistent with what his institutional male peers are doing to other women in similar situations throughout the church.
https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2018/02 ... tal-abuse/
Basically, a woman in the church model only has one real source of power in the church, and only if she has a "functioning" marriage: she can withhold sex. Thus, her priesthood fella cannot have any church-approved sexual outlet. Other than that, men never answer to women in the church. Men are never accountable to women in the church.
by the way my SP withheld my temple recommend because my husband had filed a civil suit against a ward member. Leadership called it an "intrigue between priests," and I was expected to be accountable for that. Several months later, my husband, after expressing in an email his distress at being reprimanded by the bishop for reporting assault and battery (at the hand of the same ward member) to the police "on a Sunday," he was called to a "preliminary disciplinary council" with the stake presidency. He requested I join him, that was refused by the SP. So, the pattern is this: I answer for the "sins" of my husband but have absolutely no voice in the court of my husband. (By the time the "council" came around, the SP had cooled down, turned it into an interview, just listening to my DH for an hour. SP then apologized, but he still only let me in for ten minutes.)
My apologies for repeating my story, people here have already heard it, but I think it is relevant because it reflects a pattern in the policy, doctrine, and practices of the church.
Again, men are never, ever accountable to women in the church.