Today, I wrote letters to the President, my two U.S. Senators, and my U.S. Representative to hopefully inspire them to either create and/or support legislation to protect million of Americans from Dangerous Orgs. The letter to Senator Dianne Feinstein is shown in the quote box below. Writing letters to the President, U.S. Senators, and U.S. Representatives is another phase of a multi-prong approach to raise awareness of politicians to promote legislative changes.
June 20, 2012
Office of Senator Dianne Feinstein
331 Hart SOB
Washington D.C. 20510
Dear Senator Dianne Feinstein:
I respectfully ask that you support and/or create legislation to revise USC Title 26 § 501 (and possibly §170) so that all tax exempt organizations must promote freedom of religion and speech to its members and employees. I believe that Congress should authorize the IRS to promulgate regulations; to investigate members’, employees’, and former members’ complaints of their organization; and to enforce legislation to help Americans protect themselves from Dangerous Orgs. A Dangerous Org’s tax exempt status should be suspended for not less than 3 years that does not promote freedom of religion and speech to its members and employees and instead promotes intimidation and/or coercion of individuals.
Most Americans cannot imagine how Dangerous Orgs can manipulate normal, intelligent people using behavioral, information, thought, and emotional (BITE) control techniques (i.e., thought reform or mind control). To understand how BITE is used and the magnitude of harm inflicted by Dangerous Orgs, please read books by cult experts, such as Steve Hassan’s book “Combatting Cult Mind Control”; visit websites of cult experts, such as Steve Hassan’s website www.freedomofmind.com; and/or read recent news articles that are mentioned below. Dangerous Orgs promote that their members shun and/or mark unrepentant members or former members to intimidate members to blindly follow what the Org’s leadership orders.
From my personal experience with Jehovah’s Witnesses (JWs), who are members of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society (WB&TS) of New York Inc. (EIN 11-1753577), the following two news articles highlight two policies that victims of the WT&BS are currently unable to influence their leaders to change without being further victimized through shunning by other JWs.
The NY Times printed the following June 17, 2012 Associate Press article about Candace Conti winning the largest child molestation civil settlement to date against the WB&TS: www.nytimes.com/2012/06/18/us/28-million-awarded-in-jehovahs-witnesses-abuse-case.html?_r=2 . Ms. Conti won the settlement because the WB&TS pressured congregation elders to not inform other JWs about a known pedophile in the congregation. The WB&TS’s policy of secrecy is more onerous because the WB&TS promotes that JWs must shun JWs who bring reproach on the organization and that JWs are safer to be with JWs than "Worldly" people (i.e.., non-JWs). The WB&TS's male leaders seem to prefer to ignore that most behavioral scientist agree that pedophiles cannot be cured and children should be protected from pedophiles.
News.com.au wrote the following June 1, 2012 article about a 4-year old girl whose life was saved by a Judge ordering doctors to give her a blood transfusion over her parent's objections: www.news.com.au/national/judge-forces-jehovahs-witness-parents-to-allow-transfusions-for-daughter-with-cancer/story-e6frfkvr-1226380955006 . What is not mentioned in the article is that the child's parents are being victimized by the WB&TS. If the parents asked doctors to give their child blood transfusions to save their child's life, the parents would be shunned by other JWs for not following the WB&TS's doctrines.
If Congress does create legislation to define public policy for the IRS by revising USC Title 26 § 501 (and possibly §170) to protect victims of Dangerous Orgs from coercing and intimidating its members, Congress should also consider clearly defining the following public policies for the IRS to enforce:
· Require all tax exempt organizations to promote to their members and/or employees to encourage victims and perpetrators of felonious crimes to file reports with applicable government agencies before reporting incidents to the legal department of an organization. As a minimum, legislation should specifically require that crimes of child molestation and abuse, rape, and murder should be reported to government agencies before being reported to legal departments.
· Require all tax exempt organizations to promote to their members and/or employees to not practice discrimination based on race, sex, sexual orientation, and/or disability.
· Require Congress and/or the IRS to specifically define charitable acts and to define when an act is not sufficiently beneficial to be considered charitable and/or cancel out other charitable benefits that an organization provides to maintain its tax exempt status.
· Require all tax exempt organizations receiving more than $150,000 (in 2012 dollars) to spend at least 50% of all donations on charitable acts that help non-members and/or non-employees of an organization. Also, authorize the IRS to promulgate regulations that will help cost-effectively to monitor and verify that charitable spending limits are achieved.
Although the aforementioned changes to USC Title 26 § 501 (and possibly §170) may appear expensive to implement at first glance, I believe that costs can be paid for by tax exempt organizations and are far less than costs to governments for social and judicial services. According to opinions of Supreme Court justices in BOB JONES UNIVERSITY, GOLDSBORO CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS, INC. v. UNITED STATES. 461 U.S. 574 (1983) , Congress does have the authority and responsibility to define public policy changes for the IRS to enforce.
Thank you in advance for reading and responding to my letter. Also, I have enclosed my letter to you about this same issue that was written on March 29, 2012 that I am still waiting for a response.
Sincerely,
Robert
