UNITED STATES
The Daily Beast
March 24, 2018
By Sam Young
Church-sanctioned ‘worthiness interviews’ allow older men to be alone with children and ask them questions of a sexual nature. It’s time to end this practice.
In recent months, our country has been having a critical and long overdue national conversation on sexual harassment and abuse. From Hollywood power brokers to celebrity chefs to members of the news media, we are seeing a new era of transparency and accountability as victims step forward and speak out.
But as a lifelong Mormon and father of six girls, it was the case of former top Trump White House official Rob Porter that struck closest to home. In speaking out about years of alleged abuse by Porter, his two ex-wives began to shed a long overdue light on the unique, deeply personal, and some would say, disturbing, role that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints can sometimes play in the lives of its members. In Porter’s case, we learned that two young women had turned to their church leaders for guidance in the face of abuse and instead were encouraged by church bishops to stay in an allegedly abusive marriage. In short, to stay quiet and place the professional career of their husband ahead of their own well-being.
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