Hi, I'm Sam Young

In the summer of 2017 I found out that my daughter, when she was 12 years old, was asked sexually explicit questions behind the closed doors of a bishop. This introduced her to pornography, and introduced her to masturbation. I had no idea this happened until 10 years after she left the young women's program.

Now that got me very upset to hear this was done to my child! Then I found out it happened to three more but my children. So four out of my six children were asked sexual explicit questions behind a closed door. I knew, everybody in the world knows that's wrong, dead wrong, except members of our church. I believe that the Apostles even know that it's dead wrong. So I launched a crusade to get this changed in our church. I was very naive I thought it would be an easy change to make. It's common sense for most everybody, but I didn't realize how dug in the church can be to things that need to be changed, that everybody else has changed. So that wants me on the on this path, I subsequently found out that this has happened to countless
people. It's a very very common practice in our church to ask sexually explicit questions and it's mandated you take kids behind closed doors. So, I collected thousands of stories of
people (as adults) who were harmed while they were kids and anywhere from suicide to physical
sexual abuse and then to psychological sexual abuse and there are just all kinds
of horrible consequences that have come out of these interviews. To raise awareness these interviews and stories are all shared at protectldschildren.org.

At the time I was an ordained Bishop, I can speak as an ordained bishop, not a former Bishop, not an exbishop, but as a bishop in the Mormon Church. I have been speaking out as a person who has this calling behind his name.

I was told by my local leaders to walk away from the cause. But I did not, to bring attention to this point, I staged a hunger strike for 23 days with no response from church leadership. After a series of events, I was disciplined by the church and then excommunicated from the church for speaking out against church policy and leaders, which made me an apostate. The disciplinary council often mentioned protecting the good name of the church, but I was more concerned with protecting children.

Since being excommunicated, I'm no longer a member of the church. I've found out so many other issues with the church and I can honestly say I'm happier now than I was when I was all in.