Paul's Story

Paul worked as a BYU-Idaho professor until a series of surgeries and health problems made him unable to work. The college then found a 'reason' to fire him to avoid continuing to pay his disability. He shares some of his stories of his time on campus as well as his experiences on a ward Bishopric and his ancestor's dealings with polygamy. We are so happy that Paul was willing to speak on some of these difficult things.

#byui #exmormon #polygamy #rexburg

Transcript

Welcome to the middle Path

Good afternoon. 

We have a guest with us today. 

I feel like I have this, like, lovely pumpkin sitting next to me.  

Hey, it is Halloween. It 

is Halloween. You are dressed appropriately. Yeah, if you're not watching the video, Paul is wearing this orange shirt and it feels very festive. Yeah, this is our good friend, Paul.  You can say hello, Paul. 

Yeah, Paul has, uh, listened to some of our podcasts and had a few thoughts. That he would like to share. 

I have. In the church, when you work for the church, you know, the money's not great, um, and, you know. 

Do they not pay well on campus?  

When I went to work at, at college, I sat down and I, I took a notebook out. 

But what I was making, what it cost me, you know, I got expenses. I'm driving to Idaho Falls, I'm doing this, you know, wear and tear on the car. I put it down to pencil and paper, the absolute minimum  I could work for. And it was within a couple hundred dollars what they offered me. And I just thought.  

So they were getting away with the absolute minimum.

Oh, yeah. Wow. Yeah. Well, 

we can. I mean, it's 

the same idea as getting members to volunteer to clean the church instead of just paying someone to clean the church. It's just very cheap. Oh, but they're doing Christ work. And you were working for Christ University. Oh 

yeah, it was, yeah.  I used to tell him, I'd say, you know, I'm all caught up on blessings.

Just give me more green stuff. 

It just looks like some more money to go with my blessings. The only 

time  we had a, uh, one of the bosses had a widow's mite on his desk.  And I told him, I said, the only time that widow's mic comes into play is when it comes to my salary.  All the other times, we can do this,  we can do that.

I gotta, I gotta tell a story. 

Yeah, you can get it. When 

I was 

How much money the church has and how little And how much free labor they get. 

Oh! Working at the college should be the best place in the world to work. You're working with people who, number one, you have to have a recommended pay.  Well, the only reason I wanted you to have a recommendation, because once you've been there, you won't want one,  if that's the way that, that it is.

Well, I know there's a lot of fear from professors on campus that I've spoken to about even having there be a rumor of you being somehow inappropriate or not following church values because you will lose your job just from a rumor. 

Oh, 

wow. Yeah.  

That's, that's how they got me. I, I had six major surgeries in five years. 

I physically couldn't do my job. I knew that they knew what they were looking for an excuse.  To get rid of me because I was gonna come. But you were divorced. So I was divorced. I was all these red flags to them. 

Well, and you called them out too, wouldn't you? Oh yeah. Yeah. They don't like that. 

No, I called them Ace.

And Ace. You weren't 

playing. I'd go 

in and, and I'd say, is it okay to do the right thing today or do I have to follow this policy?  And they would tell, oh, man, follow 

the policy. They would tell 

us.  That if you see someone breaking the, you know, the standards,  you need to, to report it.  So if I see a good looking girl in a short skirt walk by that's against the standards, I need to go up and get her number.

I said, what kind of pervert do you think she's going to think I am?  

And how uncomfortable for her. And 

how uncomfortable for her and me. 

Yeah. 

You know.  

Yeah.  

Because you're just opening yourself up to so many can of worms. The 

honor code is just as uncomfortable for the teachers as it is for the students.

It is. 

It is.  

Do you miss it? Do you miss being there? 

No. I 

don't miss it for you. I 

got let go and it was like a weight off my chest. I thought, thank you. I am tired of carrying that burden. So I was,  when I first got there, I was asked to go to a planning meeting  with all the, you know, my boss was out of town.

He says, Hey, will you cover this meeting for me? Sure.  So I go in and they got a table about from here to the. Window and it's, you know, it goes out and it's huge. I don't know how many people can fit around it. So I walked into the, you know, the conference room and walked around the table a couple of times and. 

Looked around and I says,  where is it? Where where I know you guys have 1. what did you do with it? I want to see it.  Finally. Somebody said, what are you talking about? I says the Rameon to Malta. The one where you get up and you say, we're so blessed. We're so grateful that we're this and we're that. Not a crack of a smile. 

Not a,  tough 

crowd. 

No, 

they take themselves very seriously. 

Oh yeah. And everything is divinely inspired. 

Oh my gosh. 

And yeah, we've, we've done this and we've done that. And this is what the Lord wants to do. Well, a week later, they change your mind. Hey, God changes mine. Or did you guys.  Get a miss, you know.

So working on campus was the first time you really came face to face with sort of the toxicity of the church.  Like you, you counted some  

aspects of it. Yeah. Yeah. But you were just 

around it. 

It's magnified there. Um, 

why do you think it's worse on campus?  

Well, because, you know, the money isn't great, and supposedly there's no sex.

So you take those two out of a normal business.  

That's what 

they say. 

Yeah.  And  power is the only thing that's left. 

They 

get drunk with power. 

Why do professors want to work there? Like, if the pay's not great. They 

don't know exactly how it is.  

Until they're hired. 

Until they're there. And then they, you know, they. 

They manipulate you and they, they want, it's like there are some of the presidents who everybody feared. They didn't respect, they feared,  because, you know, he was one of them hatchet men that, 

my way or the 

highway, yeah.  Arrogant prick. 

Yeah. 

There I said it.  

Feels good, right? That was my impression when I was on campus.

That was our president, Bednar.  

Yeah, well, he was the only one, Well. That would have the the tech guys who set up the thing for devotional. That's why we have that huge building up there 

Yeah, 

it's one of the biggest buildings in the state and it's owned privately and it cost billions  But yeah, we have it so we can all meet together for devotion  I always call it revival under the big tent.

The 

Tuesday devotionals. Revival under the what? The 

big tent. Oh. You know, like a, it's, it's like a circus atmosphere. But Bednar would practice his talks before, and he had to have all the IT, and you know, they got a little thing here that they read off of. And he would, he made sure that it was set up so he could practice with nobody in the building, his talks. 

Really? Now that's being bad. I don't remember 

his talks being that good. No,  

although 

they didn't justify that level of special treatment. We 

would,  we could, we could, as a, as an employee, you could sit and listen to devotional during work time. You could take an hour, an hour and a half break to sit in on devotional.

So we go sleep on the couch. Yeah. 

I started to use it as time to catch up on homework and  music practicing and stuff. But there was also judgment if you didn't go. Oh 

yeah, yeah. Because the 

entire campus like closes down for devotional. So if you're not  in the building, everyone kind of knows. 

Yeah. 

Wow.

And so, yeah, 

that was, that was sleep time. It's almost like they're treating the school president as if he's a prophet, right? Oh, yeah. It's really creepy. It's like, it's like EFY or conference all the time. 

Yeah.  And those especially flavored youth conferences are. 

I would not have done well there. I would not have 

lasted. 

That's where I first developed a testimony at the church. Was that a, especially for you. 

It was actually at 

BYU Idaho. 

Yeah.  

I was like, I had, I finally had my first spiritual experience. The church is true. Yeah. 

Well, I always thought, hey, just take them out for pepperoni pizza and then get a burning sensation. 

The burning in your bosom.  

It's heartburn, but you know, you can call it this. 

Well, did you have spiritual experiences though? Yeah, I 

had good experiences. 

Well, good experiences or spiritual experiences.  I had some, I 

had some spiritual experiences that I really can't explain.  Let me finish my story. So I'm at this. 

planning meeting with all the VPs and everybody. So, they're talking about, they're just building the Taylor building,  which is over here. The man wearing center sits here and there's a walkway between the Taylor building, which they're building, um, and it's going to be the religion building. So, I raised my hand and I had a good idea.

I says, tell you what, I'm a welder. I says, how about I build a handrail, we call it the iron rod,  which will lead them to the religion building. 

Nobody responded. Nobody even cracked a smile.  Okay. Okay. You know, this is pretty good. These are good ideas. 

They probably really just didn't know what to do with you. They 

didn't. They had no idea.  

Well, if you had said God came to you in a vision and you were inspired through your priesthood authority.

You did a wrong call. I know. I know. I know. 

I didn't go through the proper procedure. 

Right now, if you had done that. Leading to the religion building. And you'd probably be president.  

You know, the Mormon religion, they say that they have this many members and they're influential. Well, they have money power.

Yeah, they do. Billions. In fact,  when,  

what was it, Prop?  

Eight. 

Eight in California? 

Yeah.  

I was working there then we had a big in 

California. 

No, I was working at the college. 

We 

had a big meeting 

Gotta stop those gays from ruining the family. 

That's right. 

That's really everyone gather together. We have to discuss this 

Super important.

They can't love they cannot love it's not allowed  

so we  And they told us  we are going to set up a call center on campus  If you want to take work time,  go work at the call center.  We will allow it.  And I just thought,  

but they're not supposed to be involved in 

there. Oh 

yeah. Right. They're a religious,  yeah.

Nonprofit. I thought that was, and, 

and. There's there's a documentary on what the church actually did the lies they propagated the things they did. 

I think I watched it I remember very very good. I was 

ashamed. I was ashamed to be a member. 

I was not surprised. I was not I wasn't surprised That's exactly That's exactly who they are.

Yeah. Yeah, they will manipulate though 

Well when they came out with the policy that the children of gay Actively gay people can't be baptized I felt  

Yeah, 

it's like, we're going to attack children. Well, 

and I know several mothers, super active,  gay children who that tweet.  So for that was 2015, 2015, 

that's what pushed them over the edge.

That's what  some of them are still active, but they have that bad taste. And then they come out with the announcement right before conference. Oh,  you know, that's not the case. Not a, not a talk on it, not a word. So the biggest slap in the face is when they reversed their decision and didn't have anything said about it.

No acknowledgement. That pissed them off worse than the original announcement. 

They do that all the time though. Yeah, they do. Which will just suddenly change the policy and not even tell anyone. And the members will sometimes even be confused about what the current policies are. 

It's like living here. I, I do this and this for a reason.

He's talking about his beard and his long hair  got braided.  

Uh, I know it irritates people. Yeah. Your watch with a hawk and I call it the Hitler youth because they're, so, that's 

what it feels like. I don't wanna say, say, but now that you said it, I'll agree. Absolutely. That's what exactly 

when your roommate is, you know, sitting there taking notes so they can report you. 

I had a professor,  uh, I used to walk to work cause I live two blocks from it. So I'd walk to work.  My daughter calls me. She left her glasses or retainer. I don't even remember which left in the car. Well, she needed it  for school. Well, I take my work truck out to the school.  As I'm out there, there's another guy coming out of the school who's a professor. 

I say hi to him, go in and get the keys in the car, get my daughter's glasses.  By the time I got back  to work,  there was a memo on my boss's desk  about people using College Thing for personal reasons. I,  you know, I was just, I was in his office and I saw that. I grabbed the memo. Bam, that's me. Quit shotgunning.

Quit trying to get everybody in trouble for this. This is why I did it. If you wanna dock me a half day, do it, but get over it. 

Yeah. It's such act like children, adults, it's passive aggressive 

too. 

So I thought 

other 

than just talk, having a conversation with someone right, about an issue, so 

this SOB had just been put in a state presidency. 

And he was a professor and I, I knew  I got to cool off a couple of weeks. I've got to, got to get my emotion because I can't swear at him and I can't hit him, which I want to do both.  I know they'll fire me instantly for either one of those. 

Yeah, yeah.  

So I did, I, like I said, I thought about it for two weeks.

So I looked this guy's schedule up.  So I go into the building  and he's walking down the aisle and says, Hey, I need to talk to you.  Well, what, you know, he had no clue.  And I said,  I'm the one that walked into the school as you were walking out of the school.  And you reported that not only  to human resources,  the physical plant director, everybody that you thought you could get me in trouble with or get me fired. 

I says, By the way, I looked at your schedule. You were supposed to be, this is during, you know, finals week. You were supposed to be available in your office  to talk to students. Did you get approval from your supervisor to be out? I says, you know what?  That's none of my business, is it?  I don't know why you reported me.

Do you get, do you get off on that? Do you get jollies? Does that make you feel happy that you,  you know, caught a sinner in the act? I says, you have no idea what I was doing out there. That could have been a medical emergency, couldn't it?  That could have been, this could have been anything of a million things that are none of your damn business.

Yeah. 

And yet you felt the need to try and punish me.  

That just reminds me of being a kid of like that satisfactory feeling when you go and tattletale to your parents about what your siblings doing. You get kind, but they're not 

telling on.  the abusers. They're not telling on the child abusers or, yeah, 

so they're 

telling on this petty stuff.

Yeah, yeah, that was petty. It's just 

child's game. And so I went in, I 

went from my boss's office to the director of You know, operations for the whole physical plant. And I says, that's me.  If you want to dock me half a day, you know, I walk to work. Did you want me to go down? I says, my daughter has asthma.  I could have been getting her medication.

You have no idea. And it doesn't really matter.  I says, you want me to walk home,  check out, get my thing, drive out here. Drive back and walk back.  Is that what you want me to do? Well, no, no. I says what do you want?  I says let's be done with it right now If I got it, you want to dock me a day. I don't care do it.

No Yeah,  but get over it just treating adults like children. Huh? 

Yeah  Yeah, we had an administrator who was I don't know if they had sex, but he was having inappropriate  Relations and you know being with a married woman who wasn't his wife Yeah  

And it's almost like, yeah, the system is great if you're a man that's at the top.

Yeah. Right? But for the men that are not, and the young boys. Totally 

different experience, and you're treated different.  

You're almost dispensable, right? 

Yeah, yeah. They want the  super  sheep, the ones that absolutely don't question, don't,  don't question anything. Well, I'm thinking.  Wow, how are you supposed to learn?

They also 

kind of have like almost a desensitized, ambitious personality.  

Yeah, yeah. 

They want to do the climbing. Oh yeah, yeah, 

yeah. Climbing the corporate ladder is a big deal. Um, 

making the money. Yeah,  

yeah.  gloating over, you know, I,  over, you know, their family, like, you know, they should be grateful that I'm such a wonderful,  

but then they're also the ones getting the special treatment because they're more high profile. 

It's unfortunate that the really our best men, right. Are getting left in the 

dust,  

discarded or treated as not important.  I feel like Mormon culture actually really embraces the idea of the alpha male because it plays into that idea of the patriarchy and authority figures and having a man in charge. 

And so I actually kind of see that a lot in Mormon culture, that idea.  

Yeah, and that's true and they do.  It's like you look at the ones that are progressive and that are climbing the ladder. I knew a guy who  moved  to this town because the opportunities of becoming a general authority, you know, and he applied for jobs at the college  that were totally not anywhere within his, uh, spectrum of expertise, but yet he thought, well, I'm religious, so, you know, I can, I'm qualified to, to apply for this job.

You've got to be kidding me. 

Yeah, we see a lot of that in this area. Um, sometimes getting a job is actually more about  if you're in a state presidency or a bishopric or um, 

Oh yeah, 

yeah. The, the connections are sort of made that way for career opportunities as well. 

Well, and I love history and I'm not afraid of history.  There's, there's a book that my great  grandfather Great great grandfather wrote,  when he was living in Little Cottonwood Canyon, he'd come, you know, across the Mormon Trail.

He was a polygamist. They still will not let us have access to. This is my  Ancestor, you are not allowing me to have that because it's got something about polygamy. Now, on polygamy,  another one of my ancestors, 14, he was running freight from Brigham City to Virginia City, Montana at 14. Three months round trip 

by 

himself. 

Times were 

different. Yeah. 

Yeah. 

Now we don't even trust our 14 year olds to, you know, drive a car. 

Yeah. Yeah. 

His dad was a polygamist. And so he was raised in a polygamous family, and he was sweet on this friend of his sister's.  And he goes on, on one of his trips, and he comes back,  his father did not know of his intentions, because back then you didn't let people know your intentions, like, like they do nowadays.

Yeah. But, 

hey, I'm, you know, let's go out, let's do this. You know, it was very reserved, and that. And so he comes back off this trip, finds that his dad had married  who he would, his sweetheart.  He's pissed. He leaves home. Boom, he leaves home. And he had his, his, his own mother died at winter quarters,  um, when they were coming across the plains. 

So his 

stepmom, a great woman, 

and, okay.  Sorry.  So she 

goes and she talks to him and says, let's him know the situation and Hey, your dad didn't know of your intention. You know, will you come back? Let's, you know, let's. And so he finally decides to come back while his dad was in a state presidency with Lorenzo snow, who was also, you know, an apostle at the time.

He was also a state president and he, they had a state conference that weekend. Brigham young is coming up. So  my great grandpa gets with Brigham and says, Hey, I got, you know, he's,  they're talking, he said, I got a problem. This happened through the state conference. They call, call him in, send him down.

Brigham says, this is what I've, I've decided. And it's, you know, the mind and will of the Lord and all that, you know, flowery stuff to get you to conform.  He says, I'm going to send you on a mission.  Up to Fort Lemhi, which is up here. One of the first settlements in Idaho, Fort Lemhi. When you get back off your mission and come home,  if you want to take her as a wife, you can do it. 

Your dad will have to give her up. How fucked up is that? 

I know. Yeah. That's 

just.  

Did anyone ask her what she wanted? No, of course 

not. 

Of course not.  

I'm still baffled at that.  

So did he end up doing that? 

No. She had died in childbirth.  And so that option was not available. So 

a sweetheart. 

Yes. 

The dad got her pregnant. 

And she had died in childbirth. And the baby.  And so that wasn't a But just the dynamics of that? 

Yeah, that's  horrible. Oh, what a sad story. 

Yeah, that still haunts me. Yeah. Um,  

I think there was a lot of that going on in, uh, pioneer times. Uh, men who were older or had more priesthood authority were marrying the sweethearts of the younger men.

Yeah. Yeah. And how gross. The case with the modern polygamist groups that a lot of the young boys actually will end up Sort of being kicked out of the community because there's only so many women to go around. Yeah. Mm-Hmm. . 

And they're a liability. 

Yep. I've been 

a liability  . 

Yeah. And so if you're not playing the game where you're gonna ri rise up that priesthood ladder, then Yeah.

What? What are you needed for? Right. Yeah. Working the field basically. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

You're slave labor. Yeah. 

You're just slave labor. And that's why 

I figured that they had so many.  Kids is, you know, on a farm. Hey, you need, you need free labor.  

Yeah, it's really, really sad the way polygamy affects, uh, men too.

Yeah. 

Yeah.  Yeah, not 

all of them get to have 10 wives. Some of them are just working in the fields and never get, and their sweethearts keep getting married off to gross old men. So gross. Yeah. 

Well, you know, we should err on the side of mercy.  Mercy my ass, you know, what's wrong is wrong. What's right is right.

Yeah. Absolutely. Well, it's only on the side of mercy when they're defending a predator. 

Yeah. When it benefits them, yeah. 

Oh, heaven. Yeah, it's for the abusers that they do that. 

Yeah, it's, it's a major problem that I see. And the people that, you know, stand up against it. Of course, there, you know, there have been bishops that have left the church and this and that, and they're outspoken.

Hey, I knew when I was doing like a, an interview with a kid,  you know, as a counselor in a bishopric,  I could ask him anything and he'd answer me. 

Yeah, I was gonna say, were you ever on the other end of giving interviews? 

I would, and I told him, I says, you know, there's some things that are nobody's business.

You need to, you need to decide what is and what isn't.  And if you get people asking you, I would tell them that 

well, they got they got lucky  

Yeah, and it's not like mortem. Did you feel uncomfortable to have people confessing to you? 

Yeah, I didn't I hated it  Um, in fact, we did several  uh bishops courts  You know, I took a bishop.

They didn't do anything. I haven't done, you know And I can't I can't be a hatchet. I can't be a this  You know and to shame and to  They humiliate you, they do this, they do that, and it's wrong. It is 

wrong.  So, what would your advice be to men that have maybe recently left the church or are still deconstructing from being Mormon? 

What do you think is the best advice you could give a man who is recovering from being Mormon? 

I would say, you need somebody to talk to.  It probably isn't. It may be another family member who's left the church or a friend who's left the church. Talk to them.  

Yeah, you know, 

um, I'm not a, you know,  I really feel that it's okay to bitch. 

It really is. You need to do that, 

but you gotta let it out. You gotta, you have to, 

you have to let it go. And in order for you as an individual to heal, you have to get that out. And the only way to get that out is, is to not let it control you and not be a victim of it.  And if you have to forgive.  You know,  do it for yourself.

Well, this has been great having you on here, Paul.  

I've I've enjoyed it. I've enjoyed you guys broadcast. 

Well, thank you. I think we've had like such a great conversation today.