Introduction to MormonLeaks and Its Founders

Part 1 of 2 · Ep. 709

John Dehlin [00:00:29] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It is March 23, 2017. I'm tuning in from the basement of my home in North Logan, Utah, and I'm really excited to have with me two people who have made a pretty big impact on Mormonism in a pretty short time. They are Ryan McKnight and Scott Fawcett, two of the main leaders behind Mormon Leaks.

John Dehlin [00:01:04] And so today, we're going to be doing sort of three things. We're going to be learning a little bit about Ryan and Scott and their backgrounds and what led to them wanting to do this project. Then we're going to talk about the project itself, how they did it, what was hard about it, how they structured it, what's been sort of the main reactions to it. And then we want to take questions and comments from our listeners. We hope that we won't just have sympathetic people who are listening and asking questions and giving comments. We hope that those who don't like Mormon Leagues will also share comments and questions as well, and we can have a healthy dialogue.

John Dehlin [00:01:49] And we're doing this live, streamed to Facebook Live so that we can have collaboration. We also have people joined us through Zoom itself, and so we're just excited. So with that, Ryan McKnight, welcome to Mormon Stories podcast again. Welcome back.

Ryan McKnight [00:02:08] Hello. How you doing? Thanks for inviting us to do this. And on your point, real quick about the questions, no questions are off limits. So if anybody, I mean, you know, keep it reason, you know, respectful, but we'll take any question, no matter how challenging it might be.

John Dehlin [00:02:23] Are you a confirmed homosexual?

Ryan McKnight [00:02:25] I'm sure in the eyes of Dallin Oaks, I am.

John Dehlin [00:02:27] Okay. I'm sorry. I couldn't. I couldn't. I couldn't resist. That was a joke.

Ryan McKnight [00:02:34] We joke about this constantly.

John Dehlin [00:02:36] That was a more. That was actually a Mormon Leaks contextual inside joke.

Ryan McKnight [00:02:41] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:02:42] Because when, for those who don't know, one of the videos Mormon Leaks offered was a video of Dallin H. Oaks and other apostles discussing WikiLeaks. And the founder of WikiLeaks was Julian Assange. And.

Ryan McKnight [00:02:57] Yeah, they were one. Yeah. I mean, they were talking about how Chelsea Manning was a confirmed homosexual, then they were wondering whether or not. And then they also wondered whether or not Julian Assange also might be gay. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:03:09] Yeah. So, okay.

Ryan McKnight [00:03:11] Yeah.

Scott Fausett [00:03:13] Hey, John, you mentioned it's an inside joke, but it really is an inside joke here at Mormon Leaks, and we talk about it often because I am a confirmed homosexual.

John Dehlin [00:03:20] Yes. Well, I was getting there. So, Scott, I was getting there. Next. So, Scott Fawcett, welcome also to. Thank you to Mormon Stories. It's great to have you on for the first time.

Scott Fausett [00:03:31] I appreciate that. Thank you.

John Dehlin [00:03:33] Where are you. Where are you dialing in from?

Scott Fausett [00:03:35] I'm dining in from Dallas, Texas.

John Dehlin [00:03:37] Dallas, Texas. All right. Go Cowboys.

Scott Fausett [00:03:40] Oh, no, no, no. Kansas City Chiefs.

Ryan McKnight [00:03:44] Don't start this one here.

John Dehlin [00:03:46] Okay. All right. Go Chiefs. Go Chiefs. All right, so welcome to you both. Thanks to all the people who are joining us live. And so let's just begin now, Scott, I don't think people really associate your name as broadly with Mormon leaks as they do Ryan. But, but let me just ask, and we'll talk about that and if that's been hard or what that means. But let's just say that if we were going to go to the very beginning, would it be Ryan or Scott who sort of was the beginning impetus for this?

Ryan McKnight's Background and Upbringing

Scott Fausett [00:04:20] Absolutely, it was Ryan.

John Dehlin [00:04:22] Okay. So, Ryan, let's, let's talk a bit about your story, and I'm going to pause you at some point and, and then I'm gonna kick over and have Scott talk about his story, and then we'll actually jump to the founding of Mormon Leagues. But let's, Ryan, let's back up and just talk to us about your kind of Mormon pedigree, or non pedigree, as it were.

Ryan McKnight [00:04:43] Okay. Well, I was born into the church on my dad's side of the family goes back all the way to the pioneer days. I think the earliest ancestor that joined the church was during Brigham Young's time. And he was actually part of the group of people who came down at Brigham Young's direction and settled what is now Las Vegas. For those that don't know, Las Vegas was actually settled originally by the Mormons.

Ryan McKnight [00:05:17] Now, he wasn't anybody, like, famous or anything. He was just part of the group of people. And so on my dad's side, there's definitely a long, rich history of Mormons. I'm related to a guy named last name Levitt. I'm blanking on his first name right now, but people from Las Vegas or St. George know exactly who I'm talking about because almost everybody is related to him. He had like, like 50 wives or something like that.

Ryan McKnight [00:05:49] And he lived in, in southern Utah and southern Nevada area. And a lot of people down here related to him. It's kind of a big joke here in Las Vegas to say that you're related to this guy Levitt. But anyway, so my mom is a convert. She converted before she met My dad.

Ryan McKnight [00:06:09] And then. So I'm the oldest of six kids. And, I mean, I kind of. My. I kind of grew up in a normal, you know, typical LDS family. I moved around a lot and mostly lived in places that were not with really very little to no LDS presence. So I was usually either the only one or one of a few Mormons, you know, of my classmates.

Ryan McKnight [00:06:38] So that might be an experience that was different from most. Like most people that grew up in Utah, I was never surrounded by the Mormon machine, if you will.

John Dehlin [00:06:48] Okay. Is it Dudley Levitt? Is that the name?

Ryan McKnight [00:06:51] Yeah, that's it. Yeah. So I'm related to one of his wives. You know, I branched down from one of his wives.

John Dehlin [00:06:58] Yeah. And my good friend Dave Christian is also a descendant of Dudley Levitt, and I'm sure Governor Levitt, Mike Levitt of Utah is a descendant as well.

Ryan McKnight [00:07:07] Yeah, I think he's pretty much. I think all the Levitts go back to him. And like I said, it's like a big inside joke here in Las Vegas when you meet somebody and everybody's related to this guy.

John Dehlin [00:07:16] Right. So in terms of your Mormon experience growing up, did you. Did you go to church as a kid? Did you sing the primary songs? Did you, you know, go to seminary? Did you believe it? Were you into it or not?

Ryan McKnight [00:07:31] Yeah, I mean, I was. I was definitely into it. We went to church every Sunday. We even went to. We even made every effort to go to church on vacation. When we were on vacation, we would always try to find awards. So we were definitely very dedicated to going to church on Sunday. And for the most part, we followed all of the tents of Mormonism. I mean, maybe we watched football on Sunday. And, you know, I know some Mormons don't do that, but I would say that up till my mission, I would say that I was mostly 100% into it. I mean, obviously, I had my moments of teen rebellion, but I don't.

John Dehlin [00:08:09] I wouldn't say you goofed off a little bit as a teen.

Ryan McKnight [00:08:12] Yeah, but I don't. I don't think it was ever because I was doubting the church. It was just because of, you know, dumb things teenagers do. Right. So you said.

John Dehlin [00:08:22] You say there were a few Mormons in your high school.

Ryan McKnight [00:08:24] Yeah, yeah. I mean, especially. Well, especially in high school. I was almost always, like, the only one in my grade level, and there might have been a couple in the whole school. So I grew up in south and Central America from 6th grade until I graduated. And so I went to private schools where I lived In Venezuela, Guatemala, Honduras. I was in Peru a little bit. I graduated.

John Dehlin [00:08:50] Was your dad in the State Department?

Ryan McKnight [00:08:52] Yeah, my dad worked for the government. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:08:56] Okay. Okay. So is your Spanish super good?

Ryan McKnight [00:09:01] Yeah, well, I served my mission in Spain as well, and my wife is from Spain, and so I rarely, if ever, even speak English to my kids.

John Dehlin [00:09:11] Oh, wow. I didn't know that.

Ryan McKnight [00:09:12] All I know, most people don't know recently. You know, with my kids, as they get older and they start going to school, it's harder to get them to respond to us in Spanish because, you know, they just wanted to respond in English. But we still make it a point to speak to them in Spanish just because we want to solidify that, you know, bilingual abilities in them.

John Dehlin [00:09:34] And again, your wife is from where?

Ryan McKnight [00:09:36] She's from Spain. I met her on. I met her on my mission. Ah. I'm one of those guys.

John Dehlin [00:09:42] All right.

Ryan McKnight [00:09:43] But she was missionary. Now she's from Spain, but she also served her mission in Spain, and we served in the same mission.

John Dehlin [00:09:49] Yeah. Okay. So what was it like growing up as a. As a gringo in Latin America, in the church?

Ryan McKnight [00:09:56] Well, that. Wow.

Scott Fausett [00:09:58] I've.

Ryan McKnight [00:09:58] I've never. It's been a long time since I thought. But that's an interesting angle there, you know, at church.

John Dehlin [00:10:04] So at school, was it always expat wards that you were in, where it was always the white people from the corporations that.

Ryan McKnight [00:10:11] Yes, but we would. But we didn't have our own ward, but we would all attend the same local ward no matter where we lived. Okay. So like, let's just say. Let's say Guatemala as an example. You know, we're all. All the Americans that live there are spread around the city, but we all attended the same ward, and it was a ward that somebody chose. I have no idea who chose the ward, but it was like there was one ward that was designated to have all the Mormons in it, and it was like that in every country I lived in.

John Dehlin [00:10:39] Is that called the expat ward? The expatriate word.

Ryan McKnight [00:10:41] But we. But we weren't our own ward. That's the thing. Like, so we were just the Americans that were attending the local Guatemalan award. Guatemalan ward. And if there was ever a time where we had enough Americans, we might have our own Sunday school in English, but most of the time we were in their Sunday school in Spanish and everything. And we just happened to be sort of the Americans that were in there, if that makes sense.

John Dehlin [00:11:02] Okay. All right.

Ryan McKnight [00:11:04] Now that's in the 90s, so if it's changed since then. You know, I don't know, but we, I never lived anywhere that had an actual ward for the Americans.

John Dehlin [00:11:13] And those are pretty good schools you would go to in a Latin American country for expats, right?

Ryan McKnight [00:11:19] Yeah, they have. Every country has at least one private school that caters to people like my dad or local wealthy businessmen that want their kids to get an American education. So the school is, it's, it's just like going to a private school in the United States. It's accredited by one of the bodies here in the United States. And it's, it's just like going to school in the United States, but you're going to school with people from all around the world. I mean, when I was in sixth or seventh grade and this was during the, the first Iraq war and this was in Venezuela, one of my classmates was the daughter of the Iraqi ambassador and we were at war with her country and I'm sitting next to her in class.

Ryan McKnight [00:12:03] So those are. Yeah, those are the kind of experiences that I got to grow up with, with being around people from all over the world.

John Dehlin [00:12:10] That's a great experience.

Ryan McKnight [00:12:12] And with the church, though, I wanted to say that with church, that was with school. Right. So with school I was, you know, I was a weird Mormon, although most people didn't bother me about it. But at church, one of the interesting things that we had to deal with was all of the local members, they assumed that just because we were American that we were like filthy rich.

Ryan McKnight [00:12:32] And that was not the case. I mean, my dad worked for the government, so he made, you know, like a middle class income, but they just automatically assumed that we were millionaires and makes the relationship a little weird, to be perfectly honest with you. And, and, but it was great experiences and I had great friends there and I had fun participating in all of the church activities there. And it's much like what you would experience here, maybe minus the Boy Scouts, because they don't do Boy Scouts there. I did Boy Scouts with just a regular troop that was not affiliated with the church.

John Dehlin [00:13:17] So were your, were your ward friends your closest friends?

Ryan McKnight [00:13:22] No.

John Dehlin [00:13:23] So your close friends, Were your school friends who weren't Mormon?

Ryan McKnight [00:13:27] Definitely I did.

John Dehlin [00:13:28] Did you go to war? Were there war dances and stake dances and youth activities?

Ryan McKnight [00:13:34] Yeah, but I usually didn't go. I remember going to a couple, but yeah, it really wasn't my thing because I. Maybe this is part of like my youth rebellion. I kind of didn't make a huge effort to learn the language.

Ryan McKnight [00:13:50] I mean, you're there for so long, you kind of just learn it naturally. Right. But I didn't like make a huge effort to try to learn it conversationally. And so when I met, when I was at church, I mean my, my ability to communicate them was with people was somewhat limited.

Ryan McKnight [00:14:07] And I definitely favored hanging out with my friends from school that spoke English. And I kind of regret that now. I mean, I do. I mean having served my mission in Spain, everything and having my wife from Spain has obviously erased any of that. But had I not served my mission in Spain, I probably would not speak, speak Spanish as well as I would because I kind of threw, I kind of threw away that opportunity when I was there to really dominate the language.

John Dehlin [00:14:33] Sure. Okay, talk really quickly. Just about. Did you go to early morning seminary and you know, how did, how did your testimony get formed, if that makes sense?

Ryan McKnight [00:14:44] Well, seminary for those countries now I don't know how the locals did seminary, but the way the Americans did seminary there is, we would have this, we would have a, somebody who was in charge. So in Guatemala, where I was 11th and 12th grade, it was the wife of Lynn G. Robbins. People may know him from, he's in the first quorum of the President or first quorum of the 70 or he actually might be in the presidency of the 70. Now I'm not sure, but he was the area president back then in that area and they were obviously in our ward or whatever. He had kids that were my age and his wife was the coordinator for seminary for the Americans.

Ryan McKnight [00:15:22] And we would go to their house once a week. I think we did it Sunday afternoons. We would use the home study version of seminary. So we were supposed to like do all this work in this home study packet like during the week. And then on Sunday we would go to their house and like do the, you know, sort of review and go over what we learned and things like that. So it wasn't every day and it wasn't early morning.

John Dehlin [00:15:47] Yeah. So if somebody were to say, well of course Ryan started Mormon leagues, he never got that traditional upbringing of seminary and youth programs and maybe testimony never got fully formed, how would you respond to that?

Ryan McKnight [00:16:03] Well, it's definitely not true. I mean I would say that up until my mission or right before a mission, like many teenagers, I was probably relying heavily on my parents testimony. So I wasn't necessarily like, you know, sharing Book of Mormons with all of my non member classmates. And I wasn't that guy. I wasn't like getting up and bearing tearful testimony when I was a teenager. But I Had zero doubt the church was true. I bought in hook, line, and sinker to everything I was taught. And in fact, one of the reinforcements for my testimony, and this was one of the biggest things that kept

Ryan McKnight [00:16:42] me going for as long as I did, is growing up in those countries, you come across all of this tour groups and all of these stories about, you know, the Book of Mormon having occurred in Central America, even more so than when you're here. It's really part of the narrative down there.

John Dehlin [00:16:59] It is, it is.

Ryan McKnight [00:17:01] And I love the Mayan culture, and we would visit regularly the different Mayan sites. And I bought in 100%, hook, line and sinker. The idea that I was living in the land of the Book of Mormon, and there was even one guy. I believe his last name was Alan. I don't. He might even be dead now because he was an old guy back then. But he would. He ran one of the biggest Book of Mormon tours where he would bring Americans and he wrote a book and everything, which I had. And the last stop for his tour when they were doing their tour was our church on.

Ryan McKnight [00:17:34] On the Sunday right before their plane would go back to the States and they would come to sacrament meeting. And so every couple of months, this bus full of Americans would come in and we got to meet all these people. And it was just so cool to hear about everything they went and saw on their trip. And like I said, I bought into it. I mean, there was. There's a place in Guatemala called Lake Atitlan.

John Dehlin [00:17:53] Yeah.

Ryan McKnight [00:17:53] And my family went there twice on vacation.

John Dehlin [00:17:56] It's the waters of Mormon. It's the waters of Mormon.

Ryan McKnight [00:17:59] Yeah. And not only that, there's like this urban legend that gets told. Who knows where it started, but it's among the people that talk about the Book of Mormon happening there. That. That one time in modern history, there was like some earthquake. And the waters at Lake Atitlan receded briefly because of the earthquake, and it revealed, like, this sunken city in the middle. And then, of course, the waters went back up.

Ryan McKnight [00:18:24] And then there's this whole thing where they say that there's 12 volcanoes around the lake. And I'm not sure if that's exactly how many there are, but there are a lot of volcanoes that surround the lake. And they say that those rose during when Christ was killed and during all that land destruction, and that they represent the 12 apostles. I mean, these are the type of stories that get told. And I remember going to Lake Atitlan and just feeling that connection super strong that. That I was Walking where the Nephites and the Lamanites walked. And.

Ryan McKnight [00:18:58] Yeah, and. But. But again, I wouldn't say that I was. I wasn't getting up, bearing, like, tearful testimony. Right before my mission, I was in Peru. Yeah, I was in Peru, and my parents had just moved to Peru after I graduated high school. So I was there waiting for my mission call to come.

Ryan McKnight [00:19:19] And I was. I mean, long story short, I mean, I wanted to go, but I didn't want to go. I mean, I was feeling a lot of pressure to go. And it wasn't that I didn't believe. It was more like wanted to go to college, and I wanted to, like, start a job kind of a thing.

Ryan McKnight [00:19:37] And when I was there, the mission president for one of the Lima missions, I don't remember which one it is, but he was in our ward, and he came and said, oh, hey, I hear you're just hanging out. Wait for your mission. You want to go and do a mini mission? I don't know if that's like, an official term, but that's what he called it. And I said, okay, sure. What I found out later is they had sent somebody home, and so they were, like, short of missionary until the next transfer. So I basically went. I was set apart as a missionary. I received a name tag.

Ryan McKnight [00:20:04] I received, like, a monthly stipend. I went out into the sticks, and Lima, like, outskirts of Lima, had a companion. I didn't call my parents. I was, like, living a missionary. And in one of the first visits we did was with this guy that was about to get baptized.

Ryan McKnight [00:20:20] And I remember, like, this was really, like, my first experience with missionaries. I hadn't done a lot of, like, splits before. And I remember that the room was just filled with that spirit feeling that you get. And the spirit was super strong in this discussion. And from that moment forward, I was 100% sold. I was super excited for my mission. It was like a literal turning point for me that day.

Ryan McKnight [00:20:51] And then when I went to my mission in Barcelona, just grew and grew and grew. And by the time I was done, I mean, I was all in. No doubts that the church was true. I had seen many miracles on my mission that I could harken back to.

Ryan McKnight [00:21:05] And I had a great mission president. I had a great mission experience. I didn't have one of those experiences where I had, like, an abusive mission president, really, you know, that you sometimes hear about online. So by the time I finished my mission, I was, you know, all in.

John Dehlin [00:21:21] And how. How far did that all in. True believing Mormon Sort of phase. Go past your mission?

Ryan McKnight [00:21:29] Pretty much till I was 32. I mean, so you.

John Dehlin [00:21:32] Did you. Where'd you go to college?

Ryan McKnight [00:21:35] Unlv. I have two degrees from unlv.

John Dehlin [00:21:37] Okay, so you're a rebel, but you were a true believer. You were a true believer. Did you do institute at unlv?

Ryan McKnight [00:21:43] No, I went to college a little later, so I didn't go right after my mission. I was married with kids already when I. Yeah, by the time I went to school, I was married with kids.

John Dehlin [00:21:53] Married in the temple.

Ryan McKnight [00:21:54] Yes, Las Vegas temple.

John Dehlin [00:21:55] And you guys were true believers, Orthodox.

Ryan McKnight [00:21:58] I mean, look, I wasn't the guy that you would look at and say, oh, he's a future bishop. But I've never been that guy. Like, I was just a stalwart everyday member, you know, I mean, I had my. My flaws and everything, but I never. I've never committed any, like, serious sin, you know, that would get me, like, disfellowshipped or excommunicated or anything. I've never done anything like that. I've just lived a normal life. I had the different callings that I had.

Ryan McKnight [00:22:26] We were in primary for like the first two years we were married. Then I was the. I think the next one. I was Sunday school president, then I was the ward mission leader. Then I was my favorite calling of all the callings I had, and I had it for like five years. I was an instructor in Elder Scorp. That was my favorite calling because I like to get up and talk to people and. And it wasn't really demanding outside of Sunday, which was good too, because I liked. I was really busy outside of Sunday.

John Dehlin [00:22:55] And as an orthodox believer, did you ever flirt with, you know, progressive stuff or liberal stuff or anti Mormon stuff, or did you just stay away from it?

Ryan McKnight [00:23:07] Stayed away from it. And it wasn't like a conscience effort to stay away from it. I was like. I had total blinders on. And I look back now and I can think of things that people would say to me that I completely just sort of went in one ear and out the other, and I just completely dismissed that. Maybe had I stopped for a moment and thought about it. Like, one time this guy was this guy and I were talking in the cultural hall and he was like, really into, like, studying all out about the church, whatever. And he mentioned this book called Rough Stone Rolling.

Ryan McKnight [00:23:39] And I had like, vaguely heard of the book, but I mean, I never had no intention of reading it. And he said something about how he loved the book, but it was hard for him to read because there were things in it that bothered him.

Ryan McKnight [00:23:53] And at the time, like, I didn't even bat an eye when he said, like, I didn't even be, like, I wasn't even like, well, what was it that bothered you? Like, it didn't even. I don't know. The blinders in that sense were so tight. And it's unfortunate because I've always been like a skeptic and a critical thinker my whole life. But when I would walk through the doors of the church, it was like a light switch that would just flip off when it came to critical thinking. And I just didn't even engage in any discussions like that. So I look back now and I could maybe see some things that slightly bothered me that maybe were shelf items.

Ryan McKnight [00:24:27] But I didn't even really know what a shelf was. So I would not have told you, not have told you at the time that this was bothering me. It was just like little things that bothered me. And I got over it really quick. And now looking back to it, I realized it was probably a shelf item.

John Dehlin [00:24:42] Got it. All right. That's a fascinating introduction to your story, Ryan. Let me pause for a second and check in with our listeners. Kimberly's joined us. Steve's joined us. We've got 84 people joining us live on Facebook live, another 23. So we're over 100 people, which is always fun. Kimberly says, hi, Steve, let's see. Eric is asking if either you or Scott have a Julian Assange tattoo. I think that Eric's trying to be funny. Heather wants to know if you're wearing a Make America Great Again hat. Is that, is that what you're wearing?

Ryan McKnight [00:25:21] I'm a proud.

John Dehlin [00:25:22] Put it closer, put it closer. Unlv, okay. It's a rebel baseball.

Ryan McKnight [00:25:27] I'm a proud alumni. I bleed red. And even when I was a believing Mormon, I was never a fan of BYU sports. Go Rebels.

John Dehlin [00:25:41] I remember UNLV from my days growing up with Jerry Tarkanian and the running rebels in the 80s. That was fun. Scott, I'm assuming your cap is a Kansas City Chiefs hat, is that right?

Scott Fausett [00:25:54] Absolutely.

Ryan McKnight [00:25:55] All right.

John Dehlin [00:25:55] All right, we'll get to you in just one second. So. So Mikey writes that brother Alan was on a couple's mission when he was in bilbao, Spain, from 94 to 96. So Omar joins us from Edmonton. All right, so we've got some great participation. Ryan, I love your story so far. I wouldn't have guessed some of that. So you were more orthodox and sort of closed minded than I would have pegged you for longer. For a longer amount of time than I would have pegged you, knowing what you've done. Yeah, yeah.

Ryan McKnight [00:26:31] And it was really due to a lack of opening my mind to other ideas because it would not have been hard to convince me that there were issues with the church. Like, when I finally did start to find these things out, it was a relatively quick turnaround. It's just that I just, you know, didn't know and, you know, even, like, I actually probably started changing politically a little bit before I changed religiously, actually. And that may have helped prepare me for the ability to entertain the idea that there were problems with the church.

John Dehlin [00:27:04] Yeah, that makes sense. All right, Ryan, it's been great so far. Scott, let's switch over to you since we're interviewing both of you. Scott, why don't you go through the same questions? What's your Mormon pedigree, your cred? Tell us about your Mormon cred.

Scott Fausett's Background and Upbringing

Scott Fausett [00:27:19] Just kind of a little bit of background. I grew up on a very small community, 120 people, all Mormon. And I was very active in the church out by Roosevelt, Bluebell, Utah.

John Dehlin [00:27:33] Oh, wow.

Scott Fausett [00:27:35] Very small community, very active in the church. Eagle Scout. I was an assistant Scout master. Went through, you know, the deacons, quorum president, teachers quorum, priest quorum, things like that. I attended the World Jamboree, World Scout Jamboree in Australia when I was a senior in high school. And as a teenager, I was actually disfellowshipped for some time.

John Dehlin [00:28:02] Oh, wow.

Scott Fausett [00:28:03] And at that time, I was given a priesthood blessing from my bishop and stake president that said if I would go on a mission, get married, the temple, have kids, I would be cured of my homosexual feelings. And that's what I did.

John Dehlin [00:28:20] Are you comfortable talking about that fellowship at all? Okay, so absolutely, if you don't mind. I'm not trying to. Okay. So first. So you were raised very orthodox, right? Both your parents?

Scott Fausett [00:28:31] My entire family.

John Dehlin [00:28:32] Parents. Pioneer ancestry and all that, yes. And you were of how many kids?

Scott Fausett [00:28:38] You were eight siblings, eight of us.

John Dehlin [00:28:41] Oh, how young are you? Where are you in the order?

Scott Fausett [00:28:43] I'm number five of eight. And my parents had 12 foster children as well.

John Dehlin [00:28:47] Holy moly. How many older brothers?

Scott Fausett [00:28:50] I have three older brothers.

John Dehlin [00:28:52] There's actually a biological association between the more older brothers you have and the probability that you will be gay. That's just something that people don't know. And so I just want to call that out.

Scott Fausett [00:29:05] It is interesting. The third male of a womb typically will be gay.

John Dehlin [00:29:11] Yeah. Yeah, that's. I Didn't know that. But I did know that the more older brothers you have, the higher the probability you'll be gay, according to science. So talk about. So you were devout, growing up, super believing. When did you first start feeling that you might be gay?

Scott's Experience as a Gay Mormon

Scott Fausett [00:29:33] Probably about age five.

John Dehlin [00:29:34] Oh, wow, that's early.

Scott Fausett [00:29:36] I dealt with it my entire life. Never dated, seriously dated girls. I did take a girl to junior prom, but never dated any in high school. And so as I said, I was disfellowshipped as a teenager for about six months. And it was one of those things. Where was that?

John Dehlin [00:29:59] Because you were, you started dating boys or what?

Scott Fausett [00:30:02] Because of things that I was doing with other boys my age, Absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:30:06] Okay, so you're, and this isn't me trying to get like scandalous details, it's more trying to understand. No, so, so like, I guess normally it's puberty around 13, when a, when a gay kid just starts like really feeling those attractions strongly. Was that, was that the case for you or not?

Scott Fausett [00:30:27] It was, it was.

John Dehlin [00:30:28] Okay. And so when, by what age were you actually starting to have, you know, intimate connections with boys? Like how did that happen when you're, when you're devout Mormon?

Scott Fausett [00:30:41] Probably about 12, 13. It actually started when I was staff at a scout camp, to be honest.

John Dehlin [00:30:49] Uh huh. Yeah. Because that's where a lot of boys are.

Scott Fausett [00:30:53] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:30:54] Okay. And so it starts at scouting. And at the time, how were you, how as a 13 year old, are you balancing your orthodox beliefs with starting to be romantically intimate with boys? What's going on in your brain?

Scott Fausett [00:31:09] Very difficult. Because the whole time growing up we were hearing, you know, Spencer W. Kimball's book and all these talks about how wrong it is and how evil and it's not of God. And so you're very conflicted of.

Scott Fausett [00:31:25] I know who I am, but the church who I believe in and my family believes in that I'm very devout. They say that this is wrong and that I'm, you know, something's wrong with me. And so it's very, very conflicting the whole time growing up. And that's why when I was disfellowshipped and told that if, you know, if I went on a mission and got married in the temple and had kids, I'd be cured myself as well as other people my age, that's what we did, because that's what we wanted to do. And we certainly weren't going to come out to our families, especially growing up in a cowboy community, it wouldn't have been the smartest thing to do. And so was your bishop.

John Dehlin [00:32:05] Was your bishop kind to you? Was he loving? Was he understanding? Did you feel shame? Did you feel, you know, how was that?

Scott Fausett [00:32:13] You know, he was very loving, as loving as a bishop can be, telling you that you're wrong and that the way you feel is a sin and of the devil. So, yeah, as loving as someone can be. But he was very loving. And it was more or less of, this is like a disease or this is. This is just something that's going on that you'll be cured of. And about the same time, that's when people my age were sent to BYU for the aversion therapy, shock therapy programs in the 70s. It was. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:32:56] Okay, so what. What did that do to you? Did you then internalize the shame? Did you think, these guys are nuts? I'm just gonna hold on as long as I can, but I'm okay with who I am? Or did you internalize the shame and hope that you could be changed at some point?

Scott Fausett [00:33:14] For a while, I internalized the shame. I really thought that, you know, I wanted to believe the church. I wanted to believe that this is what, you know, the priesthood blessing has. Has told me that I'll be cured of this. And so I told the line. I was very active. You know, I went on a mission. I got married. I had kids.

John Dehlin [00:33:32] Real quick. After you were disfellowshipped, did you stop? Just stop cold turkey for a while?

Scott Fausett [00:33:39] Yes. Then I, you know, went on a mission, got myself ready to go on a mission, which honestly was surprising that the church let me go on a mission. And I. I wonder now if it was more because it was a smaller community, if it was more of not being an embarrassment to the community that, you know, one member who supposedly was so active, two people didn't go on a mission. So I wonder if that's more what it is. You could be cured.

John Dehlin [00:34:10] Do you think all the ward members and your parents and your family, that everyone knew that you were gay?

Scott Fausett [00:34:16] Nope.

John Dehlin [00:34:17] Oh, they didn't know?

Scott Fausett [00:34:18] They did not. When I finally came out, everyone was shocked.

John Dehlin [00:34:21] Okay, so you told the bishop. Did you say, bishop, I'm gay, or just bishop? I had these experiences.

Scott Fausett [00:34:28] Well, I didn't tell him either. I got called in to the bishop's office because someone, another young man who was trying to get ready to go on a mission, I guess, had gone into the bishop and confessed. And so I got called into the bishop's office.

John Dehlin [00:34:45] Sure, sure. Okay. And so was the conversation with the bishop about being gay or just about the behavior.

Scott Fausett [00:34:54] It was strictly about the behavior.

John Dehlin [00:34:55] Okay.

Scott Fausett [00:34:56] That's all. That's all they wanted to hear.

John Dehlin [00:34:58] Okay. So just so you got disfellowshipped. Did your parents know you were disfellowshipped?

Scott Fausett [00:35:02] They did.

John Dehlin [00:35:03] Did they know why?

Scott Fausett [00:35:05] To my knowledge, no.

John Dehlin [00:35:07] Wow. So it was never discussed why you were disfellowshipped?

Scott Fausett [00:35:10] Correct.

John Dehlin [00:35:11] They never said. They never said what's going on, Scott? Why are you disfellowshipped?

Scott Fausett [00:35:15] I'm assuming at that time they thought it was because I was doing things inappropriate with women. Yep.

John Dehlin [00:35:23] Holy moly. So your community and your family never found out?

Scott Fausett [00:35:27] They never found out for about another 20 years.

John Dehlin [00:35:30] Oh, my. 20 years. Holy moly. How could families. I mean, I can see how families wouldn't talk about it, but I can't understand how if I were a parent and my kid got disfellowshipped, would want to find out what's going on, you know?

Scott Fausett [00:35:48] Yeah, it was never discussed.

John Dehlin [00:35:50] Okay, so on your mission, were you ever tempted?

Scott Fausett [00:35:54] Interestingly enough, I was not on my mission. And what's interesting about that is, you know, after my mission, we find out there's probably about 12 of us from my mission in Norway who are confirmed homosexuals.

John Dehlin [00:36:10] Uh huh. Oh, from your. From your mission during the two years that you were there?

Scott Fausett [00:36:15] Correct.

John Dehlin [00:36:16] Wow. Okay. But. But you're saying on your mission you did or did not have.

Scott Fausett [00:36:21] Did not.

John Dehlin [00:36:22] Okay, so you. It was that hard. Did you feel attracted to your companions?

Scott Fausett [00:36:26] You know, actually, I think because I was trying so hard to live what the church told me and, and to be cured of this, I really, really, really wanted to give it a concerted effort because I hated the conflict. It was pure hell. The feelings that I was having of feeling that I was wrong and of the devil, and I just wanted to get rid of that. It was very heavy. And so, you know, I did what I was told to do.

John Dehlin [00:36:58] Did you feel like you had a deep, sincere testimony of the church?

Scott Fausett [00:37:03] I did.

John Dehlin [00:37:04] And did you plead with God in prayer to take it away?

Scott Fausett [00:37:08] Many times. Many times.

John Dehlin [00:37:10] What was that like? What did that do to you? To pray to God to take it away?

Scott Fausett [00:37:16] You know, it was very hard for me because, you know, just knowing deep down that, you know, I'm not making this up, that this isn't a choice. This is how I felt, you know, from very, very young. But then to hear your church leaders say that it's a choice, and this is what you choose to do, and it's because of something in your life that you've done. It's very difficult. And so it was very conflicting. And you know, honestly, that's why so many gay people have taken their lives in the church. And that's a whole nother topic.

John Dehlin [00:37:50] Can you, can you relate to feeling that low? And if so, absolutely. What specifically makes you feel like that's an option or that's desirable? Tell us just directly what makes a gay Mormon feel like they want to commit suicide?

Scott Fausett [00:38:11] I think it's because your family, everything that you grew up, I raised my children in the church. Your whole family, your whole life, especially in Utah, revolves around the church. The people you go to work with, people you see at the grocery store, the people your neighbors. You can't even talk to a neighbor without having to be some kind of church activity or church discussion.

Scott Fausett [00:38:44] And you get to a point that you just want the pain to go away. You want the living hell that you're living through to go away. And you struggle because you have a testimony. You had a testimony and you taught this on your mission and you see a lot of the good that the church does, but they are just totally destroying you and you just want it to end because you get to the point that you believe that you are of the devil, that something is wrong with you and you just want the pain to go away.

John Dehlin [00:39:29] Thank you for sharing something so personal, Scott. I'm super glad you didn't take your life by the way. As a psychologist I know that it's not healthy and sustainable to feel that pain for so long. Did you, did you find ways to self medicate that pain away?

Scott Fausett [00:39:52] You know, actually the way I did it was just to be more involved in the church, to be, you know, active. And I, after my mission I was the young men's president, I was in the elders corn presidency. I was state clerk for seven years which then I was disfellowshipped for a year while I was a state clerk for the same thing. And then I was put into the Stake Young Men's presidency and then as a ward clerk. And the way you self medicate is just to involve yourself as much as you can with the church. And I got to the point when I was a state clerk sitting through disciplinary councils and you know, I was also a temple worker and ironically after my mission I was called on an 18 month church service mission to translate for the first presidency. I was very, very involved in the church.

John Dehlin [00:40:44] What? Translate what?

Scott Fausett [00:40:47] I translated the Scandinavian languages. A lot of them were disciplinary councils from English to the Scandinavian languages and back, but I translated for the first presidency. And I got to the point that I'm. I couldn't live the double life anymore. It was killing me. It literally was killing me. And I got to the point that I said to myself, if I don't do something, I will end up dead.

John Dehlin [00:41:13] And you were married. And you were. And you what?

Scott Fausett [00:41:16] I was married in the temple, and. And, you know, I had kids and I just.

John Dehlin [00:41:20] How many kids? How many kids? Did your wife know you were gay when you married her?

Scott Fausett [00:41:26] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:41:27] And she was willing to do that.

Scott Fausett [00:41:29] She was. Because I would be cured.

John Dehlin [00:41:31] She believed that, too.

Scott Fausett [00:41:32] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:41:35] That's its whole podcast right there, brother. So how old were you when you reached that breaking point?

Scott Fausett [00:41:47] Interestingly enough, it was when I was the state clerk, so I was probably 30. And we stayed married for seven more years after that.

John Dehlin [00:41:59] Wow.

Scott Fausett [00:42:01] We divorced for other reasons. And then once I was divorced, that's when I decided that I would live my life authentically and I would live my life as a gay person. And, you know, for the record, I still am a member of the church. Been involved in organizing some of the mass resignations and involved there, but I still am a member of the church and my children are still members.

John Dehlin [00:42:28] How old are you now?

Scott Fausett [00:42:30] I'm 46.

John Dehlin [00:42:31] Okay, so you're. You're younger than me. So you've been. You've been living as an out, authentic gay man for what, nine years?

Scott Fausett [00:42:38] Correct.

John Dehlin [00:42:39] Okay. I just want to pause for a second in response to your story. Jen Ra writes incredible. Kimberly writes, Scott, you're an amazing. You are amazing and perfect and much loved by me and many, many others. Tracy sends lots of hearts. There's just a lot of people. Julie writes, Scott, thank you for sharing your story. Your story is so touching and so important, and I just want to reflect that. You really. I think you really hit a chord with our audience.

Scott Fausett [00:43:06] So thank you. Thanks, John. And here's the thing. This isn't my story. This is the story of thousands and thousands and thousands of current members of the church, of former members of the church, and the story of people who don't dare come out, who don't have the courage, some who have taken their lives, and this is their story. I'm just one who's willing to be vocal about it, but we all have family, we all have neighbors, we all have friends who. This is their story. We just don't know it. The November 2015 policy was very, very difficult for me. And many people maybe remember that I went on the local news stations and spoke about that.

John Dehlin [00:44:05] How the church in Dallas. In Dallas?

Scott Fausett [00:44:08] No, in Salt Lake.

John Dehlin [00:44:09] Oh, okay.

Scott Fausett [00:44:10] I've just recently, I'm engaged to a man getting married this year.

John Dehlin [00:44:15] Congratulations.

Scott Fausett [00:44:16] In Dallas. Thank you. As a matter of fact, we got engaged at Arrowhead Stadium during the Kansas City Chiefs playoff game. So. But the November 5, 2015 policy really affected me. And I went on the news and I said, look, me, as a teenager, I was basically commanded by the church, my church leaders, to go on a mission, get married in the temple, have kids.

Scott Fausett [00:44:42] And now the kids that the church commanded me to have are being used as pawns against me. They had nothing to do with this. The children of gay parents had absolutely nothing to do with. They had no choice in this matter. And the church is punishing them because something I did. If. If the church doesn't want me as a gay man in their church, I'm okay with that. I'm an adult. I made the choice not to be gay, but I did make the choice to live my life as a gay man openly. But my kids had nothing to do with this, and they're the ones being punished.

John Dehlin [00:45:21] Yeah. All right, Scott, thank you for sharing your story. And we've got a lot more to talk about, but I think that gives us a really good sense for kind of your early years and what context kind of took you to the point of wanting to be involved in Mormon leagues. So we're going to come back to several things you've talked about. One of our listeners asked if, for clarification, asking if you said shock therapy and Indeed, yes, at BYU. This is Morgan's question. And yes, at BYU, electroshock aversion therapy was used in the 70s to try and apply behavioral conditioning practices to gay people to try and take that away. So, yes, that did happen at byu. Danae and others, we're questioning that. Okay, so, Ryan, let's come back to you. I want to thank our listeners for comments and questions. So, Ryan, when and how did things unravel for you?

Faith Crises and Leaving the Church

Ryan McKnight [00:46:32] So in 2013. Well, actually in 2010 or 11, I don't recall exactly what year. My sister, the one just below me, born after me, she got married to a returned missionary, not in the temple. And it was kind of known that they didn't go to church, but it was never really talked about as to the reasons why. It was kind of one of those, like, don't ask, don't tell situations. They got married by the bishop in the back in his backyard in Utah, and they weren't vocal about the fact that they didn't go to church and they've never, it's just not their personality. And it was kind of assumed because he's like a real, my brother in law is like a really smart guy.

Ryan McKnight [00:47:25] Like he has a Ph.D. and you know, some science, something that makes my head hurt. So it was kind of like the assumption was, oh, he's like too smart for his own good or something, some stupid thing like that, you know.

Ryan McKnight [00:47:38] But that wasn't based on anything he ever said. So my wife was pretty close to my sister and would occasionally talk to her on the phone. And the conversation of sort of going back to church would sometimes come up almost like in a member missionary type way. And you know, nothing ever really. My sister would just be very politely somehow tell her that, you know, she's not going to go back to church now. And my wife would like hear through the grapevine of like my family and her. I was never really part of these conversations that it had something to do with polygamy was the reason why they didn't go to church anymore.

Ryan McKnight [00:48:19] And I didn't even know if this was like true or if it was just a rumor or what. And I would tell my wife, like my wife would ask me about it because we had, we knew like the whitewashed version of polygamy. And I, neither my wife or I really saw it as a legitimate reason to leave the church. And I would like brush it off and tell my wife that it was just an excuse they were using, if that was even the real reason.

Ryan McKnight [00:48:39] And then one day after my wife had mentioned this to me again, this would have been sometime in June, mid June of 2013. I'm like, why would somebody relieved the church over this, some ridiculous thing like polygamy. So I said, well, let me just try to understand the other side. You know, maybe my wife, if she understands the other side, maybe she can say something or something like that that would, you know, maybe have an effect. So I do some Google search about polygamy. I don't remember exactly what the, what I put in.

Ryan McKnight [00:49:15] And one of the first things I came across was that Joseph Smith had married teenagers. Now I knew he was a polygamist. Joseph Smith, I know a lot of members for a long time didn't even know that they thought polygamy started with Brigham Young. But I did know that Joseph Smith was a polygamist. But I had no idea about, you know, teenage brides. And when I read this, I thought, well, he must have read this lie on the Internet, because there's no way this is true.

Ryan McKnight [00:49:41] I 100% did not believe it. And of course as I'm reading this website, I don't. I think it might have been Mormon think, but I'm not sure. The first website I went to, I don't remember, and there was like a link to, you know, like source documentation on this. And then all of a sudden I find, you know, like, fair Mormon, which I had never even heard of before. And all of a sudden I'm seeing that these things are confirmed with a twist, with a spin, but confirmed. And for me it was like, even though the, the idea of teenage brides was bothering me, it was more issue of the COVID up being worse than the crime.

Ryan McKnight [00:50:23] And I. And I was like, man, if I was wrong about this, because I was sure it wasn't true. I was like, if I was wrong about this, what else am I wrong about? And of course the rabbit hole opens wide up and I start to go down. So I'm like studying this, I'm reading online. I'm like devouring everything that I can find. One of the very first, like anti Mormon things I allowed myself to view, like purposefully. I didn't stumble across it. I actually purposely said, I'm going to watch. This was actually one of your interviews.

John Dehlin [00:50:59] Hey, you can't call that anti Mormon.

Ryan McKnight [00:51:00] Well, I was gonna say I don't want to. I know that I don't think it's anti Mormon, but at the time I did. Okay, so I'm just being honest with you.

John Dehlin [00:51:09] I totally get it. I'm just kidding. I'm.

Ryan McKnight [00:51:12] But it was the interview that you did with John and Brooke McClay.

John Dehlin [00:51:17] Yeah.

Ryan McKnight [00:51:18] And like, I knew nothing about you. I had never even heard of you before. I didn't even know that this was part of a wider library of interviews. I had no idea. I just stumbled across this interview and I was captivated by their story because I heard so much of myself, John's voice. Even though we had very different lives, there was still something about his belief and his surprise, you know, when learning things and his seeking answers to no avail, that just really connected with me. And I said, man, maybe there's something to this. And then I find the CES letter, which at the time was really hadn't even gone viral yet. It really wasn't known outside of Reddit at the time.

Scott Fausett [00:52:04] Time.

Ryan McKnight [00:52:04] I mean, a little bit, but it wasn't what it is today. I think it had just been written in April of 2013. And this is like late June 2013 that I'm finding the CS letter. And the CS letter, for me, what it did was because I had already read like Mormon Think and I had already watched several of your interviews.

Ryan McKnight [00:52:24] What the CS letter did was it took all of this information that I'd been reading all over the place and it packaged it up in a really organized, easy to read format that sort of tied it all together. And I said, oh my goodness, this is what I've been reading.

Ryan McKnight [00:52:41] And I wasn't to the point yet where I didn't believe. I was at a stage where I was definitely having massive doubts, but I was still convinced that while I didn't doubt the truthfulness of any of this information. So I didn't think like, I didn't think like the CS letter was full of lies or anything, but I thought I was convinced that there was an explanation out there that I had, I just hadn't found yet that would make it all make sense. So I'm seeking this explanation and it's, it's consuming me, right? And I'm not telling my wife about this because I was pretty sure, especially because I'm reading on stories, all these stories about how this, you know, ends up in divorce, was pretty sure that my wife was going to have one of those negative reactions that I was reading about because my wife was always, if there was a spiritual anchor in our household, it was my wife.

Ryan McKnight [00:53:34] And so, and I Also, my, my 10 year anniversary was coming up and I had like this whole big thing planned that I had started planning before I even found any of this stuff. And I didn't want to like ruin our 10 year anniversary.

Ryan McKnight [00:53:52] Then also, we had just signed a contract on a house that we were building and I'm like, I'm like taking everything to like these crazy conclusions, like, okay, if I get divorced, I don't want to lose this house. Like I really want to house. So maybe I should wait to tell her till after we're in the house because I can keep the house or something. I'm going through all this crazy scenarios in my mind, right?

Ryan McKnight [00:54:12] So we go on our 10 year anniversary date and I act like everything's normal. We had a great time and now I'm like, okay, that's over now. Okay, am I gonna wait till we get into the house and do like a slow fade that I keep reading about online, whatever. And like a week after our anniversary, we were at church, Sacrament meeting ended. We were in the overflow.

Ryan McKnight [00:54:38] Everybody clears out to go to their classes. We ended up by ourselves in the overflow, talking about something that had nothing to do with any of this. I don't remember what we were talking about. We were talking about something, and there was, like, a pause in the conversation, like a natural pause. And I was looking at her, and I was, like, overcome with this feeling, the spirit, if you want to call it that. But it was that type of a feeling that I just. I had. I could not continue living this lie because, you know, even though just, like, everybody's told lies in their life, like, I'm not the kind of person that can really, like, lead a double life.

Ryan McKnight [00:55:11] Like, it's just not part of my personality. And so I couldn't do this is. You know, we're three, four weeks into this, and I just couldn't do it anymore. So I said, I got to tell you something. I think the church might not be true.

Ryan McKnight [00:55:26] It was. Ripped the band aid off. And she started crying immediately. And I said, well, I said, you know, let's. I want to talk about this. We've got to talk about this. I didn't have my computer with me. I didn't even have a smartphone at the time. So, I mean, I couldn't show her anything. I said, well, when we get home, we're gonna. I'm gonna show you what I'm talking about. But, you know, for the rest of the day of the block, the two. Two hours that were left, we went out and sat on the couch and talked about this, and I was telling her about this stuff.

Ryan McKnight [00:55:57] We went home. I show her things now. Here's where I got lucky. Never once in this process was divorce ever even part of the conversation, so that it was never even on the table. So in that sense, I got super lucky. And she wanted to read. You know, you always hear these stories about how the spouse, like, you know, they don't even want to know about it. La, la la la. You know, my wife wanted to know. So I got lucky in that sense, too. And she also was not disputing any of these things. Like, she could see that, okay, these. All of these issues, they seem to be legit.

Ryan McKnight [00:56:32] But she was still holding on to her testimony for several reasons. And basically, it was heavily on the feeling now, as opposed to the thoughts, because intellectually, she's seen that there's these issues, but she's still feeling the spirit, so she's not having the same level of doubts that I'm having.

Ryan McKnight [00:56:56] And so we don't know what to do. We don't want to tell anybody in our ward. We've been in this ward, this particular Ward for, like, eight years. And you'd know my oldest daughter had just been baptized right before all this went down. And we just. We just didn't know how to handle this whole situation. So we. We reached out to my mission president, who was at the time and still is in the first quorum of the 70. And he's a good guy.

John Dehlin [00:57:25] And I.

Ryan McKnight [00:57:25] And I, until proven otherwise, I'm gonna still count him as one of the good guys and hope that he's, you know, a victim of all of this lie as much as I was.

Scott Fausett [00:57:35] But remind.

John Dehlin [00:57:36] It. Remind us of his name.

Ryan McKnight [00:57:38] His name is Shane Bowen.

John Dehlin [00:57:40] Okay. B O W E N. Yeah.

Scott Fausett [00:57:43] Okay.

Ryan McKnight [00:57:43] I normally actually don't say his name, but I figure, you know, there's no reason to keep it a secret. His name is Shane Bowen. He's a good guy. I have nothing bad to say about him. And I'll tell you what. What happened with him. You know, we reached out to him through his wife, who we were friends with on Facebook, and he was gracious enough to spend two hours with us on Skype. Now, right before this happened, around what

John Dehlin [00:58:06] year would this have been?

Ryan McKnight [00:58:07] Around what year this would have been, like, late August of 2013.

John Dehlin [00:58:11] So I'm like.

Ryan McKnight [00:58:12] I'm like, two months into my investigation here, and I'm like, my testimony is hanging by a thread. Got it. And. And he. I need him to save me. I need him to give me this explanation of where. What am I missing now? Now, like a week or two prior to that, we did finally go to my bishop, and we went together, and I said to him, I said, bishop, I'm. You know, and I was in the young men's presidency at the time, although I was about to be released because we were, like, a week or two away from moving to our new house in a new state.

Ryan McKnight [00:58:43] So I was going to be released anyway, but I said to him, to the bishop, this is before talking to the mission president. And I said to him, I said, you know, I've come across some information online, and I'm really. And as soon as I said that, he, like, clams up. He goes, oh, well, he didn't want to hear anything I had to say. He goes, ryan, you need to repent. You need to refocus.

Ryan McKnight [00:59:08] You're obviously not reading your scriptures. You need to turn the computer off. And he, like, didn't even want to hear even one of the issues. Like, I couldn't even get out, like, one of my issues. He. All he heard was Internet, and he shut down.

Ryan McKnight [00:59:20] So that was no good. And I. When I. After that, we were like, said to my wife, I said, well, we're just not going to talk about this until we move to the new ward, because the people in this ward are not gonna be able to deal with this.

Ryan McKnight [00:59:31] So then, like, two weeks later or so, we finally sit down, and now we're like a week away from moving into our new house. But I would sit down with the mission president on Skype and we catch up. You know, we hadn't talked in a

John Dehlin [00:59:43] long time, and he was a general authority at the time. You talked to him, right?

Ryan McKnight [00:59:46] I think he was called, like, in 2006, into the first quarter, the 70, roughly. And he's still there, I believe, if I'm not mistaken, he's currently the area president for the Philippines.

John Dehlin [00:59:58] Got it. Okay.

Ryan McKnight [00:59:59] Okay. And he's spoken several times in general conference, and he. Shane Bowen. And my oldest son, who's my third child, is actually named after him, and his name is Shane. So we don't regret that even to this day. He's a good man. So we sit down. And I had sent him. Prior to this, I had sent him sort of like my own CES letter, if you will. I mean, it wasn't as comp. As comprehensive as a CS letter, but it was like 20 pages, like, the major questions that I had and like, some citations, like some sources where I was getting the information from. So I sent him that previous.

Ryan McKnight [01:00:40] And he said that he read it, and I'll take his word for that. But we went through each one and he never interrupted me, like, he never cut me off. He was respectful the whole time. He would have a few, like, replies about how, oh, yeah, I've heard of that. I'm aware of that. There was, like, one or two things, and I don't remember what they were, that he, like, was new to him. But for the most part, he said he knew about all of these issues and we get to the end and.

Ryan McKnight [01:01:07] Well, first of all, before I tell you what his final thoughts were, he did mention. Now, this is summer of 2013. First essay came out in, like, December 2015 or 2013 of that year. Right. First essay came out December of 2013, I think.

Ryan McKnight [01:01:24] So a couple months later, he told me that the church was about to publish some essays that were going to help me. So he obviously was in the loop on that. And I've since found out he serves on the Executive Committee for Correlation.

Ryan McKnight [01:01:36] So he's involved in these things. Anyway, in the end he says, you know, you've done some great research. I can't dispute anything you said. As far as I know, everything you said is accurate. And he says there's really no answer.

Ryan McKnight [01:01:52] That's at least like there's no answer that you're looking for. He said, the only answer that exists is the answer that you're going to get through the Holy Ghost telling you that the church is true. And I said to him, I said, look, President, I can respect, I can understand where you're coming from, but this is not going to work for me anymore. And I pulled out my scriptures and I was. There was something in the Bible dictionary that I had heard at church, like, a couple weeks prior. And it was in the definition of faith. And it's the second paragraph, and I'm going to paraphrase.

Ryan McKnight [01:02:24] Everybody can go look it up to get the exact words. But it says something to the effect of true faith. Perfect faith requires correct knowledge, something like this. And I said, that doesn't mean you have to know everything, but what it means is that your faith, in order for it to be correct, true and perfect, has to be based on correct knowledge to the extent that we can have correct knowledge. And up until this point, my faith has been based on lies, and it doesn't work anymore.

Ryan McKnight [01:02:58] I cannot rely on faith anymore. Like I was previous. All of these spiritual experiences that I had that I do not deny to this day, that I could tell you about them to this day, that were pillars of my testimony, I do not deny those, But I just see them differently now, and I cannot rely on them anymore. So I tell him that, you know, he basically says, you know, we love you guys. He was my wife's mission president as well, so keep that in mind. You know, we love you guys and we're gonna pray for you and this and that. And, you know, it all ended friendly and.

Ryan McKnight [01:03:28] But when that phone call ended, I said to my wife, I said. I said, this might be it. Because I didn't necessarily expect him to have an answer, you know, in the spur of the moment, but I expected him to say, you know, I know there's an answer here, let me get back to you in a couple of days. But he didn't even say that. Like, he definitively said, you're right about all these issues.

Ryan McKnight [01:03:51] They're valid issues, but you got to rely on faith. You know, this was his line. And I just, you know. And it bothered my wife as well. Now, my wife is still persistent as a believer in spite of it, but it bothered her as well. She was Pretty confident that we were going to get some answers from him. And so what I did was really, really quickly.

John Dehlin [01:04:11] Go ahead. Steve Holbrooke writes, first essays were November 2013. Adam writes, he loves. He loves your integrity. Teresa really liked that statement, faith based on lies. And Cameron wrote, perfect faith requires correct knowledge. That is really. That is really profound. We can't be afra of knowledge.

John Dehlin [01:04:36] So I just wanted to confirm that I had a personal conversation with Marlon Jensen about all these issues, and he admitted to me that the church decided somewhere in 2012. I think it must have been in reaction to the Swedish Rescue and Marlin's many attempts to field calls and questions about these issues. Marlon Jensen told me, we've pretty much determined that once someone goes down the rabbit hole, you can't ever get them back.

John Dehlin [01:05:12] And that's why I don't think the essays were written with a sincere attempt to resolve questions, because I think they knew that wouldn't actually achieve anything. I think that the changes made with ces, with the church curriculum, with the essays, were meant to get rid of that original concern you had, which is feeling betrayed over trying to actually resolve the issues and saying, if we can bake minimal, heavily contextualized exposure to these issues and inoculate people in. In their youth and in their adulthood, then we have plausible deniability that we actually kept these things from people. But we're not going to do a sincere effort at educating and addressing the issues. Anyway. I just wanted to add that.

Ryan McKnight [01:06:04] Yeah, no, that makes sense. And I think the essays can work to possibly prevent some people from even going down the rabbit hole. It's like they look at the essays and they satisfy their initial needs and the rabbit hole is. Shut up. They kind of stop there.

John Dehlin [01:06:21] Summer writes, the essays were meant to Animal Farm the members. I think that's brilliant. Really quick. Lawanna writes, how do you reconcile your spiritual experiences? Now, just briefly, because we don't have time to go too much.

Ryan McKnight [01:06:37] Yeah, I mean, they're just life experiences that we all have. No matter what background we come from, what religion we come from, we all have powerful, independent, interpersonal experiences with people where we are overcome with strong emotions. And that's what happened. I was overcome in situations, in personal interactions with people, and I was overcome with a strong emotional connection. And I thought it was God or the Holy Ghost touching me. And really, it was just a natural thing that everybody. That happens to everybody, pure and simple.

John Dehlin [01:07:06] Yeah. Yeah.

Ryan McKnight [01:07:08] So.

Scott Fausett [01:07:10] So.

John Dehlin [01:07:10] So, yeah. Tell us where you're going next.

Ryan McKnight [01:07:12] Well, I just. Really quick, sort of completing sort of me leaving the church. So we said after this conversation with the mission president, we're like days away from moving. So I. And I. And I still wasn't 100% sure what I wanted to do, but I was pretty sure I was going to at least take a break from church. So I said, okay, when we go to this new ward that's in a new state.

Ryan McKnight [01:07:32] And I said, you know, I'll go to church with you. I'm telling my wife this, and I'll go to sacrament meeting and then I'll watch the boys in the hallway because my two youngest were not even nursery age yet, and I'll watch them in the hallway. You go to your classes. I said, I'm not going to talk to people about the church, but if anybody asks me, I am not a member anymore. That's the way I'm going to approach them.

Ryan McKnight [01:07:53] So this worked for like three weeks. And like the third or fourth weekend, somebody. I don't remember if it was like testimony or if it was just a talk, but some guys up talking about Joseph Smith and he starts talking about how Joseph Smith is one of the purest, most honest, best, whatever. Every superlative in the book. Every superlative in the book person to ever live. And I started. I got. For the first time in my life, I had like this panic attack. I started shaking.

Ryan McKnight [01:08:31] Hang on one second. Hey, boys, you guys need to go outside? Okay. Sorry, guys. I know this is live. Hey, what do you need?

John Dehlin [01:08:38] It's the little McKnights. It's good.

Ryan McKnight [01:08:41] Go downstairs.

John Dehlin [01:08:42] I'll mute you for a second.

Ryan McKnight [01:08:43] No, it's good. So I told my wife after I said, I can't do this anymore. I can't do this anymore. And I said, I'll stay home with the boys. If you want, have the. I'll have the house cleaned and food ready when you come home. And, you know, she was fine. She understood because it was bothering her, too. Not as much as me, but it was bothering her too. So she understood. And so I stopped going to church. The elders quorum president and the bishop came over a couple of times, but I was like, hey, if you guys want to come and do your home teaching with my wife, that's fine.

Ryan McKnight [01:09:19] He said, but I'm not a member. And they would do these, like, vague attempts to, like, explore why I left the church. But as soon as we got in the meat of it, you know, you could tell they didn't want to talk about it. And they stopped coming after, like, a couple of Months. And then my wife. So my wife and I were, you know, I was in this angry, bitter mode that we all go through, and I'm like, really wanting my wife to open her eyes. And it was causing, like, all these arguments because I was trying to, like, force this on her. And so finally we both took a step back and we said, okay.

Ryan McKnight [01:09:51] I said, we won't talk about church anymore. You do what you want to do. You want to go to church, you go to church. And she said, you don't want to go to church, you don't want to go to church. She's not going to bother me. I'm not going to bother her.

Ryan McKnight [01:10:01] And eventually that actually was the best thing that ever happened because she ended up studying herself out like, six months later, and now she doesn't believe at all anymore either. But, you know, that all led to me getting involved on Reddit, which we don't have to talk about it right now if you don't want to, But Reddit ended up being a place where I could go and just pour my mind out, my heart, my soul. Like, the stuff that I had nobody to talk to about. Like, I could just put it out there and not have, like, harsh judgments and get people's feedback and people who are going through the same thing. And that's how I got involved in Reddit. And Reddit played a huge part in me getting past my bidder stage.

John Dehlin [01:10:42] So you're talking about the ex Mormon Reddit subreddit.

Ryan McKnight [01:10:45] Right.

John Dehlin [01:10:45] On Reddit. And for the, for the listeners who don't know, you just go to Reddit R E D D I t dot com. Right. And then, and then if you search for ex Mormon. Right.

Ryan McKnight [01:11:01] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:11:01] You'll find the subreddit, which is Reddit.comr/ex Mormon. Right.

Ryan McKnight [01:11:10] The easiest thing to do is to just Google Ex Mormon Reddit and it'll be the first result. Yeah, that would be the easiest way to find it.

John Dehlin [01:11:17] Yeah. And as of now, there's 39,478 members.

Ryan McKnight [01:11:24] When I started on Reddit, on. On Ex Mormon, and I will say Probably October of 2013 is probably when I started on there, there was about eight or nine thousand people subscribe.

Online Mormon Communities and Engagement

John Dehlin [01:11:36] Yeah, yeah. And it's a, it's a. It's. It's becoming, I think, probably the most influential community in Mormonism because it's where information shared, it's where stories are promoted, it's where leaks are being shared. I go to it every day and spend lots of time there.

Scott Fausett [01:12:00] So.

John Dehlin [01:12:01] Okay, Ryan, let's pause. Scott, you ready to come back with us? Okay, I'm Scott here. So, Scott, if nine, let's just say nine years ago, you decide you can't live it anymore, talk as. Talk to us about how you, how your life progressed to the point where you were on Reddit. What, you know, what did your trajectory look like?

Scott Fausett [01:12:26] Okay, that's. Red is very interesting. Let me make one comment. It's actually on your Facebook page. Mormon stories, podcasts. Hector says, why can't people leave the church? Why can't people who leave the church just leave us alone? And his answer is, because for so many gay members and many ex Mormons, the teachings of the church are a matter of life and death. And that's very true. Now back.

John Dehlin [01:12:50] Thanks, Hector. Shout out to Hector. Thanks, Hector.

Scott Fausett [01:12:53] Back to your question. Reddit, honestly, no, like, no, like, I

John Dehlin [01:12:58] mean, 2009 years ago is like, is what, 2000, 2008, 2009.

Scott Fausett [01:13:05] Correct. Yep.

John Dehlin [01:13:07] So did, did you check out other things? Were you still connected to Mormonism in some way?

Scott Fausett [01:13:13] Did you take a break? Other things? I myself didn't go to church. I went to church. Church when, when my kids had things, when my granddaughter was blessed, things like that. But for myself, I didn't go to church. I just got a private message saying, take off your hat. We can't see your face.

John Dehlin [01:13:31] So, no, the hat's great, but do whatever you want. Take off my hat.

Scott Fausett [01:13:38] I didn't check out other things. So I attended. One of the things my kids said when I came out is. And again, this was, you know, 2008, is that the church teaches it's a choice. And so that's what we believe. But you're our dad, and we will respect your choices if you also respect our choices. And we ask that when you, when you have us every other weekend that you take us to sacral meeting, I said, okay, fine, I can do that. So for a couple years I did that. Then I stopped going to sacrament meeting with them, but I really didn't check out other things. And it really wasn't until I got involved with Mormon leaks that I was even on Reddit. They had to teach me what Reddit was and everything because I wasn't on it. I just.

John Dehlin [01:14:25] You were kind of disconnected from online Mormonism for the past nine years?

Scott Fausett [01:14:30] Yep, pretty much.

John Dehlin [01:14:31] You didn't listen to podcasts or.

Scott Fausett [01:14:33] I didn't, nope. I just lived my life as a gay man. I was involved, you know, in some of the things, especially with the November policy and then the master Resignations. But before that, I really just lived. I wasn't on any podcast, I didn't listen, I wasn't on any wow, you know, didn't look at Reddit, nothing. I just, I just left, stepped away. I wasn't anti. I wasn't looking to find that the church was not true. I just basically became inactive.

The November 2015 Policy Leak

John Dehlin [01:15:05] So was the, was the November 2015 policy announcement the first thing that kind of really got you engaged?

Scott Fausett [01:15:13] It was as far as the church, I was very engaged.

John Dehlin [01:15:20] Wait, say that again. You blanked out for a second, Scott. You were engaged in what?

Scott Fausett [01:15:25] Proposition 8. I followed that. I followed the Hawaii proposal. I followed same sex marriage throughout the country. Some of my good friends turned out to be some of the plaintiffs in the Supreme Court case of Brugefell versus Hodges. So I know them. I was there with them with Jim Obergefell, with the others at the oral arguments for the Supreme Court. I was with some of the plaintiffs when the decision was handed down by the Supreme Court. So I followed that and I. And so the church was involved a little bit with prop. You know, with me being involved with following Prop 8. But other than that, I really didn't follow what the Church was doing until the November policy. And that lit my fire.

John Dehlin [01:16:13] Okay, and that's when you, you got involved in speaking out to the local media in Salt Lake City.

Scott Fausett [01:16:18] Exactly.

John Dehlin [01:16:19] Okay, okay. All right, good. So, and from then to actually hearing about Mormon leaks, was there some path or trajectory? When did you first hear about Mormon leaks? And then we're going to have Ryan talk about its founding.

Scott Fausett [01:16:37] Okay, really quick. You know, I knew that, Ryan, you were instrumental in leaking the November 2015 policy, then I really, you know, kind of left it until the October 2016 videos were leaked. And what really got me lit up was the video about WikiLeaks and the 12 apostles asking, you know, if WikiLeaks or another associated group could be a threat to the church. And then what really got me going was where Elder Oaks, all he focused on was, well, is he a confirmed homosexual? You know, that was his question. It wasn't about the other things. It was, is he a confirmed homosexual? And I just couldn't understand why that bothered them so much. What does it matter? And so I host a radio show, co host a radio show in Salt Lake, and we asked Ryan to be a guest on that. And that's how I got involved.

John Dehlin [01:17:38] What's that? What's the radio show?

Scott Fausett [01:17:40] It's, It's Middle Grounders AM860 radio. It's actually A conservative talk radio station. But our Middle grounders, we talk about all topics and we had Ryan on as a guest right after.

John Dehlin [01:17:54] Who's we? Who's your co host?

Scott Fausett [01:17:56] My co host is Tyson Hobert.

John Dehlin [01:17:58] Tyson? Yeah.

Scott Fausett [01:17:59] Okay, absolutely. You know Tyson. So he and I do that show Saturday and Sunday mornings. It's rebroadcast on Sunday. And so when we had Ryan on as a guest right after he leaked the videos, that's really what got me involved in Mormon Lakes. And after that. But I'll let Ryan talk more about that.

John Dehlin [01:18:18] Okay, so really quick, how long have you been doing Middle Grounders?

Scott Fausett [01:18:23] Over a year. And I was invited as that started with me being a guest on Middle Grounders. And then Tyson asked me to be a co host with.

John Dehlin [01:18:31] And again, Middle Grounders is what it talks about, what it's focused.

Scott Fausett [01:18:35] We talk about everything. There's no topics that we don't talk about. So we talk about. We've actually had Noone Noah as a guest.

John Dehlin [01:18:43] But is it a Mormon themed podcast?

Scott Fausett [01:18:45] It is not. It's just everything political. We talk about Utah politics, we talk about national politics, we talk about Trump, we talked about Hillary Clinton.

John Dehlin [01:18:54] And is it once a week?

Scott Fausett [01:18:56] It's once a week, Saturdays from 10 to 11 Utah time. And then it's rebroadcast on Sundays and

John Dehlin [01:19:01] it's on what station? AM?

Scott Fausett [01:19:03] AM860.

John Dehlin [01:19:04] Okay, cool. All right. Shout out to Tyson.

Scott Fausett [01:19:07] And one of the things we talked about is Utah teen suicide rate. That was a big one. So. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:19:11] Okay.

Scott Fausett [01:19:11] Talk about all things really quick.

John Dehlin [01:19:13] What is it about? What do you, first of all, what was that like to. To have to be watching a video where, you know, the leaders of the Mormon Church, the top leaders, First Presidency, Quorum of the 12, they're sitting there talking about this threat of, you know, transparency where people are creating these WikiLeak leak sites to promote transparency. And then to have the question be asked, you know, are the people involved confirmed homosexuals? First of all, what was that like for you, Scott, to hear that? And then what do you think that's about?

Scott Fausett [01:19:58] It was very offensive to me. Very offensive. And immediately.

John Dehlin [01:20:02] Why? Why is it offensive?

Scott Fausett [01:20:05] Number one? Honestly, because they can't use the word gay. So that's one interesting thing that I had a problem with. But it's offensive that that's what they focus on.

John Dehlin [01:20:13] The question, what's offensive about the term concern confirmed homosexual. What's offensive about that?

Scott Fausett [01:20:20] I think it goes to me that the church can't use the word gay. They, they say same sex Attraction, Confirmed homosexual. Why can't they just say someone's gay? You know, and maybe that's just me, but, you know, it goes back to, like I said, same sex attraction. No, I'm gay. I don't have same sex attraction.

John Dehlin [01:20:39] And what is the word, what does the word confirmed mean?

Scott Fausett [01:20:43] You know, I don't know, but one of the things that we joke about is being a confirmed homosexual. And if that includes the laying out of hands, but that's a whole, that's a whole different thing.

John Dehlin [01:20:54] But like, does that mean that they have spies that are going to make sure that when they copulate that they have video footage of the copulation? Like, I think, what does it mean to confirm someone's a homosexual?

Scott Fausett [01:21:06] I think it's a priesthood ordinance. But let's.

Ryan McKnight [01:21:13] If our text chats behind the scenes at Mormon Leagues were to ever get out. Yeah, there's a lot of jokes about being a confirmed homosexual. A lot.

John Dehlin [01:21:23] It just feels so backwards, you know, to say confirmed homosexual.

Scott Fausett [01:21:28] It doesn't. And once that came out, and once, you know, Ryan and the Mormon links team got me on Reddit, that's the Reddit name that I used, and I picked that basically of it. You know, I'm proud that they took it, I think derogatory, but I'm proud to be a confirmed homosexual. And, you know, that's, that's my Reddit handle now. That's what I go by. And everyone, even on Mormon lakes, we talk about, you know, me being the confirmed homosexual and things like that. So, you know, to me, it's an honor. I don't think that's what they were taking it, but it was very offensive to me that Elder Oaks wasn't even concerned in my mind about the topic at hand, which was, is WikiLeaks or other leak groups like that a threat to the, to the church?

John Dehlin [01:22:15] Or how about something deeper? And I'm hearing a clicking sound on your end, Scott, if your hands are doing something that's causing clicking. But how about something deeper, which is him concerned about whether the Church needs to be more transparent about their information. Right. He's not concerned about that. He's not concerned about WikiLeaks and whistleblowers. He's concerned about the gays.

Scott Fausett [01:22:40] Right, exactly. And it brings back the point of why are the 12 apostles obsessed about gays? I don't understand it.

John Dehlin [01:22:49] I mean, because there's child molesters, there's pyramid schemes, financial fraud, there's sex trafficking, there's gambling, there's drug, you know, illegal drug use. Like, there's a billion things.

Ryan McKnight [01:23:02] There's suicide.

John Dehlin [01:23:03] Yeah. Mental health problems.

Scott Fausett [01:23:05] Right.

John Dehlin [01:23:06] There's a adultery. Like, there's a million things you could focus on. Right.

Scott Fausett [01:23:11] I think the 12 apostles are more obsessed about gay sex than the gays are.

John Dehlin [01:23:16] Yeah. Yeah. It's weird. Okay. All right, Scott, we're going to go back to Ryan now. So, Ryan, and actually, this is going to sort of represent part one of my Mormon stories interview, because it sort of takes us up until the point where, Ryan, you kind of start WikiLeaks. So I'm just gonna say thanks to you guys for being a part of part one.

John Dehlin [01:23:40] Ryan, your story was really moving to me. I sense a lot of sincerity. I sense a lot of conviction. I sense that you were a real true believer until you weren't. And all that speaks to your character, to me, and credibility. And Scott, I just have to say those, those five or ten minutes where you were telling your story, we're 700 plus hours into Mormon stories, and that's some of those powerful stuff I've ever heard on Mormon stories. So, Scott, this was a precious gem, this first hour, hour and a half, and I want to thank all of our listeners for tuning in. So.

How MormonLeaks Was Founded

Part 2 of 2 · Ep. 710

Ryan McKnight [00:00:00] Sa.

Scott Fausett [00:00:29] So with that, then, we're going to go ahead and start part two of this podcast, which is where, Ryan, you talked to us a bit about the founding of WikiLeaks and what went on to make that start.

Ryan McKnight [00:00:42] All right, so a long, long time ago in a far away place, now it all really, everybody always asks me, how did you get involved in leaking stuff and why did you fell in ass backwards into this? And it started back in November of 2015 when I was in a private Facebook group that was mostly made up of very right wing orthodox members that love to talk about how John Dehlin and Kate Kelly are the devils.

Ryan McKnight [00:01:16] It was this type of a group and there was a couple of us ex Mormons in the group and they knew we were ex Mormon and we were kind of their honorary whipping boys and we would kind of rile them up a little bit with some contrarian posts and comments.

Ryan McKnight [00:01:31] And so one of the ex Mormons on the group, or I don't even really, I don't even know if it would be fair to call him an ex Mormon because I actually think he was attending church at the time and I'll say his name in a minute, but he was definitely a doubter or somebody who didn't agree he wasn't a lockstep orthodox member.

Ryan McKnight [00:01:51] And he made a post of something about how he's being told that there's a new policy out there. And I really didn't believe it. Right. I was somewhat skeptical. I'm thinking, you know, maybe that something's getting lost in translation here. Something's being misunderstood. So I copied and pasted the verbiage that he posted and I put it on Reddit and I put it on the Mormon Stories Facebook group. And I simply said, I'm being told that this policy is out there. Can anybody confirm A little did I know I had stumbled across this big brand new policy.

Ryan McKnight [00:02:29] It blew up in both places. And you and I had a little back and forth and private message about who the source was. And I told you who it was and I think I sent you a screenshot with his name and I believe you contacted him after that. And basically my involvement at that point was over.

Ryan McKnight [00:02:44] You were able to get whatever it is you got. You took it to kutv, KUTV published it. Then it went to the, you know, Salt Lake Tribune, all the way up to the New York Times. Now this guy, his name is Aaron Brown at the time, wanted to stay somewhat anonymous, like he didn't want his name all over the place. So I think he declined an interview when you told him that the local news would interview him or whatever.

Ryan McKnight [00:03:09] And because I didn't really care about maintaining anonymity. You went, you went and posted on Reddit and said that I was your source because I was the farthest back that was willing to sort of, you know, put my name to it.

Ryan McKnight [00:03:24] And, and it kind of blew up there. And everybody, you know, I got kind of ident. I got dubbed kind of like the leaker. And, you know, I mean, I played a role in leaking it and I was. And I kind of told the story about how somebody posted it on the, the, you know, this private Facebook group, etc, etc. Now he, he has since come out and put his name to it and he wrote a blog about the experience or whatever. I think it was back maybe August that he did this. I'm guessing somewhere around there. And his name's Aaron Brown. People can find him on Facebook.

Ryan McKnight [00:03:53] He's. He's a pretty witty guy, puts a lot of funny stuff on Facebook. So he's worth. He's worth looking up and following the stuff he posts. But.

Scott Fausett [00:04:02] So anyway, Aaron made a really good point that neither John de Lynn nor Ryan McKnight are the leakers. That the church sent this policy out, as I understand it, to tens of thousands of branch presidents, bishops, bishopric members, stake presidency people, high counselors. So when the church shares a policy with tens of thousands of people electronically, they're disseminating the information, right?

Ryan McKnight [00:04:27] Yeah. And even though they. I don't think they really wanted to make a press release about it, it would have gotten out. I mean, I just happened to be in the right place at the right time, that I was the first person to, like, put it to a wide audience. But if it hadn't have been me, it's not like this thing would have stayed secret.

Ryan McKnight [00:04:44] It would have gotten out and probably the same day. It just so happens that, you know, I was the first person to put it on Reddit and Mormon stories. So, you know, that was fate. Fate would have that to happen, I guess. But what at what happened was, is my. Now my name was not in any, really any of the news reports because I wasn't dealing with the media. Now the, the local news here in Las Vegas interviewed me about it, but that was pretty much it. And, but people who were following closely, especially like on Reddit, knew that I was involved. And so there were, you know, I was referred to as sort of, you know, the leaker.

Ryan McKnight [00:05:20] Now I would get contacted after this maybe like once a month. Or so on average by somebody who was either claiming to be a current employee or a former employee, whatever. Oh, I've got this, that we, that I want to leave. And every once in a while they'd have something that I'd put out there, nothing that was newsworthy. And most of the time what they would tell me were things that either were not as interesting as they thought it was or it was interesting but they had no proof of what they were saying. It was like a story that they wanted me to retell and I wasn't

John Dehlin [00:05:49] going to do that.

Ryan McKnight [00:05:50] So fast forward to October. Somebody contacts me and says, hey, I've got these 15 videos that I've been sitting on for years and been looking for a way to get, get them out there without it being connected to me. Do you want to help me? I said, sure, I'll put a YouTube video up.

Ryan McKnight [00:06:08] It was conference weekend. They wanted to try to get them out before the Sunday morning session. They sent them to me late Saturday before Sunday morning session. So I put everything up on YouTube. I didn't even watch all the videos because I didn't have time.

Ryan McKnight [00:06:22] Watched some of the shorter ones. I watched the WikiLeaks one. I watched the one about marijuana and all. Basically I watched all like the 10 minute videos and I knew that they were interesting. You know, I thought maybe they would get like a small mention in maybe the online version of the Tribune. I thought that would be like the extent of it.

Ryan McKnight [00:06:43] Mainly this is because I hadn't seen the Gordon Smith video, which I think was really without the Gordon Smith video. I'm not sure that this, these videos blow up the way they did even with the WikiLeaks one.

Scott Fausett [00:06:53] And describe that one really quick.

Ryan McKnight [00:06:56] So basically Gordon Smith was a senator from Oregon and at the time of this video he had just left office. So this was kind of like a debriefing. So he's coming and having one final hurrah with these guys and sort of reminiscing his time in office as a senator from Oregon. And he says some things in there that are varying degrees of disturbing depending on your point of view. But basically I think the biggest takeaway from it is that his office, his staff, did not do anything without the direction of the church. And on one hand, if he'd been.

Scott Fausett [00:07:33] Not just that, but he said basically that he voted for the Iraq war because he felt like it would crack open the country to then make it more easy for Mormon missionaries to go spread the gospel in Iraq.

Ryan McKnight [00:07:50] Yeah. And even for supporters of The Middle east, even for the supporters of the Iraq war, that should bother them. Okay, I'm personally, I mean, I'm more of a supporter than. I'm not a supporter of that war. And at the time I was a supporter. And had I known that, I would have not been on board with that. That is not a reason, no matter what your political or ideological affiliations are, that is not a reason to go to war.

Ryan McKnight [00:08:17] And so that was one of the things. And I think he also said something like his temple recommend is more important to him than his election certificate or something like that. But here's one of the biggest things that I took away from it is if he had been a senator from Utah, I don't think this would have been a big deal because his constituents would have been mostly Mormon. You could argue that their wants and needs are going to be mostly in line with the church's wants and needs. And the church is simply acting as a lobbyist group. And while you might disagree with the positions they're lobbying for, you know, it's not completely out of line with the constituents of the senator.

Ryan McKnight [00:08:52] In this case, though, we have a senator from Oregon. Now, I don't know what the membership stats are in Oregon, but I'm guessing it's way less than 1% of his constituents are active Mormons, is my guess. And here he is taking marching orders. According to him, this is not conjecture, this is not inference. This is according to him from the Mormon Church. And I think that is what I mean. That was the basis for the eventual article in the New York Times. And of course they talked about the videos in general, but their main focus was about this video and a lot of the news articles that came out of this and a lot of the interviews that I did, the Gordon Smith video was the impetus of the interest that was out there.

Ryan McKnight [00:09:37] And then this just blew up all over. I mean, I was getting calls. I gave interviews to people in Europe, some, some random magazine in Italy did an interview that they printed it in Italian. I can't even read it.

Ryan McKnight [00:09:56] There was all kinds of just. I got interviewed, like I don't even know how many. I lost count. So I just couldn't even believe it. And because my name was now in the news, unlike with the November policy, I was really sort of a behind the scenes guy.

Ryan McKnight [00:10:15] I got bombarded with people contacting me now 20 or 30. Within two weeks I had 20 or 30 people claiming to have stuff. And some of them actually did send me some things and I released them. For example, One thing I can remember that I definitely released after the videos, but before the website was the price list, the average price list for the interior decorations of the temple around the world, which had some interesting tidbits in it. So that was an example of things people were sending me. And I had people that were telling me about stuff that they had. But I could tell that my inability to guarantee their anonymity was a stumbling block.

Ryan McKnight [00:10:53] And it wasn't that they didn't trust me, it was that they didn't trust the technology. You know, they're worried what happens if our communication is compromised and somebody's able to figure out who sent the information. So I said, you know, I had already been thinking about putting up a website, but now I was like, okay, I need a website. I need a website where people can anonymously put stuff out there. Now, I had no idea how to do that. I am not a computer guy at all. I know how to point and click.

Ryan McKnight [00:11:25] And so I put out a call on Reddit for people with expertise in this. And I got like between 20 and 30 people contacted me claiming to have the ability to do what I needed done. And I vetted several of them. I didn't vet everybody that contacted me, but the ones that piqued my interest with their credentials I would vet. I kind of vetted them, I considered them, and ultimately I decided on somebody who goes by the name of Privacy P. Pratt. I do know his real identity.

Ryan McKnight [00:11:57] There's reasons why he can't reveal his identity that are not directly related to Mormon leaks, indirectly related to Mormon leaks. And I hope that that changes one day. And he does look forward to the day where he can come out of the shadows and say who he really is. But I really got lucky with him. He's got a very impressive background in the world of cyber security.

Ryan McKnight [00:12:19] And he was able to create this website using a tool, an open source tool called SecureDrop. And he was able to customize it to our needs. This is the same tool that is used by a lot of the big news organizations. I believe the Washington Post uses SecureDrop and several of the other big publications for when they're dealing with leaks. So this is a reputable tool that gets used. And he set this up and we were, at first it was just me and him, right? And we were working on this website and it was kind of slow going. We did have another guy who also had a really robust cyber security background.

Ryan McKnight [00:12:58] And, and, but he didn't have time to like, do a lot of hands on work. So he was serving more as like a consultant. So when privacy would kind of hit a roadblock and, you know, maybe need to do some troubleshooting, he would bounce ideas off of this guy and they would sort of figure the solution out together, right?

Ryan McKnight [00:13:19] And then, you know, we're chugging along, chugging along, and we're like. We think we're like a week or two away from launching the website or so. And Scott and I were talking and I think I had announced that the website was coming soon. Or maybe I called him or he saw something online, I don't remember exactly, but he called me because we were going to do another show. Like I was going to go on his show and talk about it. And we started talking and we had talked before about, you know, the videos and all this stuff. And the more we talked, we kind of realized that maybe he and I were a good fit to have him be more involved in this project.

Ryan McKnight [00:14:00] Okay. So I brought him on and you know, he basically serves as, you know, I guess, like, technically like the vice president or what call it, but. But really like on a functional base. On a functional basis, he is.

Ryan McKnight [00:14:15] His main responsibility is social media. Cause he's really good at that and I'm not. So I do have the ability to post on Twitter and Facebook, on our Facebook page. But 99% of the time when you see a post on those platforms, he's the one making the post.

Ryan McKnight [00:14:32] And then of course, he's also involved in the decision making of everything that we do. So we have me and him serve officially on the board of directors of the nonprofit organization. And then we have two special advisors that are part of the discussion and decision making. And one of them is privacy, and the other one is somebody who is completely anonymous who, you know, kind of helps us out with some PR ideas and things like that. And so the four of us together, we kind of collaborate, bang our heads together when it comes to, you know, decision making and all this stuff. And I mean, I kind of reserve the right to like, veto anything and sort of have the last say.

Ryan McKnight [00:15:12] But I always try to incorporate their vision and everything because I want this to be a team project. I don't want it to be like, really just me. My main responsibilities are to ideal one on one with the leakers.

Ryan McKnight [00:15:29] And I don't tell Scott who the leakers are. He sees the documents after they're cleaned and everything, you know, so he stays in the dark on that and cleans.

Scott Fausett [00:15:42] Who cleans the documents.

Ryan McKnight [00:15:44] I don't want to get into that. Whole. Okay, we have. We have a problem.

How Documents Are Verified and Published

Scott Fausett [00:15:46] There's a process for cleaning the documents.

Ryan McKnight [00:15:48] Yeah. And Scott is not involved in that. And that's by, you know, by design. And the. What was I gonna say when you

Scott Fausett [00:15:59] say cleaning the documents? Cleaning them from what?

Ryan McKnight [00:16:02] We just want to make sure that there's no metadata embedded in the document that could lead back to who sent it to us. And sometimes there is. So, for example, that PowerPoint, the infamous bubble. PowerPoint, the metadata contained the person's name who sent it to us.

Ryan McKnight [00:16:26] So, you know, we have to get rid of that stuff. And so there's a process for that. And then. Yeah, so my main responsibilities are to handle leakers. And then I'm sort of the point of contact for the media. I'm sort of the public face of Mormon leaks. And then, of course, when appropriate, you know, Scott. And privacy have given interviews before, you know, when it relates. So it's not like I'm not like the only person that talks to the media, but all the media stuff comes through me. And then.

Ryan McKnight [00:16:58] And. But we all. When it comes to, like, the decisions of, okay, what's our leak package going to be next week? Or, you know, how are we going to. What's this message that we want to put out there? You know, we're making all those decisions together.

Scott Fausett [00:17:13] Got it. Real quick, just speak directly. Ryan and Scott, I'm going to bring you on in just a second. But Ryan, speak directly to what your motivations were and weren't behind creating Wiki Mormon leaks.

Ryan McKnight [00:17:27] Yeah, well, I mean, you know, when it comes to the November policy part of it, you know, I mean, I would. I didn't, like, ask to be involved in that. So I was getting contacted by people, not because I was, like, seeking it out or anything, but when I got the videos, I was just kind of like, somebody contacts me, they contact me. Okay, what do you got? What do you know? I'll listen to you. But when the videos blew up and I got bombarded with all these people, I got to a crossroads where I had to either piss or get off the pot. I had to either go all in or all out.

Ryan McKnight [00:17:57] And I couldn't do, like, a half thing. And I. I've always. My whole life, even as a believing member, I've been passionate about accountability, transparency. It has something to do with my personal job that I work in. I'm involved in that. And it's always been something I've been passionate about. And I didn't realize until after I left the church how. How much the church fell short in that regard. I never really looked into it in terms of the church, but obviously after I left the church, I realized that the church really fell short of their ethical responsibilities, and that's important. It's not that they have a legal responsibility, but I, and all of us at Mormon Leagues, we maintain strongly that the church has an ethical responsibility to be open and transparent about their finances and about their corporate policies and procedures.

Ryan McKnight [00:18:46] And that does not have to be a bad thing, and it is not a bad thing. Because of my passion for that, and because I felt like I had fallen into this position where I could maybe do something worthwhile, I decided to go all in and create the website. And I would just say, like, on the point of whether or not we're trying to bring down the church or hurt the church, every single leak that we have had so far can easily be seen in a. Both a negative and a positive light. We have not leaked anything that is like this. You have to stop supporting the church because of this information.

Ryan McKnight [00:19:21] And we don't even really want it to be like that. We want, hey, if this reinforces your testimony or it doesn't affect your testimony, great. If it. If you have a negative take on it, great. Whatever it is, the point is, is that you. It's information that you deserve to know. And then whatever happens after that, that's fine. You want to continue supporting the church or you want to support it even more? More power to you. I don't begrudge that at all.

Scott Fausett [00:19:48] Got it. Okay. At this point, I want to ask our Facebook Live and Zoom listeners to start posting questions that you want me to ask Ryan and Scott. So I'll offer that now, Scott, let's bring you in. Talk a bit about your. If there's anything you want to add about your role with Mormon Leagues, please add it. And if there's anything you want to add about your motivations for being a part of it, add that too.

John Dehlin [00:20:13] Okay. I think Ryan did a pretty good job of handling that, but kind of like he fell into Mormon leagues kind of accidentally. I also did. He was on our show. We interviewed him. But then, as Ryan says, in talking, you know, he mentioned a few things, and I went out and gobbled up some web addresses. I didn't ask him. I just went and did those so no one else would take them. I took a bunch of things that we had talked about, and I went and acquired web addresses.

Scott Fausett [00:20:48] Are you pretty web savvy? Are you comfortable talking about your day job? And does it relate to web stuff.

John Dehlin [00:20:54] It does not relate to web stuff. I'm an entrepreneur, so I own a promotional marketing distribution company, but it doesn't relate at all to web stuff. So I'm a little bit, you know, I'm web savvy. So I acquired those, applied for a registered trademark, and those are the things that I did. And then I let Ryan know that I did so that no one else would have those domain names. And just that conversation that he and I had, that's when he said, you know, hey, you know, let's. Let's form this together.

John Dehlin [00:21:28] And he brought me on as an official capacity. But Ryan, as he said, Ryan, is the face of Mormon leaks. This, you know, this started out as his baby. And whether it be accidental or not, as far as the reason behind it, you know, all we want, Ryan and I and everyone else involved, all we want is more transparency. The church, you know, there's no hidden agenda besides transparency. You know, maybe, you know, my desire for transparency comes from the November 2015 policy about children with gay parents, as well as the leaked video where Elder Oaks, you know, jokes about, is he a confirmed homosexual?

John Dehlin [00:22:14] That may be by reasoning that I want more transparency, but the ultimate goal and decision is more transparency. That's what it's all about. And, you know, I noticed that one of the. The people on the chat ask a question if there's a specific, you know, document that we're looking for. No, we don't. We don't look for documents.

John Dehlin [00:22:37] We are there as a avenue for anyone who feels that they want to release documents anonymously. We're not asking people for any type of a document. We never will. That's not our goal. We are just to provide an avenue for people who feel that they want to release documents anonymously.

Scott Fausett [00:22:58] Got it. And so you're. Somebody could say to both of you, come on, guys, you could talk about transparency. But really the net effect is just a bunch of stuff that makes the church look bad. And in that, since you're just damaging the church, Scott, you first. What would you say to that? And then, Ryan, you respond, I disagree. I mean, because, Scott, you definitely feel damaged and even angry at the church. So, I mean, it goes.

John Dehlin [00:23:28] I do feel damaged. But, you know, we've released documents that actually make some of the documents make the church look good, how they handled immigration. So we just want transparency, whether it be good or bad. We're not out to make the church look bad. Anyone who says that, I disagree. Now, if some of the documents that we do release, if the public decides that they make the church look bad. That's, that's the public deciding that we will release documents that we have vetted and that we feel comfortable that they're valid documents. Whether it makes the church look good or bad, things about temples, things about membership, things about immigration, anything like that. It's not about making the church look bad.

Scott Fausett [00:24:13] One thing I'll say for sure is when you release the information about the stipend and the compensation of general authorities, I think a lot of us thought that they were getting paid 2, $300,000 a year. And what was the amount that you guys released?

Ryan McKnight [00:24:29] Well, I think in 2011, the base living stipend was 120,000. People should understand though, that they are getting more money. We just can't prove it yet. But that's, that's their base.

Scott Fausett [00:24:43] Okay. That's the starting. The starting base.

Ryan McKnight [00:24:46] Yes.

Scott Fausett [00:24:46] Yeah. But even so, that's maybe less than a lot of people thought.

Ryan McKnight [00:24:50] Yeah, I mean, especially when you looked at they're running a multi billion dollar corporation. And I think one of the things I've mentioned before in other interviews, to be honest with you, like, I don't even care about the money. Like, to me, it doesn't even matter if you think it's too much or too little. Like, it doesn't even. It really doesn't matter. The biggest issue that anybody could really have with the money is the fact that they were so diligent in harping on like modest. The term modest stipend. Right. And if they were to just come out and say, oh, general authorities, they work their butts off and they have all this responsibility and they received something in the neighborhood of X number of dollars and it was fairly accurate.

Ryan McKnight [00:25:29] I don't think anybody would even bat an eye at it. It's more about the fact that they say modest stipend. Modest stipend. Modest stipend. You know, and I grew up believing that their basic living expenses were covered and that was it. Anything beyond that was out of pocket to them. And so that's, that's like, if there is an issue with the pay stubs, that's what the issue is.

Scott Fausett [00:25:52] Yeah. So same question to you, Ryan. You feel like the church misled you? You know, you admitted yourself you were angry. You can talk about transparency all you want and that you're not trying to bring the church down, but I think it's a fair accusation to make that, yeah, blah, blah, blah, transparency. You want to hurt the church.

Ryan McKnight [00:26:15] Yeah, it's a fair criticism. And I'll answer your question. I would say, though, I believe the criticism becomes unfair when, when a person wholesale discards my explanation without even giving it any opportunity to be believed. But my explanation to it is that while I, Ryan McKnight, am a critic of the church and I don't see the church as being for the most part a worthwhile organization, I do not care if people want to be Mormon. And the only thing that I care about in the context of this website, that the church meets their ethical responsibilities. Now, if somebody says, well, everything you've released, it seems to be negative and everybody is all, you know, harping on the negative.

Ryan McKnight [00:27:01] Again, like Scott said, like, we have no control of that. I don't know what people are going to send me. And it stands to reason that most of the time people are going to send things that they, they're up, they're upset by and that's why they want to send it to me. If it was something positive, they might, I mean, they might send it to me, but also they wouldn't really, they probably wouldn't need to stay anonymous. And if it was positive, the church is probably releasing it. So I'm not saying that we'll never get anything positive. And like Scott said, we've received the immigration memo, which was largely positive.

Ryan McKnight [00:27:34] I mean, I think the only people that would say it wasn't would be the ultra right wing active members. But the, we get what we get. And if it's negative, if there's a negative effect, that's not our problem. So that's what I would respond. As far as all this stuff is negative, that's not our problem. It is what it is.

John Dehlin [00:27:58] One thing that people need to remember, it's not like we have access to the church's filing cabinets and we're choosing what to release. As Ryan says, we release what we get. Now, obviously we don't release everything because we vet it and things like that, but we release what we get.

Ryan McKnight [00:28:17] Yeah, I mean, the only thing that we've really made a conscious decision not to release at this point were some documents that we received that were just of a very personal nature and had of the apostles. And they just had no direct connection to the church. And so we just didn't see the value of that type of invasion of privacy with these particular documents. So we didn't release them. And they're probably, you know, there are some things that probably ex Mormons would like to see, but again, it's not, they were not directly tied to the church or their Service as an apostle. Really?

Scott Fausett [00:28:51] Right.

Ryan McKnight [00:28:52] So.

Most Significant Documents Released So Far

Scott Fausett [00:28:53] So for those who have not been in touch with Mormon leaks yet, maybe list five or ten, just sentence after sentence of the most important documents that have been released so far.

Ryan McKnight [00:29:06] Well, I mean, that's a matter of opinion because sometimes the ones that I think are the most interesting got the least.

Scott Fausett [00:29:11] Do your list and do your list and Scott can do his.

Ryan McKnight [00:29:15] Obviously the pay stubs are probably at the top of the list. I mean, those. It's my understanding that it's never been disclosed before anything definitive about what they make.

Scott Fausett [00:29:23] And what were the. Real quickly, what were the pay stubs?

Ryan McKnight [00:29:26] So there were two documents, two main documents. One of them were actual pay stubs from Henry B. Eyring from the late 90s, early 2000s. The second document was memo informing a member of the first quorum of the 70 about the cost of living adjustment that he was going to receive from 2010, going into 2011. And that's the one that says that his base pay is going to be $120,000. I mean, those are obvious. Those obviously were huge from a interest standpoint, I think.

Scott Fausett [00:30:02] What was eye ring making back in

Ryan McKnight [00:30:05] late 90s, 2000 on these pay stubs? It was something like 90,000 a year, I want to say. So from back then up to 2012, 11, it went up to 120.

Scott Fausett [00:30:14] Are we to believe that an apostle, a member of the First Presidency, was only making $90,000?

Ryan McKnight [00:30:20] Well, they weren't. Listen, I know for a fact that they get other money. I unfortunately cannot prove it right now, but they, at a minimum, okay, they are getting. For example, I've got multiple sources that have confirmed this to me, but unfortunately I don't have any documentation on yet. But multiple independent sources have told me this there is for the 12 apostles is not for the 70. They each have a slush fund of $50,000 that gets renewed that another 50,000 gets put into this every year for each apostle. And what it's used for is.

Ryan McKnight [00:30:55] And it's run through the facilities department at the church office building. And this $50,000 goes for any repairs or remodeling that the apostles want to do on any of their homes. Okay, so something breaks in their home, they call the facilities facilities, goes out and fixes it, replaces it. They've remodeled kit, they remodeled kitchens, they remodeled old rooms with this money. And what they don't use, if an apostle doesn't use all of the funds in a year, it goes into a general slush fund that they can use if a Particular apostle goes over the 50,000 in a year. Okay, now I can't prove that. I've got two sources that have no connection to each other that have both told me this exact same thing to a T.

Ryan McKnight [00:31:45] What one day. May I? Maybe I'll give some information. My point is, is that the 120,000 is the base amount and should and should. It is not all what they get. Now how high does it go? I guess we don't know. Okay, I guess we don't know.

Scott Fausett [00:32:00] But I mean, they could have rental cars. They could. Oh, well, that's.

Ryan McKnight [00:32:04] Oh, that's another thing. They get at least the 12 apostles. I don't know about the 70. They get a brand new Toyota. I can't remember if they said it was a. I can't remember what model they said it was, but. Or maybe they get to choose the model. But they all get a brand new car every year.

Ryan McKnight [00:32:20] The church leases them a brand new car every year. Now maybe some of them can decline it. One of my sources told me that some of the apostles are very frugal and they identified Gordon B. Hinckley and Richard G. Scott in particular as being very frugal and as being guys that never used these funds to more than what they absolutely needed to.

Ryan McKnight [00:32:44] They. So, you know, but then there's other ones that I've been told, you know, that they're, you know, remodel their kitchens and, you know, they, you know, do all kinds of stuff like that, you know, with these funds.

Scott Fausett [00:32:55] And we heard the rumor from Grant Palmer that. That they get a million dollars when they become.

Ryan McKnight [00:33:00] Unfortunately, and I don't necessarily doubt it, unfortunately, I have not gotten any definitive information on that. But.

Scott Fausett [00:33:07] Okay.

Ryan McKnight [00:33:08] Yeah, so.

Scott Fausett [00:33:09] Right. Tell us a few more of what you think the most significant documents are.

Ryan McKnight [00:33:14] So my personal favorite is the memo from the 70s from the First Presidency signed by the Secretary of the First Presidency, saying that they never sanctioned, basically that they disavow Hugh Nibley's work on the papyri. And I thought that was pretty significant because I know a lot of people, especially like baby boomer age people. And I'm sorry, my son is now showing off for every.

Scott Fausett [00:33:40] No, we love it.

Ryan McKnight [00:33:41] Don't worry about it.

Scott Fausett [00:33:42] Don't worry about it. It's great.

Ryan McKnight [00:33:43] A lot of baby boom age people that hang their hat on the work that Hugh Nibley did on the papyri. And I thought it was significant. It didn't get a lot of play online. Got a little play, but not as much as I thought that Was a big one, I thought. And then, of course, the bubble PowerPoint one was big. Talk about that.

Scott Fausett [00:34:03] Talk about that really quick.

Ryan McKnight [00:34:05] Yeah. So, you know, it was a. It's been characterized as an enemy's list, although that's a little bit of hyperbole and editor editorializing on the part of ex Mormons. Really, it was just a list of issues that they had identified as causing people to leave the church. And we did a podcast episode about it a couple weeks ago. Your name was on it. And it led to the church sending us a takedown notice, which was the first communication we had had with the church up to that point.

Ryan McKnight [00:34:33] And, yeah, I mean, that was definitely. Those three, for me, are the biggest. I mean, the other ones, nothing really kind of sticks out to me. I mean, they're definitely interesting ones, but one of my favorite ones, too, is a little more lighthearted. There was a memo from Boyd Packer that he wrote in 2000 to the mission presidents and the area authorities telling them that they should inform the missionaries and their families that calls home should be kept to a minimum couple minutes. And the reason was because.

Scott Fausett [00:35:04] Maximum couple minutes.

Ryan McKnight [00:35:06] Yeah, yeah. And he didn't like, say, three or four. He just said a couple of minutes. And he said the reason was because he found these calls to be distracting to the work. But then he goes on in the memo to say that they should tell the missionaries and the families that it's because they want to keep the costs down for them on the call. Because this is back before, you know, you could call on Skype and all this, you had to, like, get a calling card or whatever. So that was interesting. And a lot of people found that interesting just because it. It kind of matched a lot of the personality traits people know of Boyd K. Packer of being really hard liner and whatnot. But, you know, other than that, I don't really have any of the leaks that really sort of stick out to me.

Scott Fausett [00:35:43] Okay, Scott, what are. What are some of the leaks that you think are most important that Ryan either did or didn't mention?

John Dehlin [00:35:51] I don't know about most important, but some of the ones that stick out to me are the information of mission presidents. What they basically get. Get reimbursed for all the free things that they get, which includes Christmas and birthday gifts. They have basically a Costco card, things like that, which rumor has it that the apostles also have an unlimited Costco card and unlimited credit card. But that was one of the favorites, I think, for me was. Was what the mission presidents get. And as well, as today's leak about the church's involvement, their grassroots effort of Prop 8, which shows on some of those slides, you know, that it comes from the top.

John Dehlin [00:36:35] It's. I don't know if it's a grassroots effort. They clearly comes from direction from on high. So those are some of my favorite, I think. And it's interesting, like Ryan said, you know, as we're talking about leaks and trying to group things together and the things that we say, okay, let's do this, because this will probably be big and this will. It's interesting that some of the things that we think will get a lot of traction and big are total flops. And then some of the things that we think are flops are the ones that everyone talks about and that gets media attention. So we have no idea of knowing what's going to be big or not.

John Dehlin [00:37:10] And again, it goes back to. We're not trying to make the church look back. We're trying to get transparency. You know, things about the unit, statistics and stuff like that. We just want transparency.

Scott Fausett [00:37:23] Yeah. Morgan writes about apostles getting tuition paid for. For kids and grandkids.

Ryan McKnight [00:37:32] I don't know if they get it for the. They might. I don't have any information to say to get it for the grandkids. I mean, definitely for kids, the grandkids is. I don't know.

Scott Fausett [00:37:41] Yeah. Others are asking about what their retirement benefits are. They kind of never retire.

Ryan McKnight [00:37:46] I mean, that is an interesting question, though, for the 70, because I believe maybe with some few Minor exceptions, the 70 are typically go until they're 70 years old.

Scott Fausett [00:37:56] Yeah.

Ryan McKnight [00:37:56] And then they become emeritus. I got, you know, I don't know because some of them are independently wealthy, but some of them are. I mean, they might be well off, but they're not like super rich. So. And their time as a 70 may have affected what their retirement could have been. So I don't know if there's a retirement plan for the 70. I would guess there probably is, but I don't.

John Dehlin [00:38:19] Isn't the retirement plan to get their calling and election made?

Ryan McKnight [00:38:21] Sure, they probably had that in the beginning.

Sources, Whistleblowers, and Ethics of Leaking

Scott Fausett [00:38:28] So, Ryan, one question from Kimberly has to do with your sources. Of course you need to keep your sources protected. But she's asking, are you seeing any pattern from the individuals that are feeding you information? Do you see sort of what life experiences or traits make someone more or less willing to be kind of a whistleblower? Hmm.

Ryan McKnight [00:39:00] These are people that definitely have a high amount of intellectual honesty about them and they cannot sit by while they see things that in their minds are deceptive. Now, whether or not it actually is, you know, could be debated, but in their minds they're seeing things that the church are being overly deceptive about. And it's bothering them to the point that they're willing to do something that some people may consider to be unethical in breaking a non disclosure or sharing some sort of confidential document that they're not allowed to or whatever the case may be. And they're willing to do that.

Ryan McKnight [00:39:36] One thing I will say, I mean, I have sources that are current employees, that are former employees, etc. All across the board. I will tell the. I think that one of the things the church is not addressing, at least from what I can see, is the fact that they have a huge loyalty problem inside the church office building. And I'm not even sure that they realize how big it is. If they're thinking that I'm dealing with like one or two bad eggs, they are sorely mistaken. And based on the number of different people I've talked to that work at the church, and based on what they tell me of other people that they know that there's a wink and a nod in the hallways about, you know, faking it, I would say that there's definitely hundreds and it's possibly thousands of church employees that are complete non believers.

Ryan McKnight [00:40:32] And that is only going to heighten the likelihood of people being willing to expose information because their loyalty now, well, their loyalty always has been to the truth. And at one point they thought the truth was the church. And if that changes, they're going to be likely to want to stick their neck out and get some information out there.

Scott Fausett [00:40:58] Yeah, it's so true. Like, I'll never forget when I was at church headquarters, either visiting my brother or going to visit Elder Holland. I get to the elevator and the guy says, what floor? And I said, I don't know, 15 or whatever it was. And he smiled and he said, you're John Dehlin. And he was like pushing around the sandwich cart or something. And my brother told me several times that he'd walk by people's offices and hear Mormon stories going. I met someone who is heavily involved in the church's essays, who said that he and others listened to Mormon stories all the time as they were writing or helping edit these essays. Like, yeah, the church is full of people who are paying attention and who don't believe.

Ryan McKnight [00:41:45] And I'm not convinced that the top executives are doing anything to address that issue. They're simply harping on People like you and me that were the problem. We're not the problem. I am not the problem. If I die tomorrow, they still have a problem.

Ryan McKnight [00:42:06] The problem does not go away. Their responsibility to be transparent, members and non members desire for that transparency, and the lack of loyalty that they have at the church does not disappear if I disappear. And so for them, and the same goes for you, your podcast disappears tomorrow, the church still has a truth problem.

Ryan McKnight [00:42:27] And so when they attack us in whatever ways, they're attacking us and acting like we're the problem, they're completely missing the point because we're only a problem to the extent that they're a problem. Now, that's. I feel like. I don't know if it's. They just don't want to, like, face the facts or if they're just literally, like, if the bubble is that thick at the church office building, that they just cannot see it.

Ryan McKnight [00:42:58] But every person outside of the true believers sees this as clear as they see the nose on my face. And it seems to be that the most strident believers, the most. Most orthodox members are the only ones that cannot see this.

Scott Fausett [00:43:17] Real quick. Oh, were you gonna say something, Scott?

John Dehlin [00:43:20] I was, John. I think it's important to say, you know, even if Ryan may know the identity or have some communications with one or more leakers, he doesn't with all of them. And I want it. I want this to, you know, be clarified, that people can submit anonymously. We don't know who they are unless they disclose to Ryan who they are. And the people that he says that he's talked with, who have given their identity, that's because once they've submitted documents, they've contacted Ryan and have said, this is who I am. People can submit anonymously, and we will never, ever, ever know who they are or their identity. Because with the documents being cleaned, it's those who have contacted Ryan and said, this is who I am and this is how I know this, and this. Whatever. That's the ones he's talking about. But not everyone is that case.

Ryan McKnight [00:44:14] And that is an important distinction. And I don't. All the stuff we've leaked. There are some things that we've leaked that I don't know the identity of the person. And also, if a document comes to us and there is metadata that has a name attached to it, I don't know if that's actually the person that sent it to me. Okay. It may or may not be. And I don't try to find out who it. You know, I don't Google the name, try to find out who it is. So yeah, if you just send a document and you can attach a note just maybe giving some context to it, and you don't tell me, you don't go out of your way to tell me who you are, then I don't know.

Ryan McKnight [00:44:46] And some of the people that I'm dealing with was dealing with before even the launch of the website. So a lot of my sources, I've been dealing with them for a long time.

Scott Fausett [00:44:56] Some are asking whether it's honest to incur, whether it's ethical to encourage people to break confidentiality agreements that they very likely signed. And even if, let's just say someone was in touch with someone, one of your children, your wonderful son running around, and they were convincing your son to share with them information about you, private information and share it. Is what you're doing ethical?

Ryan McKnight [00:45:24] Yeah. Well, that's a great point and it's a very valid question. What I would say is this. First of all, we do not encourage people to break their non disclosures or to do anything illegal or anything like that. In fact, I've had people contact me and say, I have this. Do you want it? Or should I do this? Or whatever. And I always tell them that that is completely up to them and I will be here if they do it and I will not hold it against them if they don't.

Ryan McKnight [00:45:52] So we don't encourage that. Now what it is, here's the position that we take. If you come across, whether it's through your job or through whatever medium you come across, information, documentation that you feel, for whatever reason, your conscience tells you that this deserves to be in the public square.

Ryan McKnight [00:46:11] And you, but you, you aren't in a position to do it with your name attached to it. We are here to provide you with the service of being able to get that out there. Okay. We serve as like a media organization. We are a nonprofit media organization. So it's. There's no differences if you would send something to the New York Times other than the fact that they're obviously a bigger and more reputable outfit than we are. But there, but at the base conceptual level, there's no difference between what we're doing and what they're doing. Now, are they being unethical in their actions in that sense?

Ryan McKnight [00:46:45] I have, I can confidently say that I believe we are not doing anything unethical. If we receive something that is newsworthy, that fits within the context of what we have determined is what the church has an ethical responsibility to share. I Don't believe we are being unethical and passing that information along. Now, is the leaker being unethical?

Ryan McKnight [00:47:07] At some point, there's a line in the sand that everybody has and no matter what their job is, where if they come across information, it's privileged information, where exposing it is either an ethical or unethical thing to do. Now, if we take the extreme. Okay, let's take an extreme example. And we say somebody has a document proving beyond the shadow of a doubt that, you know, the governor of Utah committed a murder and it was covered up, okay? And somebody, because they work at the police department where it was helped covered up or something. I'm making up an extreme example. They have this. Are they being ethical in disclosing that confidential information to the public?

Ryan McKnight [00:47:55] I would say yes. Now, you can then scale that example down to lesser, more serious situations. And at some point, you're going to get to a point to say where, okay, you know what? That really, you kind of crossed the line. Now, you know, you really had no reason to put that out there. Now, I'm not going to say where that line is, but I think we can all agree that the line exists somewhere and that just the mere fact that something gets leaked does not automatically mean that it was unethical to leak it. I think it depends on what it is and what the context is.

Ryan McKnight [00:48:26] Now, if we get something that's personal about the apostles, like we have, that we don't think has any connection to the church, I believe it would be unethical for us to release those things because they don't apply to our mission and they don't apply to what we believe the public has a right to know.

Ryan McKnight [00:48:44] Now, some people will say to me, and I think this was kind of part of your question, but I get this all the time from the Deseret News and Company. How would you like it if somebody came and disclosed all your stuff that's on your computer? Well, first of all, I'm a private citizen, okay? I am not. I am not somebody who is putting myself up on a pedestal of, you know, I'm a nonprofit, helping the world. And also, I'm your path to salvation. And please donate and support me because of that. If I was, then, yes, there'd be certain things about my life that be made public.

Ryan McKnight [00:49:18] But because I am just a private citizen, just like there are private citizens working at the church who we would never disclose information about. If it didn't apply to the church, it would be the same thing. Now, it just so Happens that my salary is public knowledge because of where I work. So when somebody, most people don't know that. And so, you know, this whole idea, I've had people say, well, you know, how would you feel if your pay stubs were published? Well, actually, they kind of already are. And if anybody in the Quorum of the seventy or the twelve apostles wants to get into a pissing match on whose stipend is more modest, I guarantee you that I will win that one and I will win it several times over.

Ryan McKnight [00:49:58] So. But long winded answer to the bottom line is, is that there is a line. We can all agree, no matter what side we're on, that at some point the line will be to where leaking something isn't unethical. And we can have a debate on where that line is. But we are, we believe that we have not crossed that line. And I don't know if that makes sense or what it does.

Scott Fausett [00:50:25] A couple comments from listeners. Dan writes, breaking an NDA here is at best a civil issue. It is not criminal. Hence it is not for you to be angry about. Limited to the two parties involved. That's what Dan says.

Ryan McKnight [00:50:41] Although I would put a little pushback on that, I do agree with them. There's, there's no, I mean from what I've talked to about some lawyers, I mean, unless somebody actually like hacks into the church's database or something like that, which as far as I know has never happened. Yeah. Breaking a non disclosure is not an illegal act. But I do think that you could make the argument that in some cases breaking a non disclosure is an unethical thing to do.

Scott Fausett [00:51:04] Sure.

Ryan McKnight [00:51:04] So I don't know that I would make a blanket statement to say that because it's not illegal. And I don't know if this is what he was meaning by it, but just because it's not illegal doesn't mean it's not unethical. Sure, it is an important distinction.

Scott Fausett [00:51:16] No, he was just responding to a conversation on the thread about the illegality. Morgan wrote, okay, it's illegal. If so, try prosecuting. They're basically saying it's hard to enforce NDAs, I think.

John Dehlin [00:51:31] Yeah.

Ryan McKnight [00:51:31] Well, especially if it's gonna disclose something unethical. You know, if we were to ever get something, let's say about like sex abuse, like we don't have anything. Okay. So I don't want people to misunderstand. I'm just giving you an extrapolation. If we were to expose some impropriety related to like sex abuse, covering up or something. Like that. And, and if they were to find out who the, the leaker was, I mean, are they gonna want to poke that hornets nest and try to sue that person? You know, it would probably be an unfortunate Streisand effect on their part. So, you know, there's also that that comes into consideration.

Scott Fausett [00:52:04] Yeah. Really quickly. Henning Mueller from Germany writes, if passing judgment on whistleblowers and whether they act unethically by breaking their contracts was this easy, whistleblowing would not be discussed in parliaments all over the world at the moment. So Henning brings up a good point that this is not just a Mormon issue. It's an issue globally about trying to balance out organizations right to privacy with the need for transparency when lives are involved and when people's trust and their time and their money are all involved.

Ryan McKnight [00:52:43] Yeah. And listen, when it comes to like actual illegal activity, I am a big proponent of going through the proper whistleblower channels.

Scott Fausett [00:52:54] Okay.

Ryan McKnight [00:52:54] Now we're not, we haven't dealt with anything of illegal activity. But I. My personal opinion, and I have no idea what Scott thinks about this or the rest of my team. This is me, Ryan McKnight. I'm not a huge fan of like Snowden or Julian Assange or what these guys are doing, because if they're exposing illegal activity, I would prefer that they go through the proper whistleblower channels and have proper redactions that, you know, I think are sometimes lacking in these cases. And so I understand, like, the compare, the comparison that wants to be made between us and like WikiLeaks and there is a comparison to be made, there is some overlap and what it is we do and what our missions are.

Ryan McKnight [00:53:40] But I also, I want people to understand that my, my personal view of transparency and whistleblowing and how it should be handled is not necessarily 100% in line with these other people that are also doing it. I have a little bit of a different view about it, especially when we're talking about things of like national security. And I think it's unfair for people. It's happened a lot where people like, compare us to Julian Assange. And I think it's unfair to compare what we're doing in regards to a church that makes up like less than 1% of the world's population and what some of these other people are doing involving like powerful world governments. I don't think it's, it's a proper comparison other than the fact that we're disclosing documents that are not readily available to the public.

Scott Fausett [00:54:30] Yeah. All right.

Legal Threats and the Cease and Desist Letter

John Dehlin [00:54:34] Hey, John, can I address one, please?

Scott Fausett [00:54:36] Please jump in. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:54:37] Craig says he questioned the three of us a recent. Which I love this article, by the way. A recent BYU Idaho article dismissed Mormon Leagues is just another critic that will die off sooner or later, probably sooner. From everything I can see the Mormon Leagues teams dedicated to a lot of time and effort in this project. Are you worried about burnout or anything else that could result in Mormon Leagues fading away? And maybe if I can address that real quick and then Ryan, if he wants to.

John Dehlin [00:55:05] We are dedicated to this and honestly, we would love to be obsolete and the way to make us obsolete is the church to be more transparent. Unfortunately, I don't think that's going to be the case. As far as burnout, we don't anticipate it. We are volunteers. We all have jobs, we have families, we all have relationships. And there was a. About, you know, some time ago, there was a week that we chose not to release anything because we and our families needed a problem break. But I don't anticipate any type of burnout that Craig is asking about. And this BYU article says that we'll die off sooner.

Ryan McKnight [00:55:42] Yeah, right. I agree with what Scott said and I would add that the only thing that I could potentially see causing us to stop, and I don't think it would be tomorrow or next month. But, you know, money is a little bit of an issue. Okay. Because as Scott said, you know, we, we have our regular jobs, our regular families. We don't make any money from this and we never are, we're never gonna. Nobody involved in Mormon leaks is ever gonna receive a stipend or a salary or anything. But we do have costs involved in maintaining the website right now. And we have received some donations, but to be perfectly honest with you, we have spent more money.

Ryan McKnight [00:56:20] Scott and I have spent more money out of our own pockets than what we've received. Now at some point, you know, that could reach a critical mass where we just can't continue anymore. So I mean, we do need help in maintaining the servers and things like that for. To get long term. And I'm confident that we will, you know, get enough donations for that, you know, as time goes on. But that's really the only thing that I could see causing this to go away.

Ryan McKnight [00:56:48] I am not speaking for myself. I'm not going to be bullied by anybody, the church or otherwise, into stopping and. And I mean, I guess like he said, if they were more transparent and people stopped leaking stuff to us because there's nothing to leak anymore Then great. I would welcome that. But, you know, I don't think that's gonna happen either. Like, Scott doesn't think it's gonna happen.

Scott Fausett [00:57:09] Let's talk about that. What was it like to receive the cease and desist? Why do you think it came on the bubble chart and not on something else? And what was that like, what do you think about the church threatening you with legal action for what you're doing?

Ryan McKnight [00:57:24] I mean, that, that's the million dollar question as far as, like, why they chose that document. I mean, we could speculate. We really don't know why, but I do think they were probably waiting for an opening on a document that they felt they could do it. For some reason, that document was the one they chose to move on.

Ryan McKnight [00:57:40] My, my personal opinion on it, and I think our lawyer's letter reflects that. He agrees with this, is that the, the takedown notice was borderline frivolous. They have no claim. They probably should have known they had no claim because, you know, it's a newsworthy item. We're a news organization.

Ryan McKnight [00:57:59] Even though we're not as big and powerful as the Salt Lake Tribune or the New York Times, that doesn't mean we're not a news organization. And the PowerPoint is clearly newsworthy, as we can show with all the articles that were written about it.

Ryan McKnight [00:58:12] And so we think, we. I think that there's a little bit of a bully tactic there. They wanted to see how we would respond. They wanted to see if maybe we would cave in again. I'm speculating there, and I think we showed that was one of the reasons it was important for us to respond. It wasn't so much about that particular document because the document lived on on the Internet, whether or not we put it back up or not. But we wanted to send a message that we are not going to take this lying down. And it's going to take a lot more than a weekly worded takedown notice for us to shut down our website.

John Dehlin [00:58:45] John, the whole reason we got that letter was because your name was on the PowerPoint. Just so you know, none of the other documents we've leaked had anything to do with you. But apparently, apparently when you got involved, we got a, we got a takedown notice from the church.

Scott Fausett [00:59:00] I know you're kidding. I'm sure you're kidding.

John Dehlin [00:59:02] Very much so. You know, one of the things, as Ryan mentioned, you know, it was important for us to respond and it was very interesting to get that letter. You know, that letter was addressed to me, my P.O. box.

John Dehlin [00:59:14] And it was interesting to get that. That, you know, the church is saying it wasn't necessarily a cease and desist, although some people can word it that way. It was a takedown notice that we violated copyright, which, again, as Ryan says, our attorney addressed that. And, you know, one of the other things that, you know, we may need help with in the future is attorney's fees. You know. Yeah, it cost us to run the websites and maintain that, which we need help. But, you know, who knows what's gonna happen in the future? And one of our. One of the people that are on live asked that question, you know, about what.

John Dehlin [00:59:49] What about future litigation? We don't know if there's gonna be any. I think our attorneys let her address that. We are willing, you know, we're willing to let bygones be bygones, if they are. So we'll see.

Ryan McKnight [01:00:04] Yeah, and here's the thing. Like, you know, we're willing to take the fight as far as we can on the right issue. I mean, we're not going to throw good money after bad. But we think that if there is an issue that requires us to, you know, to continue the legal fight, not only are we ready to do it, but we think that if it's the right issue, the right document, the right context, we think that people will be willing to help out with funding that as well. Obviously, it would be dependent on people's, you know, belief in the cause. You know, we understand that, you know, if it's going to be about one little minor issue, people might not donate to that because it's not worth it then. But under the right circumstances, you know, we are ready to take the fight as far as we have to.

Scott Fausett [01:00:45] My buddy Steve Holbrooke writes a great question. He writes, I'm curious how you came across Mark Randazza. He's the attorney. He's a famous. Kind of a famous attorney in Vegas. Did you reach out to him or him to you?

Ryan McKnight [01:01:00] So we initially got a recommendation from my personal attorney who does not specialize in matters of copyright, and he recommended us to somebody who we met with and had a great consultation with. We wanted to hire her, and she wanted to take on our case, and we believe she would have been a great representative for us. However, as anybody who has hired an attorney before knows, when they work for a big firm, and this was a fairly big firm here in Las Vegas that has locations all over the country, they have to do something called a conflict of interest inquiry. And they find out if any of the attorneys across the country and all of their branches are doing any business with the church.

Ryan McKnight [01:01:44] And it just so happens that somewhere in some state, I don't even know where they represent the church in some legal matters. For that reason, she was not able to take us on as a client. And she recommended Mark Randazza, who I had never heard of before, and she gave him a very high recommendation. And in fact, in our initial consultation, she even told us that should there be an issue with this conflict of interest, check that she already knew who she was going to recommend to us because she felt that he was the best of the best. Now, he happens to be based here in Las Vegas, so she connected us with him.

Ryan McKnight [01:02:19] I spoke with him on the phone for about two hours, and I thought he was great. I didn't know anything about him other than he came with a high recommendation. I didn't know anything about. You know, I mean, I knew he had some fame as far as he'd represented some in some famous cases and this and that, but I didn't know really anything else about him, although he. Other than he sounded great, and he sounded like he had a really solid understanding of the issues of copyright.

Ryan McKnight [01:02:44] So we hired him. He wrote the letter. It's unorthodox. We agree. It's unorthodox. When I first saw the letter, I'll be honest with you, I was very taken aback by it. But the more I read it, the more I realized the angle he was taking. And while I can understand some of the criticism about the letter and the tone that he took, I do think that it was appropriate, and I think that it was effective. I think it will be effective. And I think that the overall point that he was trying to make was effectively given to them, and that is you guys had no basis to make a copyright infringement claim.

Ryan McKnight [01:03:19] You're. And if you're gonna do it again, you better have a better basis for it, or we will take legal action on our part. And because these are frivolous copyright infringement claims, and we do have the ability to sue the church for her, basically for harassment, for lack of a better term, that might not be the legal term for it, and we are not afraid to go down that road. So basically, the church is on notice that if they're going to make another copyright infringement claim, they better have a little bit better legal standing than what they did for that power plan.

Scott Fausett [01:03:52] Did it bug you at all? That or Scott, you. That Mark had been involved in defending pornographers? Steve. Steve Holbrooke asked, what did you think about the fact that Larry Flint's fight for the First Amendment and Larry Flynn, I think, was the publisher of Penthouse magazine, that that was what inspired Mark Randazza to become a lawyer. So what about you? What about using a guy that had that kind of past?

Ryan McKnight [01:04:21] Look, I didn't know about that until several days later, but it does not bother me, because Mark Randazza, from what I can assess is all he is, is somebody who is very passionate about the First Amendment, okay? And he does not care who you are. He will defend your right if it's. If you have the right to exercise the First Amendment. Now, I've also seen. Now, I don't think he's ever represented this guy, but I've seen where he's offered public commentary supporting somebody like Rush Limbaugh and Rush Limbaugh's right to do what he does. So. And that would be from a political standpoint, from an ideological standpoint, on the complete other end of the spectrum of defending pornographers.

Ryan McKnight [01:05:06] So what I see is I don't see a guy that's in bed with pornographers who are engaging in questionable activities. I see a guy who, no matter what his personal beliefs are, will defend your right to exercise the First Amendment, and that's it. And if you happen to be a pornographer or you happen to be Rush Limbaugh, or you happen to be Mormon Leaks, if you are within your legal rights, he will defend you.

John Dehlin [01:05:32] And I absolutely agree, you know, with Ryan. You know, if you hire an attorney and if they represent a murderer or whatever, that's their client, it doesn't mean that they committed the murder. It doesn't mean that Mark was involved in pornography. That's just who he represented as a client. And honestly, I think that Mormon Leaks was very lucky in coming across Mark. You know, Ryan and I talked with him for a couple hours on the phone, and then Mark flew into Salt Lake, and I met with him there, you know, a couple weeks ago, right before we released the letter. And we, as a Mormon Leagues team, made a decision that that's who we wanted to hire, and we made a decision, and we approved that letter.

John Dehlin [01:06:16] Yes. Ryan says it was a little. It's a little unorthodox, and we were taken back at first, but that's who Mormon Leaks has chosen to represent us in responding to the church's DMCA takedown notice, and we don't regret that.

Scott Fausett [01:06:34] Is he. Is he working pro bono? Is he charging you his full rates? Are you.

Ryan McKnight [01:06:38] Are you able to say he's given us. He's given us a discounted rate. His rate is really high. And he agreed to do the very first letter pro bono. But he is going. He's not representing us pro bono, but he did write that particular letter pro bono. Going forward, though, we are going to have to pay him.

Scott Fausett [01:06:56] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:06:57] And that'll all be disclosed. Mormon Leaks has said many times that we will do quarterly financial disclosures that will be disclosed in our first financial disclosure. That's going to be public knowledge. You'll see that. You know, I met with Mark in Salt Lake. I took him to dinner. That'll all be publicly disclosed in our financials.

Ryan McKnight [01:07:18] Yeah, and that'll be coming out sometime between the 1st and the 15th of April, will be our first financial statement.

Scott Fausett [01:07:25] Got it, Steve. And also one of our Zoom listeners, Brian corrected me, it was Hustler magazine, not Penthouse magazine. I'm not gonna ask those guys how they know. I'm just kidding. I'm just gonna say it's gotta be a tough decision because regardless of your commitment to the First Amendment, the optics of having your attorney that represents you be a defender of pornographers, the optics of that in the Mormon context, you know, would give anyone pause. Let me just ask you. Let me go ahead.

Ryan McKnight [01:08:04] Well, I was gonna say I don't really care about what active Mormons think about it. I really don't. It doesn't matter to me. If Mark ever does something that loses our trust in him as a worthy representative organization, then we'll fire him. But I'm not gonna, you know, anybody that's gonna say that this person is discredited because they defended pornographer. And I know that's not what you're saying, John, but if somebody's gonna say that, then I got nothing to say to that person. They're engaging in logical fallacies and unsound reasoning. Period. End of story.

Scott Fausett [01:08:35] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:08:36] You know, Mark is one of the best in the country about First Amendment. And he's known for writing, you know, a little. Some of his responses, you know, are a little different. He's known for that. But we became very lucky in finding him, in retaining him. And we don't regret that. And, you know, why shouldn't we go for the best of the best if that's what we have access to, you know, should, if. And please don't misunderstand this, but, you know, if we have a brand new attorney who has a terrible track record, but they're an elders quorum president, should we retain that person because they're an Elders Quorum president, or should we retain the best of the best, even if they've defended pornographers?

Scott Fausett [01:09:25] Got it. Couple comments from listeners. Someone asks how they donate to Mormon leaks, And there's a GoFundMe site that was linked to GoFundMe.com MormonWikiLeaks so thanks to Dan for posting that. Alison writes, mark did a fabulous job. The letter was a work of art. I'm pretty sure Allison is an attorney. Alison.

Ryan McKnight [01:09:53] Also, I wanted to say something that most of the attorneys that I've talked to and that I've seen comments from all liked the letter. There was a couple that didn't, but most of the attorneys I talked to were like, wow, this guy's awesome.

John Dehlin [01:10:08] It was interesting to see the Reddit comments on that, where, you know, people were at first, they're like, oh, my gosh, this letter is terrible. And then it was interesting to see them post, like an hour, you know, after I reread it. I think it's awesome.

Scott Fausett [01:10:23] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dan writes the dmca. This is my territory. I'm assuming he's an attorney. The church made a misstep here. I can formulate at least three legal arguments as to how the DMCA takedown was frivolous. He says, serious 512F issues there. Yeah, boy, if you're quoting numbers and letters, you must be an attorney.

Ryan McKnight [01:10:47] That's the exact. I don't know if that's a statute or a clause, but that's the exact thing that our attorney quoted. Our attorney quoted the 512F. Whatever. And I was, in talking to him on the phone, he said, look, the only reason we don't really want to pursue this now with this first one is because they could easily fall back and say, well, in our opinion, it wasn't newsworthy. Even though that's a weak one, because we can say, well, what? All these articles. But they're definitely on notice going forward that we're not going to tolerate these weak takedown claims.

Scott Fausett [01:11:19] Scott, were you gonna say something?

John Dehlin [01:11:25] Nope, I'm good.

Scott Fausett [01:11:26] Okay. Okay. All right, so this is great. Really quickly, both of you, what did you think about Tad Walsh's response in the Deseret News to the Church's? To the. To the right, to the response to the takedown notice.

Ryan McKnight [01:11:45] Scott, you go first on this. I'll go second. I got something I want to say about him.

John Dehlin [01:11:51] I think it was very poor journalistic attempt on Tad's effort, and I think it was a slap in the face, to be honest. I have a journalism degree. And I think that was very, very poor journalism. Why don't.

Scott Fausett [01:12:09] Why Scott? Tell us why. What did he do and why those who haven't read it.

John Dehlin [01:12:12] What did he just, you know, go ahead, go ahead, Ryan, and make your comments and then maybe come back to me.

Scott Fausett [01:12:18] Okay, look, Scott's got a cool down.

Ryan McKnight [01:12:21] Okay, I want to say a couple things about Tad Walsh. Now. I got nothing.

Scott Fausett [01:12:24] Describe, describe what his response was. First.

Ryan McKnight [01:12:27] Okay, so he wrote. And now this is particularly the response to the, to the lawyer's letter because he's written several articles about us, but this latest one where he responds to our, you know, legal action. The whole article was about how we hired a scumbag as an attorney. That was what the whole article was, was trying to discredit our attorney because of, you know, pornography and because of

Scott Fausett [01:12:50] whatever other thing, bankruptcy stuff.

Ryan McKnight [01:12:53] And it's like, well, wait a second, is he saying that had we hired a different attorney, that we would be fine? I mean, he really didn't even address the issues. Now, anybody can go and read this thing, and unless they are, I'm comfortable saying that unless you are an active, fully believing Mormon, you would read this thing and say, this article is a little off. I mean, is this in the op ed or what? And there's just really no way around it. This was. Of all the pieces he's written about us, this one was the worst. And he did not even try to contact me for this article.

Ryan McKnight [01:13:32] Now somebody might say, oh, well, you know, who says he's got a contact? Or maybe he tried to and couldn't get a hold of you. No, Tad Welch and I, we each have each other's cell phone number programmed into our phones. We have talked many times before on the cell phone. We have texted back and forth many times. Tad Welch knows exactly how to contact me. And I have never not talk to him. Never one time when he has called me have I said, I don't want to talk about that. I have granted him interviews when I probably shouldn't have. And every time he's done an interview on us, he a couple times has blatantly taken my quotes out of context.

Ryan McKnight [01:14:08] And sometimes he's been very borderline in putting them in context. And that's fine. That's okay. That happens. He's not only person that does that. But one of the. There's two things that have really bothered me about how he's handled reporting on our website. Number one is the fact that he didn't contact us about this latest article. And he has quoted me in articles where I gave him the quote in a completely different interview under a completely different topic.

Ryan McKnight [01:14:37] And he'll write an article that he didn't contact me about and then quote me and say, mcknight said this when I said that about some other issue that was maybe loosely related. And I don't know. I'm not a journalist, so I don't, you know, by. I'm not an educated journalist. I don't know what the ethical standards are for journalists, but it would seem to me that if you're going to write an article about somebody, that you would at least try to contact them, and you would also not quote them from interviews that were on completely different topics.

Scott Fausett [01:15:10] It sounds like Ted Walsh is acting a little bit more like a hack and a thug than he is an actual journalist right now. I've had really bad experiences with him, too. I. I won't. I won't talk to him.

Ryan McKnight [01:15:22] I hope he's horrible.

Scott Fausett [01:15:24] He's awful.

Ryan McKnight [01:15:24] I hope. I hope he hears this and takes a step back and takes it to heart. Now, although, you know what?

Scott Fausett [01:15:30] The fact that we're criticizing him probably makes him stronger at Deseret News.

Ryan McKnight [01:15:34] Oh, sure. We're. Yeah. You know, we're just bitter because he works for the church, and that's not the case. If that were the case, then I would have just never granted him an interview to begin with. Now, I have been grappling since this legal. This is his latest article as to whether or not I'm ever going to give him another interview. I've seriously gone back and forth several times in my head on this, and I don't even really know the answer to the question.

Ryan McKnight [01:15:58] I would like him to reach out to me and apologize for not at least trying to contact me for this interview and getting my side of it. But I'm not saying that I'm never gonna talk to him again, but I. I am gonna be a little bit more selective in if he ever contacts me again and whether or not I'm gonna say anything to him. And I'm also not going to be as open with him as I've been, because I'm telling you, I have been so generous for it with him on the information that I've given him off the record, and I've shared with him more than I probably should have in some situation.

Ryan McKnight [01:16:33] Now, he hasn't, you know, broken that trust and ever disclosed any of these things, but I'm just saying, like, I've gone out of my way to treat him the way I treat every other reporter I talk to, which is to say, you know, I tell them some things off the record that I don't tell everybody else. And I keep them in the loop. And I, you know, I mean, I'm not saying that I disclose everything to them, but I'm very open and honest with these reporters because I want to establish that trust with them. And I was treating him no different than I treated Peggy at the Tribune or Laurie at the New York Times or whatever person. And to me, he has not returned that respect.

Scott Fausett [01:17:09] Yeah, Allison. Allison suggests that you record all your communications with the reporter.

Ryan McKnight [01:17:15] The problem I have with that, first of all, a lot of times the reporters do record and they tell me they're recording. I don't think Tad ever records. But the problem with me recording the conversation is in the state of Nevada where I live, I have to disclose that by law. And it's not that I can't do that, but at the same time, I don't know how the reporter is going to take it if I disclose that I'm going to record the conversation.

Scott Fausett [01:17:35] Yeah. And you want press, and so you don't want to disincent reporters from reporting.

John Dehlin [01:17:39] One of the biggest problems I have, one of the problems I have with that article is the article was nothing but totally trashing our attorney. It really didn't even address the takedown notice or his letter. There was nothing about it. It was totally anti Mark and all the crap about Mark. That's all it was, in my opinion.

Ryan McKnight [01:18:00] Yeah. What would the article have been had we had a different, like, no name lawyer that would have written the exact same letter? What would the article have been? Would he not have had an article? That's so frustrating to me when a reporter does that. And I don't want people to get me wrong here. Like, I'm not expecting like positive press at all. I welcome the negative press. But this was like beyond the pale of negative press. This was like ad hominem, logical fallacy field rantings of an opinion man disguised as a journalist.

Scott Fausett [01:18:36] That is exactly how Ted Wallace and the Deseret News work. And so that's just real.

Ryan McKnight [01:18:41] I know, and I guess it should be expected. But, you know, I wish, you know, I don't know, whatever it is.

Scott Fausett [01:18:49] So as we start to wrap up, I think it's time to kind of start wrapping up. I want to ask you, are you guys ever worried? First of all, do you ever worry for your safety?

Personal Safety and Future of MormonLeaks

Ryan McKnight [01:18:59] Well, people tell me that I should all the time. I have Literally never once worried about my safety. I don't know if that's the smart thing to do or not. I don't buy into the conspiracy theories that, you know, that the church would. Would, you know, put a hit out on me or something that people will say, I don't buy into that.

Ryan McKnight [01:19:18] Now, the one thing that I do think there's legitimate concern for is, and I haven't had it yet, but there is legitimate concern for, I think, individual unhinged members who may want to take matters into their own hands. And I don't for a second think that anybody would ever do that at the direction of the church.

Ryan McKnight [01:19:37] But I do think that, you know, when. When I get hate mail, which I get a lot of, I do, you know, sort of say, okay, you know, I haven't had anybody in the context of Mormon leaks say they're gonna kill me or anything like that yet.

Ryan McKnight [01:19:56] Definitely gotten right up to that line. But if I do get it, I will take it seriously in the sense that I would report it to the proper authorities and try to get some resolve there, only because individuals can be crazy enough to take things into their own hands. But I am not in any way worried about that happening at this point.

Scott Fausett [01:20:16] How about. How about you, Scott?

John Dehlin [01:20:18] I'm not, you know, if something were to happen, I'm ready to meet my maker. I'm, you know, I don't anticipate that happening, but I'm not gonna live my life in fear.

Scott Fausett [01:20:29] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ryan McKnight [01:20:30] I'm not either.

Scott Fausett [01:20:30] So, Ryan or Scott, do you guys ever worry that the. That the leaks will dry up, that this is a fad, that people are leaking things now, but that, you know, in a couple months that the leaks kind of dry up?

Ryan McKnight [01:20:44] And, you know, I don't really worry about it because it's. I have no control over it. So it's not something that I'm gonna dwell on. I don't. I hope they don't, but if they do, they do. I mean, right now we've got a lot of stuff that we just haven't even had time to fully vet or redact and stuff. I mean, so. But, yeah, if we don't get anything else and we put out there, well, everything we've got and it runs out, I mean, we'll still be here. It is what it is. I don't. I don't dwell on it.

Scott Fausett [01:21:13] So right now you're. You're sitting on a backlog of submissions.

Ryan McKnight [01:21:17] Yeah. I mean, and, you know, some of the stuff we haven't been able to redact yet. And, you know, so it's being prevented in that sense. But also, even if we had everything, like, redacted and ready to go, I. I don't think we would do, like, a big dump of everything because only because I wouldn't want something important to get lost in the shuffle. Because, like we've mentioned before already Scott's mentioned, we've kind of talked about how sometimes we don't even really know the full implications of a document because we're not experts in everything. Sometimes people read a document and they put two and two together of things that we didn't even know about, and we don't want to, like, dump 100 documents out there, and there's a couple of important documents there that get missed.

Ryan McKnight [01:21:53] So what we try to do is we've tried to get two or three documents that are hopefully related to each other and then. And then release those as sort of a package and let everybody, you know, analyze those and come up with whatever they come up with and then, you know, do another batch. That's. That's the reason why we're not, like, just dumping, you know, 150 documents.

Scott Fausett [01:22:16] Okay. Are there any. And Scott, feel free to jump in at any time. Are there any documents you're aware of that you're sitting on that have the potential to be as big or bigger than the ones you've already submitted?

John Dehlin [01:22:31] I think we probably won't comment, but. Go ahead, Ryan.

Ryan McKnight [01:22:35] Well, look, I don't want to comment on specifics, but. But maybe that's all I'm gonna say. That's all I'm gonna say is maybe.

Final Thoughts, Listener Questions, and Closing

Scott Fausett [01:22:44] All right, all right. Any. You know, we'll throw out a final invitation to our listeners to throw in any final questions, but why don't you guys kind of start preparing your closing statements, and maybe Scott will give you the first last word and then Ryan. And you know how we always end Mormon stories? By having people kind of share what they believe in. Feel free to go ahead and add that as well.

Ryan McKnight [01:23:16] But, Scott, our ex Mormon testimony or

Scott Fausett [01:23:19] secular or Mormon leagues testimony. Scott, why don't you start? And anything that we haven't talked about that you want to share and any final thoughts you want to share with our listening audience.

John Dehlin [01:23:34] You know, I think we pretty much covered it both in both segments. And I just want, you know, everyone to know, regardless of what people think, it's. It's all about getting more transparency of the church. Yeah, I've been hurt by a lot of things that the church has said. Or done to the gay community.

John Dehlin [01:23:52] You know, with Prop 8, with all their other things, with, you know, with the November policy, with everything else that. That touches me very, very personally in my family. But it's all about transparency. That's all I want. That's all Mormon League's team wants. And we appreciate those who, who have been willing to leak things and those who have donated to us, those who have supported us both in public comments as well as all the personal comments we get. And, you know, we also, we welcome the criticism. You know, we get a lot of personal messages and messages on our Facebook of criticism, and that's okay. We're okay with that. But we're not going away.

Scott Fausett [01:24:41] All right, Scott, thank you so much for joining us on Mormon stories. It's been great.

John Dehlin [01:24:45] You're welcome. Thank you.

Scott Fausett [01:24:46] To get to know you a bit. So glad you're helping out. Ryan, parting thoughts.

Ryan McKnight [01:24:55] We've already touched on a little bit, but I would like to remind people that the website does need to be funded. We're going to disclose our financials fully. We will never take any personal gain from this. My whole team was told that from the beginning we're not going to take a stipend or a salary. Not that that's, you know, completely off limits in all situations, but we believe that for our mission, it's an important thing and we're going to be fully transparent with our finances. But having said all that, we still, it's not free to run this website, you know, from like paying for the servers and things like this.

Ryan McKnight [01:25:33] So if anybody can give us five or ten dollars through the GoFundMe to help go towards that, you know, we would greatly appreciate that. In the last, you know, coming up on four years since, you know, the summer of 13, you know, my life has been a whirlwind. My whole paradigm of everything has been completely flipped on its head. My politics have shifted. Some, not all of my politics, but some of my politics have shifted. Obviously, my religious outlook has shifted. The way I go about every day living everyday life has shifted. The purpose of my life has changed.

Ryan McKnight [01:26:16] All for the better, but the fact is it's changed. And for it to all have changed in this tidal wave, you know, almost in an instant moment, the way it did has been something that only other people who have gone through the same thing can fully understand. You know, ex Mormons, you know, ex people from other religions or other really controlling groups can understand what I'm saying here. And it's been a crazy journey.

Ryan McKnight [01:26:43] I want people to Understand that I, that some people are not gonna believe this, but I am not bitter anymore. Like, I did go through the bitter and the angry phase. Like, I'm not there anymore. Like, I don't even, like, care about what individual members believe or want to believe. Like, somebody says, oh, I don't want to hear about why you left the church. I don't care.

Ryan McKnight [01:27:05] I don't get upset or I, oh, I'll listen to you, but I still believe. Great. I don't care. Like, I really don't. And, and I know everybody is sort of not everybody, but the critics are doubting my motivations, and I can't. I don't have the magic words to convince people that my motivations are truly transparency and nothing more and nothing less. But I will reiterate it. Whether they believe it or not, all I care about is transparency, and I only care about appropriate transparency. I'm not interested in disclosing things that are inappropriate or that have nothing to do with the church or the tithing records of famous Mormons which people have contacted me claiming to have.

Ryan McKnight [01:27:53] I don't want that stuff, that we're not a gossip website. And I hope that those little things that we restrain ourselves on can help demonstrate it. But I know that it's not going to satisfy of the critics. But I can only just say it, I guess, until I'm blue in the face, that at MormonLeaks, our mission is simply transparency. Transparency and then transparency.

Ryan McKnight [01:28:17] And I love the support that we get online. It's great. I do read all of the messages that I get through whatever platform people send them to me, even if I don't respond because I don't have the time to. I read every single response, I read every single email. I try to respond to all of them, at least with a thank you. And we do appreciate that. And it does help us when we're spending a ton of time on something in a particular week. It does help us to keep us motivated to know that people actually care about what we're doing. It's not why we do it, but it does help and we appreciate the love and support we've gotten.

Ryan McKnight [01:29:01] Also, like Scott, I would say that I do appreciate the criticism. Hopefully it's when it's, you know, sound criticism, which I do believe there is legitimate criticism and there is a legitimate debate to what we're doing. I don't necessarily appreciate the criticism that is, oh, well, he's just, you know, a bitter ex Mormon trying to burn out the church. And that to me is not criticism.

Ryan McKnight [01:29:24] But I welcome all the criticism. I also read all of it. I also take it all to heart. And, you know, as far as what I believe in now, I mean, I believe in where the evidence leads me. And right now, the evidence has led me to a point where I don't accept any of the God claims that I've heard so far. So I guess that classifies me as an atheist. But I don't tend to use that term because most people don't understand, most non atheists don't understand what it means to be an atheist. They think that it's some sort of political paradigm or they think it's some sort of social paradigm, when really all it is is the answer to the question of, do you believe in God?

Ryan McKnight [01:30:01] And that is the answer is, I have yet to see sufficient evidence to convince me that a God exists. So for right now, I don't. But if the evidence comes across, you know, and then that will change. And I would just say to the believers, if they're having trouble understanding that, just think about the reasons why they don't believe in Zeus or Allah, think about those reasons. Those are the exact same reasons that I don't believe in the Christian God.

Ryan McKnight [01:30:26] And it's really that simple. So that's where I stand religiously. I'm not offended by people who believe in God. My wife believes in God. I encourage her to believe in God because it's what makes her happy. My kids, with my older kids, that sometimes comes up. I allow them to choose whatever they want to choose in terms of that. I try to ask them questions that would cause them to critically think about it. But if that critical thinking leads them to believe in God, then I'm okay with that as well. But that's kind of where I stand when it comes to my religious standing.

Scott Fausett [01:30:59] All right, well, lots of listeners have written in to say and viewers on Zoom, So many people, Donnie, Scott, Jared, Tea Lake, they're all saying thank you. Tracy loves it that you say transparency is not gossip. Sonia writes that she loves that it's not a gossip website. And I think maybe the winning comment for the day comes from Jessica, who writes, I hear more love for all of mankind by listening to men such as these and people on Mormon stories than I ever did in 20 plus years of church activity. Thanks for all you do to restore my faith in mankind and love and equality. So people are loving that you guys are doing this. People are loving that you're willing to talk to us. So, Scott and Ryan, thank you so much. For being willing to share your stories today on Mormon Stories.

Ryan McKnight [01:32:01] Thank you, John, for having us.

Scott Fausett [01:32:02] It's my pleasure. I'll just thank all the listeners and viewers for joining us. You guys make it more interesting. I want to thank, you know, Amy Grubbs, who works for the Open Stories foundation because she makes all this possible, along with our board of directors at the OSF and our donors. If any of you like this type of programming that we offer and you enjoy it, please donate. 10, $20 a month recurring can keep us alive. And while you're at it, please donate to MormonLeaks IO. Is that. Wait, what is it MormonLeaks?

Ryan McKnight [01:32:40] Well, MormonLeaks IO. Is our website. And then we do have a GoFundMe.

Scott Fausett [01:32:44] The GoFundMe. So it's GoFundMe.

Ryan McKnight [01:32:47] Yeah, they Google Mormon leaks. GoFundMe. They'll find me.

Scott Fausett [01:32:51] So thanks, everyone who supports us. Please keep supporting us. And once again, Scott and Ryan, you guys are awesome. And also to privacy P. Pratt and all the other people behind the scenes. Also to the good people at Exmormon Reddit, you guys are changing lives for the better. Thank you for your integrity and your courage and your hard work. Scott, we love you.

John Dehlin [01:33:16] Thank you very much, John. I really appreciate being on.

Scott Fausett [01:33:20] All right, thanks. Keep up the good work, Ryan. Let's hang out in Vegas again soon, all right?

Ryan McKnight [01:33:25] All right, sounds good.

Scott Fausett [01:33:26] I want to interview Mark, so let's get that interview going, okay?

Ryan McKnight [01:33:29] Okay, yeah, I'll work on that. I'm having lunch. I'm having lunch with him next week, and so he.

Scott Fausett [01:33:34] He texted me, so we're in touch.

Ryan McKnight [01:33:36] But just.

Scott Fausett [01:33:36] Okay, just remind him. Remind him that I want to do an interview.

Ryan McKnight [01:33:39] Okay, sounds good.

Scott Fausett [01:33:40] All right, everybody, you guys take care. Thanks for joining us, and we'll talk again soon.

Ryan McKnight [01:33:44] Okay, bye, everybody.

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