Posted on 06/14/2012 6:02:45 PM PDT by greyfoxx39
The ruling also could make it easier for other secret Boy Scout files to be used in pending and future lawsuits from former scouts who claim they were molested by troop leaders.
-SNIP-
The Oregon files, gathered from 1965 to 1985, came to light when they were used as evidence in a lawsuit in 2010. A jury awarded a record $18.5 million to a man who was molested by an assistant scoutmaster in the early 1980s, finding that the Scouts failed to protect him.
The 20,000 pages — representing files on 1,200 people — are part of a larger trove of confidential documents the Boy Scouts began compiling decades ago. In 1935, the New York Times reported the Scouts had 2,910 "cards" on men who were unfit to supervise boys.
-SNIP-
The Oregon Supreme Court ordered the names of alleged victims and people who reported on suspected abusers be redacted before the documents are released, which could take more than a week to accomplish.
The jury decided the Boy Scouts were negligent for allowing former assistant scoutmaster Timur Dykes to associate with Scouts, including Lewis, after Dykes admitted to a Scouts official in 1983 that he had molested 17 boys, according to court records. Lewis' attorneys argued the Scouts should have opened the perversion files decades ago.
(Excerpt) Read more at google.com ...
After seven days that included testimony from victims of sexual abuse by assistant Scoutmaster and volunteer Timur Dykes, the jury heard from a long-time Scouting executive who said he had been alert to the danger posed by predators from the beginning of his career in 1960
-SNIP-
Part of the defense's strategy appears to be to place fault on the Mormon church. Doe --and other men who were molested by Dykes after he confessed to the bishop – have settled with the church.
Xochihua played part of a video deposition of Doe's father, who said he dropped out of Mormon church because of what happened to his son. "I just really didn't trust the people in the church," he said on the video.
When I went through Cub Scout leadership training I was told to be wary of male ‘volunteers’ who did not have children in the program.
Why does this smell of a slam at Romney?
Scout Ping
So, after they release the files under court order, and all the men listed start suing the boy scouts for defamation, and of course the Boy Scouts have no evidence for the charges and therefore no defense, will the court protect them from the lawsuits?
If only Boy Scout leaders were allowed to marry...
“...alert to the danger posed by predators from the beginning of his career in 1960 ...”
How we could doubt the problem existed, now or back then, I cannot understand.
God sent Angels to Sodom to warn the town of the dangers of homosexuality, and look what happened to the Angels.
All this deliberation seems to silly when the truth is so obvious. If a person thinks it’s OK to have sex with little boys, then maybe they should choose a different hobby. If one thinks it’s OK to molest little girls, then don’t get mad when they turn down your job app at the Girl’s Academy Daycare.
Because the internet insures that the things you say before a camera no longer vanish into a network archival vault.
That isn’t really good advice for the simple fact that there are so many scouters who HAD kids in the program, but are still helping out! My unit commissioner is 83 years old - he had two sons go through the troop in the 70’s and he stayed on as scout master for 25 years! My son aged out (and got his Eagle 2 days before same) over a year ago. Should I quit helping out because of that? No! It is TOO IMPORTANT to help the youth become better citizens!
Be prepared for more of the same. There are many cases of child molestation that have been covered up by the mormon church.
Mormon Church Denies Prior Knowledge of Susan Brock Affair With Teen Boy, Which is a Lie
Victims can and will be looking at deeper pockets, IMO.
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Many readers are surely aware of the fact that there continue to be legal and social problems due to the Boy Scouts' discrimination and bigotry against atheists and gays. What readers may not realize is just how much of this may be ultimately due to the efforts of the Mormon church. Mormons control a significant percentage of all Boy Scout troops; if policies change to treat gays and atheists equally, the Mormons will walk - taking all of their money with them.
As MSNBC reports, Mormon involvement in Scouting has even reached the point where Brigham Young University is offering a new major in Scouting:
The Boy Scouts are the official boys’ youth group of the LDS, and more than one in nine Scouts are Mormons. Critics say the church exerts disproportionate influence through membership on the national advisory council and vigorous fund-raising. (In New York, LDS leaders recently launched a fund-raising campaign with pamphlets carrying an endorsement from the church’s current prophet.)
It involves Mormons ~ and a problem others have identified in the way they work with Boy Scouting. Higher level folks assign lower level men to work with the troops. Losing part of the voluntary effort expected in the rest of Boy Scouting can result in a failure of the governing body to properly review the behavior of the adults, particularly when every member of the troop board answers to the same higher authority.
I am sure the Mormons will get right on that problem pretty soon ~ after the next 20,000 lawsuits targeting their troops.
Currently I think about 1/3 of total Boy Scout membership involves Mormon church (stake) sponsors.
The Roman Catholic have/had a similar problem with wayward priests. When everyone answers to the same bishop, you really only have one guy on the job of keeping the perverts away from the kids.
They've gone through immense gyrations to fix the problem.
REDACT means you won’t get to see the names. This is just one state’s court. I’d put the files in a van and drive out of state.
No, it's only about 14-16%. And the Methodists aren't far behind the Mormons.
That’s the count on the number of Mormons. Those Mormon sponsored troops have non-Mormons in them, so what’s that percentage?
Methodists are very helpful to lots of Scouting units. I used to lead a Girl Scout troop that met at a Methodist church, even though none of the participants were attendees of the church. They just let the Scouts meet there as a community service.
The enormous and more recent award was punitive damages. Again, the LDS was not responsible financially for any punitive damages although the jury found the LDS partly liable, because the LDS had reached an out-of-court settlement.
Both the BSA and the LDS were clearly to blame in this matter. In the case of the LDS, the Scoutmaster had confessed abuse to his Bishop but was permitted to continue as a Scoutmaster. He was also permitted as a LDS Scoutmaster a second time after a pedophilia conviction.
The BSA had information on Lemur as well, the second time around - and the punitive damages reflected the extent of the BSA's secret files of sexual assaults.
The average LDS unit is smaller than the average BSA unit overall because of the one-unit-per-ward rule.
Most non-LDS don't find LDS units an appealing alternative for a number of reasons. Among other things, it's a different program than traditional Scouting, there's not as much camping due to the restriction on Saturday night camping, there's the tie-in to the LDS Young Men's program, there's the statistically much more frequent turnover of adult leaders (confirmed by BYU studies) due to the "calling" system instead of the volunteer system, there's the selection of senior youth leader by the Bishopric, and the ages are tied to the Priesthood Quorum - so there's the pressure to earn your Eagle by 15 rather than to be in a Troop until 18.
Note I'm not saying there's anything wrong with LDS Scouting. It's a valuable part of Scouting and it serves the purposes of the LDS Church.
If the BSA keeps a list of files that they use to keep potential predators from being involved in scouts, wouldn't this show that they where PROACTIVE in preventing sexual abuse of boys in the scouts? If they didn't keep lists and allowed anyone that passed a basic back ground check to be involved, regardless of suspicions of other leaders, wouldn't that make them much more culpable in this regard?
What is the scandal? Why are they responsible if they took legitimate steps to keep predators away from boys. Isn't this why they deny access to open homosexuals since boys ages 7 - 18 are MOST vulnerable to sexual confusion and abuse?
These are legitimate questions, what am I missing? How are they liable?
The LDS Church has strict requirements that any church leaders who become aware of abuse or credible allegations of abuse report it immediately. However, we’re talking about thousands of volunteers, some of whom do not necessarily follow direction. When failures to report and comply with policies and laws occur, liabilities are incurred. And, the timeframe here goes way back in time - when awareness was not as high and when proper policies were not as well understood or followed in all cases.
Those responsible for commiting crimes or for otherwise breaking laws should have accountability.
It is amusing, however, to watch the standard and tiresome Pavolovian response of the (relatively small number of) monomoniacal Mormon haters who post here religiously on FreeRepublic. I’ve never seen such fixated people. Oh well - it is a FREE Republic that we (still) live in!
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