Agreed. It’s just that, when an offender repeats a crime, or commits a worse one, the effects are worse.

> If I understand you correctly, you are acknowledging that
> maybe?), but you are saying if they did abuse the members
> afterward, then the church would be liable since they
> knew that person was on the sex offender list?
>
> If that’s what you are saying, then I can see your point.

That’s pretty much what I’m saying. There are also potential criminal responsibility. “Depraved indifference,” I believe they call it in New York State.

> But are you also arguing that people on the list can
> inherintly be trusted less than other criminals just
> because they are on the list?

No, I am not arguing that; just that the cost of trusting when we shouldn’t is probably high enough to warrant not trusting.

> Let me put this another way. Let’s say 2 people commit
> the same crime, and you know all of the details about
> both crimes, but only 1 gets on the list and the other
> hires a great lawyer and manages to not get on the list.
> The crimes are both minor and you believe both of them to > have repented. Would you vote to sustain the one that is
> not on the list, and vote against the one that is on the
> list?

It depends on the crime and why the one was acquitted. If he was acquitted simply because it was obvious that he didn’t do it, then I would have no problem sustaining. If he was acquitted because, though the evidence was legitimate and damning, it was excluded on some technicality, then I would object.

Also, I might object if the person were acquitted because the evidence did not overcome “reasonable doubt,” but did make it more likely than not that he did it. It is one thing to not condemn in a courtroom; it is another to expose the Church to legal problems.

Does that make sense?

If I understand you correctly, you are acknowledging that (maybe?), but you are saying if they did abuse the members afterward, then the church would be liable since they knew that person was on the sex offender list?

If that’s what you are saying, then I can see your point.

But are you also arguing that people on the list can inherintly be trusted less than other criminals just because they are on the list? Let me put this another way. Let’s say 2 people commit the same crime, and you know all of the details about both crimes, but only 1 gets on the list and the other hires a great lawyer and manages to not get on the list. The crimes are both minor and you believe both of them to have repented. Would you vote to sustain the one that is not on the list, and vote against the one that is on the list?

As I said before, we agree–in principle. I, too, believe that the USA is an over-litigous society. Having said that, I must also point out the qualification that we must prudently pick our battles, or we’ll have the effect of taking the flag and jumping off a cliff–without a parachute.

It is one thing to deliberately hold off passing the Sacrament until the end of Sacrament Meeting, because neither the CHI nor the Scriptures prohibit it; it is quite another to intentionally run the risk of the government to arrest us and take our kids away because we endangered them by allowing a registered sex offender (even if the crime is a minor one!) entre’ where children are present.

I’m all for allowing truly repentant sinners–especially when they commit minor ones, but NOT when it endangers our ability to help anybody AT ALL.

In short, I’m all for ignoring penny-ante sex crimes, but the real world constrains my alility to do so.

Do I make sense?

“20-year old in a relationship with a 17-year old”

(As you can probably tell, I believe that our society has over-reacted and puts people on the list who shouldn’t be there at times because they aren’t a threat to the general population. The result of putting too many people on the list is that the list get diluted and becomes less useful. But you’ll never hear a politicial making this stance since it is very politically incorrect)

Again I agree–in principle. Sometimes, however, even though a crime is insignificant, a TYPE of crime may be a disqualifying factor, because to allow exceptions on a case-by-case basis may allow too many of the higher-degree crimes to fall through the cracks.

That was why a nanny who exposed herself to a five-year-old boy got a mandated 15-year sentence, even though her employers coersed her to work twenty-hours for seven-days per week. To have done otherwise would have set a precedent that a REAL predator could exploit.

Do I make sense?

That is a good policy for filling callings. I would add that sometimes we must deviate from total devotion to our mandate in order to maintain our ability to fulfill any part of our mandate at all.

For example, in the early days, the Church was NOT abolitionist [TPJS, 120], but it became that later [D&C 101:79]. To have been abolitionist in say, 1833, would have enabled slave States to more easily slaughter Latter-day Saints. I am sure that Missouri would not have been content to merely expel the LDS if they only had the numbers they had in 1833….

Do I make sense?

That does make sense, assuming we are just talking about the serious offenses. My point though is that there are some on the list that, although they have committed a crime, do not warrant being restricted from ever receiving a calling.