WWJD: Who Would Jesus Defend?

Related Content

• Mormons to Pay Fine for Prop. 8 Financing Violations
  June 10, 2010
• "Tabloid": Errol Morris Doc Covers UK Media Freak Show
  July 13, 2011
• The Gay Marriage Waiting Game - The Week in Gay
  August 13, 2010
• Following the Money: Disclosure Discrepancies from Yes on 8, Mormons Persist -- and Grow
  February 6, 2009
• Doing the Math: Discrepancies in Contribution Dates, Values on Disclosures from Yes on Prop. 8, Mormons
  February 2, 2009

More About

• Frank Curtis
• Sandy Scott
• Lisa Davis
• Jon Krakauer
• The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Like this Story?

Sign up for the Events Newsletter: What's happening in town? From underground club nights to the biggest outdoor festivals, our top picks for the week's best events will always keep you in on the action.

Privacy Policy Cancel Continue

In 1984, a vicious crime took place in Utah: Two men murdered their brother’s wife and infant daughter. The perpetrators confessed, expressed no remorse, said they’d do the same thing again — and claimed to be following orders from God. Jon Krakauer used the crime as a starting point for Under the Banner of Heaven, a wholesale exposé of Mormon fundamentalism that goes back to the church’s origins and reveals in painstaking detail the multiple ways the monolithic institution hides and protects its darkest practices. Investigative journalist Lisa Davis takes a similar route in her book, The Sins of Brother Curtis: A Story of Betrayal, Conviction, and the Mormon Church. She starts with Frank Curtis, “a sweet grandfatherly type” taken in by a woman named Sandy Scott after the two met through a Mormon ward. Long after Curtis had left, Scott discovered that he’d repeatedly molested their son Jeremiah, who at the time was 11. Davis, a former staff writer at SF Weekly, follows the Scotts into court, where a lawyer finds multiple victims who span several states and decades. We later learn that Curtis uses his position in the church to get close to children — buying them gifts, acting as a scout leader, living temporarily with families such as the Scotts — all with church approval and accommodation. What’s perhaps most shocking is the lengths to which the church goes to legally defend Curtis and avoid his exposure.
Tue., March 15, 7 p.m., 2011