Talk:Richard R. Lyman

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[edit] Controversy?

What Lyman was excommunicated for was not "controversial"; it was already prohibited at the time (which doesn't mean somebody's not going to do it, obviously). Lyman acted contrary to practice and was excommunicated, meriting one line in the news, and that was it. He was later rebaptized into the LDS Church. I did not see any assertion of controversy in the article; everything was pretty clear (as I stated above), which is why I removed it from the category. That's like saying every Catholic priest involved in child molestation is "controversial", when in fact the person is doing something that is clearly against religious law. What's controversial about the RC issue is that the RC Church didn't do anything about it, though it clearly knew about it, whereas the LDS took action. However, if you've got a different set of criteria, I'd be glad to hear it, though I think the real issue is that the cat is excessively vague. MSJapan 20:01, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Scandal

Surely the incidents discussed in this article constitute a "religious scandal" though, and is approrpiately categorized there. Imagine if an Apostle of the LDS Church was excommunicated today for practising polygamy. There is little doubt that the media would label this a "scandal" and that is would be widely seen as such. Why the attempts to remove the article from the "Religious Scandals" category then? -SESmith 21:44, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I see your point, and I can concede that this was certainly out of the ordinary, but it was a different world then. The then-president of the church himself was a polygamist. Sex abuse in the Catholic church is a scandal. This man's excommunication was out of the ordinary, but it was not a scandal. --TrustTruth 22:08, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I do agree that over time the bar for becoming a "scandal" has no doubt been lowered, mostly thanks to the media. My comparison was not quite appropriate. Anyway, would your opinion change if you saw media reports from the time which referred to the incident as a "scandal"? -SESmith 22:14, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Go ahead and reference the reports. However, I can see POV-leaning people (I'm not accusing you of being POV) being tempted to apply the scandal label liberally, so it may serve Wikipedia to come up with an acceptable definition of the term. That may render an old media report's use of the term obsolete, but who knows. Also, I could be unaware of some of the facts of the case. --TrustTruth 22:19, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree and think that some guideance on the categroy would be useful. I've removed the category per this discussion. I will have to look for my contemporary source. -SESmith 22:32, 29 May 2007 (UTC)