Well I am not df'd or da'd and I got a ltr from my mother saying that out of love for me, until I become a good little jw again, she cannot have anything to do w/ me and I have not heard boo from her and I know her well enough to know I will not. But to me that is her choice and I said so in a ltr to her.
I was just wondering...is there any legal avenues you can take against jw's for shunning? Doesn't it equate with slander etc?
I am not making fun of anyone, but I always have to laugh when people pull out the whole "sue em" mentality. First of all "slander" and "libel" have a specific legal definition. Black's Law Dictionary will provide it in full as well as any state case law will give the elements of "slander" and "libel". Let me assure you as someone who has helped brief a case where we sued a major t.v. company, it is very hard to prove the elements of libel and we have taken it all the way to the appeals court and lost. JWs being a religion can claim essentially the same thing as a gym where there is a membership and you can be kicked out. JWs no longer say "so&so df'd for fooling around on his wife", they say "so&so no longer a jw". So in other words your membership has been revoked.
Most of the state cases involving JWs who have sued because of the df'ing and/or da'ing thing have lost. The hurdles a person would have would be 1) getting an atty to represent you, unless you have the money to pay them their hourly rate; 2) successfully avoiding a motion for summary judgment where the hired WTBTS guns would say "you knew what you were getting into when you got btz'd" and in most cases unless you were a wee lass (i.e., some states say a 7 year old cannot be held for murder if they kill someone because they do not understand intent, etc.) they would probably win; and 3) if you look at the various cases out there involving this, the court's feel that if you know the religion's standards and you go against them (i.e., in the case of the guy living w/ his GF who was preggers at the time of his df'ing) then clearly you don't want to be one any more, so why fight it when they say you are no longer one.
Of course we all know there is more to it then just saying something negative (slander), but the fact that our family will not talk to us because we are deemed a reproach. But for argument's sake, say the US court prevents the WTBTS from saying someone is df'd or da'd, the religion would still get around it some how, like the whole "we don't mark people any more" ... that is right they don't announce it from the hall, the elders spread the word to their wives who fill the halls with the news and then next thing ya know, no one is willing to talk to you any more. The shunning thing is the control aspect of the religion, end of story.
Listen, for someone who feels the pain of having their mother tell her that a mother's love is not unconditional but rather conditional on a lunatic religion, I wish we could sue them and change that policy, but it is unrealistic and I would not clog up the judicial system more then it is already clogged up by silly lawsuits.
Do I fully blame the religion NO my mother is just as accountable. And say years from now if she changes her tune, will I forget her past behavior. No, there will always be that cloud of when will it happen again.