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January 14, 2023 - Statement on 2022 Fundraising Letter

Several days ago, we received a formal complaint alerting us that one of our fundraising letters, sent out in December 2022, referenced a symposium session from 2006 in which Tom Kimball, a Sunstone participant of many years, was a panelist. Multiple individuals have reported experiences of predation and abuse by Tom. When we became aware of these allegations in 2020, we took immediate steps to ban him from any further participation in Sunstone. Thus, citing this particular session in the letter was a poor choice and an unfortunate oversight that we deeply regret. We should have vetted the letter more responsibly.

First and foremost, we sincerely apologize to all hurt by our mistake. Our organization has spent the last few days engaging in hard, methodical reflection about our values and how to uphold them. There is one value that keeps repeating itself:

At Sunstone, we value open, honest dialogue about difficult and complex topics. Sexual abuse in the Mormon community continues to be pervasive and harmful, and it is too often swept under the rug at the expense of the victims. Tom's participation at Sunstone over the years has given us an opportunity to reflect on how our organization may have compounded the pain he caused. In a community where thousands of people participate, his is not an isolated story. We want to acknowledge this chronic wound in the Latter-day Saint community that rarely receives any justice—even when it means holding ourselves accountable as an organization.

Over the decades, we've hosted countless people, a few of whom have later proved to be problematic or destructive. We are sometimes faced with the challenge of what to do with the past content of such participants. It’s a complex question that we have sought a lot of feedback on. Too often abusers are upheld as upstanding participants and valued community members, their crimes ignored. We don’t want to contribute to this.

In an effort to reconcile divergent viewpoints and take accountability, we feel that maintaining the integrity of Sunstone’s historical record will allow future readers and listeners to interact more meaningfully with the topics Sunstone engages with, including the topic of sexual abuse. Keeping content from problematic presenters publicly available will allow them to be further analyzed in hopes that such analysis will make Mormonism and Sunstone safer, healthier places. As a step toward accountability we do not plan to erase Sunstone's engagement with these individuals.

We will be posting a disclaimer on our website reminding listeners and readers that audio, text and sessions in our archive are historical records and may sometimes contain content from problematic individuals whose opinions do not necessarily reflect our own, or who have behaved in ways inconsistent with Sunstone’s values.

Our hope is that by keeping the record intact, we are upholding our values of open dialogue, accountability, and historical integrity.

Again, we apologize for our carelessness in highlighting this session in our fundraising letter, as it contradicts our values. We are taking steps to be more responsible toward those in our community who have suffered abuse.

We feel enormous gratitude for the feedback we’ve received as we continue to navigate a very difficult and painful issue. Thank you for engaging in the work of building a healthier community with us.

Sincerely,

Lindsay Hansen Park
Stephen Carter
Grace Pool
Evan Jones

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49 comments

  1. Eryn says:

    Wow. This is the most ridiculous response to a complaint of a child abuser being highlighted and glorified on your website. I find it hard to believe that when you sent that out, you didnt realize he was one of the 3 couples being highlighted. When I search his name on your site I get over 300 hits. I read some of the articles and listened to some of the episodes and none have a “disclaimer” highlighting that the person is actually a predator. “Keeping content from problematic presenters publicly available will allow them to be further analyzed in hopes that such analysis will make Mormonism and Sunstone safer, healthier places.” How can this happen when you don’t paint a clear picture all over your website that this “problematic presenter” is a monster that sexually abused children? How am I supposed to be informed to “analyze” him as a random person engaging in your website? This is pathetic and a poor excuse. Take true accountability and action. I’ll be sure to not engage on your website and content moving forward. I may be listening to a murderer or rapist and have no clue. You want to talk about integrity? You actually know this was a terrible person and you’ve just carelessly left all of his content in your archives with no explicit trigger warnings or identifiers. That is a lack of integrity. Absolutely disgusting.

  2. Dayna says:

    It is VERY CLEAR that LHP has had no problem using my name …

    You are also WELL AWARE that I’ve requested an apology

    THIS ARTICLE is the result of ME requesting an acknowledgment…

    This article could just be re-written to say “News: we are still promoting the abuser and silencing his victims… even when we have ALREADY PROFITITED from this story in many ways… even when we know EXACTLY WHO the victim is… we just aren’t going to acknowledge her at all because we don’t really have to. ”

    YOU SAY it was a mistake…. if it was a mistake, it would have been REALLY EASY TO CONTACT ME SINCE I’M OUT HERE BEGGING TO BE ACKNOWLEDGED AND YOU KNOW IT.

    And I’m still waiting for an apology. I was not named in the article, so I cannot assume it was to me. Especially when NOT ONE OF YOU has contacted me in ANY WAY

    So I guess I’ll find refuge here on your comments… where I belong, I guess

  3. LAURALEE Solimeno says:

    Ick. Preserving the words of a sexual predator, instead of honoring the journey of a survivor is so gross.

  4. Kelly McAfee says:

    Who wrote the letter? Four people signed it and “oversight” is a weak excuse considering that at least 3 of the letter’s signers are intimately aware of Tom’s decades of abuse. In fact, some of the signers are friends with victims of his abuse. So, who wrote it? Who thought it was ok to write a letter highlighting a well-known abuser in order to solicit money.
    If the writer is one of you, the moral move would be to step down after a sincere apology to the victims.
    This whole thing is not what I expected from people who claim to be a victims’ advocate.
    Make this make sense, Sunstone representatives. Make this make sense.
    Kelly McAfee (former spouse of T Kimball)

  5. Brenda Nicholson says:

    I’m confident mine wasn’t the only complaint you received. But here it is in case you all happened to somehow miss it in your inboxes. (Except Lindsay, I know better than to bother seeking accountability from her)

    Sunstone Board

    I am writing in regards to your fundraising letter that was recently mailed out.
    You have decades of material to pull from, and you chose to highlight a session involving a known child sexual predator? As a method of soliciting monetary donations? Surely you could have chosen something less damaging to victims. Surely.

    My dear friend, Dayna Kimball, is one of Tom Kimball’s victims. Her bravery and courage in speaking out and exposing the harm he did is admirable. Sadly, she has suffered additional harm due to the fallout of people and organizations who value a (false) “good image” and profits over people.

    Last summer Dayna made a very reasonable request on her social media page, asking that those who had podcasts and other representations of her predator Uncle’s work posted to remove them. She even made a very generous offer to re-record these works since it appeared that a big part of the “draw” to Tom’s work was the fact that he is a direct descendant of Heber C. Kimball, and she is as well. She didn’t demand it. She didn’t try to contact all content creators. As a victim, she simply made a request that people stop elevating the voice of a man who did so much harm to so many.

    As a result, people who care about her started reaching out to content creators and sharing her request. Many of us also shared links of podcasts, etc., that we were aware of where Tom was a guest or presenter. Unfortunately, not all content creators responded in a positive way.

    Lindsay Hansen Park was one of those who was, shall we say, less than kind in her response. She made excuses and painted herself as the victim in the scenario. Others, gratefully, did the right thing.

    I have had bad experiences with Lindsay in the past. Both through your organization as well as outside of it. Her approach to other people’s pain is to use it for her own purposes, dragging out people’s suffering for attention with no attempts to then provide support for the renewed harm caused by reliving those experiences. She minimizes the suffering of victims, often elevates those in power who were instrumental in the victimization of vulnerable people, and then says things like that she doesn’t know if “evil even exists.”

    Well, lucky her I guess because some of us absolutely know without a doubt that it does.

    I am extremely disappointed to see that your organization seems to be taking the playbook of the church and applying it to your own organization. Exploiting the vulnerable, depending on the emotional labor of supporters and volunteers to provide content, and then putting profits and money above the lives, wellbeing and safety of people.

    Dayna has made a very well-written public post on her Facebook page, explaining the continued pain and heartbreak that she is being dragged through after receiving this fundraising letter in the mail. She is asking for, and richly deserves, a public apology and a plan for how you will be addressing the issues. As an organization you should be actively working to elevate the voices of survivors and out the predators for who and what they are.

    I understand. You feel that Tom Kimball created content that has value. Everyone does something that has value, but that doesn’t undo or outweigh the amount of harm he has done. If you value integrity and the basic humanity of vulnerable people, you will take this seriously.

    At best, this was a choice made in very poor taste. At worst – and I hope this isn’t true – it is a vindictive jab at Dayna because of her vocal efforts to hold people accountable for supporting and elevating the voices of predators. Sadly, I cannot say that I believe Lindsay is above that because I have been on the receiving end of too much vitriol at the hands of her minions.

    I hope to see this addressed soon.

    Brenda Nicholson

  6. Eryn says:

    Sunstone and board: thank you for taking some pieces of my feedback and adding a disclaimer about Tom Kimball: The Rapist to your posts and articles featuring his work. I found his poem, The Dove and The Serpent particularly enlightening and educational to my historical study of a mormon rapist and what to watch out for. Had you not preserved his work, I never would have been so blessed to cringe and feel deeply troubled by that eloquent poetry that he wrote. It is great to see an organization take immediate action to provide a link reference to this post on a rapists works. I can’t wait to read the article or listen to the podcast detailing what it is like for your community followers to engage with your website and find link after link to this post and know they’re engaging with a Rapist and abusers work. Now that’s an article I’d find fascinating. Since the board seems to be unable to do so, I’d like to publicly apologize to Dayna and Kelly for Sunstones lack of public acknowledgement on their page. And their insensitive use of their abusers content. It seems they’re not wanting anonymity but for some reason are being granted that. Anyway, thanks for taking my feedback and adding somewhat of a disclaimer. But you missed the part where you called him a rapist.

    Thanks Sunstone, looking forward to your historical evaluation and findings.

  7. Toni says:

    There is nothing more disgusting than an organization that just can not be bothered to remove content of child abusers. “More than one way to Mormon ” huh? Just another disgusting organization that protects rapists… sick. Get better content and then you can delete the garbage. While you’re taking out that trash get rid of the leaders that are just too put out to clear their good Ole buddy the abuser’s work! What a shame, Sunstone. do better.🖕🏻

  8. Toni says:

    Lindsay, I was there when you went into Dayna’s home and pretended to be a friend. You put on quite the show but You very clearly just wanted the tea on TK for content. Big mistake when that meant you’d be held accountable for removing his content that you have gained from. The hypocrisy is baffling. You know better. Because I heard you preach it from your mouth. But now you’re inconvenienced. You don’t need to preserve his work to learn from it. What a joke. That letter was a “mean girl” stunt. I believe you did it on purpose to be mean. It makes ya’ll look like idiots so im here for that at least. I hope no one else trusts your fake kindness ever again! She’s using you for content, people!
    You also talked obsessively about your “enemies” I thought that was super odd but now I see that you’re an internet troll and people don’t like hypocrisy 🤔

  9. Toni says:

    The summary I got from this apology…

    Survivors of SA – please stop celebrating my abuser and take his content down.

    Sunstone- Well here at Sunstone we talk about Mormon history and so what’s more “on brand” than pedophilia and rape? I think we’ll keep it up. We were all buddies with this guy and removing his content would be a long and boring job. Here at Sunstone the way we like to Mormon best is by celebrating abusers and treating their victims like trash. 👍🏻

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