Former Sugar Land Bishop Sam Young Excommunicated After Campaign Against Youth Interviews

A Mormon man who led a campaign against the church’s practice of closed-door, one-on-one interviews of youth by lay leaders has been excommunicated, the harshest penalty available to a church member. Sam Young, 65, read the verdict letter publicly for the first time on Sunday, Sept. 16, 2018, in Salt Lake City. The letter had been delivered to him after a disciplinary hearing the previous week with local church leaders in Houston.

The interviews, which Young and his supporters say sometimes included sexual questions, are held with youth usually twice a year, starting at age 12. Young and his supporters say the interviews, in which youth are asked whether they follow the law of chastity, have led to inappropriate conversations and shaming. One question asked by men who are called bishops deals with sexual activity: “Do you live the law of chastity?” Young and the Mormons and non-Mormons who back his campaign say the question is unnecessary and inappropriate.

Young called his excommunication “a supreme disappointment” at a news conference attended by about 100 supporters. “The whistleblower has been kicked out,” he said. “But they have no power to excommunicate me from the cause of protecting children and protecting the healing of my friends. For our children’s sake, this whistleblower is not going to stop roaring.”

Before the ouster, Young had recently finished a 23-day hunger strike in Salt Lake City near church headquarters to draw attention to his cause. In March, he had organized a protest march of about 1,000 people who walked to church headquarters.

According to the source, church leaders told Young in his summons to the hearing that he faced excommunication because he had encouraged others to vote against church leaders and because he had organized more than one public action expressing opposition. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints does not comment on disciplinary hearings in order to respect people’s privacy. The source notes that excommunication is not a lifelong ban.

Young is the third high-profile Mormon who led protests about church policy to be excommunicated in recent years. Kate Kelly, founder of a group pushing for women to be allowed in the religion’s lay clergy, was excommunicated in 2014. John Dehlin, who runs a podcast that allows doubting Mormons to tell their stories, was removed in 2015.

The church has changed parts of the interview process. Earlier this year, it changed its policy to allow children to bring a parent or another adult into the interview; under the old rules, parents were only allowed in a hallway or an adjacent room. Youth may still go in alone if they choose. In June, the church, for the first time, published the list of questions lay leaders are supposed to ask. Church leaders say the interviews are an important way for bishops to get to know youth better and to determine their religious habits and obedience to God. Young’s supporters, in pressing the matter, cite the duty to protect children (Proverbs 31:8-9).

Young’s ouster means he will leave a religion he has belonged to his entire life. Mormons usually have close connections with others in their congregations, bonds formed through shared worship and social time. Excommunicated Mormons, and those not in good standing, may not enter the temples where members are married and where other ordinances, such as baptisms for dead relatives, are performed.

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