I recently subscribed to the Wall Street Journal online.
I found an editorial written by a senior editor, who was a JW!!
Article 2 of 14
WEEKEND JOURNAL
Taste -- Houses of Worship:
Door-to-Door, Disturbingly
By Jason L. Riley
06/21/2002
The Wall Street Journal
Page W15
(Copyright (c) 2002, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)In an interview published just after his death last month, Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould said: "Life is too short to debate with the Jehovah 's Witnesses who ring your bell and want to talk for two hours."
Mr. Gould would know. The evolutionary theorist counted the sect among his fiercest critics. And apparently at least some Supreme Court justices share his sentiment, along with millions of American householders. But that doesn't mean the court's ruling this week -- the one reasserting the constitutional right of Witnesses to annoy their neighbors with door-to-door proselytizing -- was wrong.
Monday's 8-1 decision struck down a Stratton, Ohio, ordinance requiring anyone going door-to-door to register with authorities and get a permit. Writing for the majority, Justice John Paul Stevens was unequivocal. "It is offensive," he wrote, "not only to the values protected by the First Amendment but to the very notion of a free society, that in the context of everyday public discourse a citizen must first inform the government of her desire to speak to her neighbors."
The court called the law, which covered both political and religious canvassing, a dramatic departure from our "constitutional tradition." Indeed, that tradition owes a lot to fringe groups like the Jehovah 's Witnesses, whose litigious pedigree dates back six decades and includes more than two-dozen Supreme Court rulings. Those precedents pepper the latest decision, and even the lone dissenter, Chief Justice William Rehnquist, didn't deny that the Stratton ordinance posed First Amendment problems.
I was raised a Witness and left voluntarily in my teens. I cringe at the ever-growing case law that links this particular group to these particular constitutional protections. The theory is sound, but the reality is maddening. The Witnesses themselves blend qualities of zealotry and authoritarianism at odds with the ideals of a democratic society.
The Witnesses, who claim six million members world-wide, are overseen by the Governing Body -- a small group of "anointed" men who profess an ability to channel instructions from God. They hold complete doctrinal authority and brook no dissent from the rank and file. (Although there have long been many blacks in the rank and file, only recently have they been allowed into the Governing Body.) Independent thinking is forbidden. Church members are required to turn in dissenters. Conformity is enforced with threats of shunning. That so much First Amendment precedent is put in the service of these pseudotheocratic dictators is unsettling, even if it is necessary.
Preoccupied with apocalyptic dates, Witnesses are criticized for changing course as their predictions go unrealized. But wrongheadedness is a part of their tradition. The sect began in Pennsylvania in the 1870s under Charles Taze Russell, who abandoned the Adventist movement after a prediction of Christ's second coming failed. Borrowing heavily from the teachings of Adventists and other date-obsessed sects, Russell formed his own movement, which would later adopt the name " Jehovah 's Witnesses."
Russell pointed to 1914 as the year that God would set up his kingdom on earth, displace all governments and destroy everyone except "Russellites" (as they were known at the time), who would inherit a paradise on earth and live forever. Russell died disappointed in 1916, and his successors have changed dates and predictions many times since.
Yet when members come knocking, the message they deliver is essentially the same. Join us or perish: The world as we know it will end any day now, and only Jehovah 's Witnesses will survive to live eternally in an earthly paradise.
Personally, I favor a wait-and-see approach, and I take comfort in knowing that at least two justices share my queasiness with the sect. A separate concurrence in Monday's ruling, written by Antonin Scalia and joined by Clarence Thomas, had just the right tone of resignation. "If our free-speech jurisprudence is to be determined by the predicted behavior of such crackpots, we are in a sorry state indeed."
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Mr. Riley is a senior editorial page writer for the Journal.
(See related letters: "Letters to the Editor: For the Witnesses, Love Says It All" -- July 5, 2002)
And the responses from a JW reader in Atlanta and a WTS lawyer:
Article 1 of 14
Letters to the Editor:
For the Witnesses, Love Says It All
07/05/2002
The Wall Street Journal
Page A13
(Copyright (c) 2002, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)Jason Riley alleges in his June 21 Houses of Worship column "Door to Door, Disturbingly" (Taste page, Weekend Journal), that "independent thinking is forbidden" among Jehovah 's Witnesses. I served at the world headquarters of Jehovah 's Witnesses in Brooklyn, N.Y., with more than 3,000 fellow witnesses and can assure you that each is truly an individual with all of the attributes that make being human so special. Our two guiding principles are that we would love Jehovah our God with our whole mind, heart and soul, and that we would love our neighbors as we do ourselves.
It is that love that compels us to engage in our ministry. If you think it is a challenge to take a few minutes out of your Saturday morning to hear an encouraging scriptural message, think how much harder it would be to spend your entire morning visiting people who, in many cases, did not appreciate your visit. Last year we spent about a billion hours world-wide giving voice to the Bible's beautiful message of salvation.
The fact that we have been overzealous in the past and hoped for the end of this system of things in 1914 and 1975 does not change God's divine purpose for making earth a paradise. It is not just Jehovah 's Witnesses who pray for this change. Why would Jesus have asked his followers to pray for an earthly paradise if it were never going to come about?
Scott Jackson
Atlanta
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We were disappointed in the lack of respect accorded Jehova's Witnesses by Mr. Riley. Of course, he is entitled to his opinion. However, he is not entitled to incorrectly suggest that some Supreme Court justices share his biased view.
In discussing Watchtower v. Stratton, Mr. Riley wrongly suggests that Justices Scalia and Thomas share his "queasiness" with Jehovah 's Witnesses. The quote he took from Justice Scalia's concurring opinion referred not to Jehovah 's Witnesses but to the majority's hypothetical "other patriotic citizens." Justices Scalia and Thomas, in referring to Jehovah 's Witnesses, said: "Whereas the free-exercise claim, if acknowledged, would merely exempt Jehovah 's Witnesses from the licensing requirement, the free-speech claim exempts everybody, thanks to Jehovah 's Witnesses" (emphasis in original.) This statement is in line with the majority's point that "efforts of the Jehovah 's Witnesses to resist speech regulation have not been a struggle for their rights alone."
Philip Brumley
General Counsel
Paul D. Polidoro
Associate General Counsel
Watchtower
Patterson, N.Y.
(Mr. Polidoro aruged Watchtower v. Stratton before the Supereme Court and Mr. Brumley sat in court as co-counsel.)