Many Mormons cheered at this week’s announcement that their church now will allow an additional adult — besides the bishop — to sit in on interviews with individual teens and women.
Activists heralded the move as a first step toward removing potential dangers of one-on-one meetings between male lay leaders and adolescents, young adults or mature women, conversations in which the man may ask questions about sexuality.
However, the revision is hardly a simple solution to all potential problems, including leaders who sometimes shame teens, who pose inappropriate sexual questions, who impose their own views of sin, and, in extreme cases, who are abusive.