MAJOR AP ARTICLE ON JWs CHILD ABUSE ISSUE GOES NATIONWIDE IN USA

by hawkaw 52 Replies latest watchtower child-abuse

• 

  DevonMcBride

  Philip Brumley, Watchtower's general counsel, says his religion cannot alter its beliefs and doubts secular courts will demand this.

  In states and countries where reporting is required they DO alter it.

  Devon
• 

  outnfree

  I had not seen this article, either (although I saw a different story filed on the AP wire after the summit), so thanks for drawing our attention to it, hawkaw.

  "...because someone feels something is more convenient", eh, Mr. Brumley? What an insensitive remark that was, sir. Perhaps "someone" (the victim? the victim's parent?) feels immediate reporting of abuse to secular authorities and immediate sanction of pedophiles in the congregation is more in keeping with Scripture than the present JW doctrine. After all, Jehovah also disapproives of child sacrifice in Deuteronomy, doesn't He?

  to Mr. Ostling and silentlambs.

  out
• 

  imallgrowedup

  Hawk -

  Thanks for reposting this! I missed it the first time around! I am so impressed with it that I think I will send a copy of it to one of our local talk show hosts here in my area - it is the most powerful radio station in the western US and is heard from CA to Montana. (It is the same station Rush Limbaugh came from before going national). I have a feeling this guy would love to do a piece on it - and I bet if others could take it to their local talk radio stations, it could get even more coverage nationwide! Anyone else want to join in on getting this information on the airwaves?!!!

  Thanks for reposting this, Hawkaw!!!

  growedup
• 

  Gerard

  Silentlambs also says Witnesses discourage police involvement because they believe Satan controls everything outside the faith .

  
  Just that line in the article must be enough to warn the general public of what this cult is dishing out.
• 

  hawkaw

  My 2 cents,

  I have always enjoyed your 2 cents.
  

  at first I thought this letter did not have the damning effect that you posted. But upon consideration, I realized that I'm coming from a different angle than some and I'm always thinking of whether or not something is damning in the eyes of an active JW whereas your work focuses on creating external legal and public pressure on the WT.

  You are correct on my thinking. I am into vaccinating the "base" and pressing the financial button.
  

  To me, the 2 witness rule is irrelevant. I could care less how the elders judge someone. My problem is with their reporting policy and would like to see all accusations handed over to the authorities. I wish either the WT would be proactive and change their policy or that the states in the US that do NOT require this would catch up to the modern awareness of this problem and require it.

  I dealt with this first hand watching Vicki Boer go through her court case. Her case clearly quantifies your point. If they had just reported it properly and let the authorities handled it instead of them handling it, the case would have never happened. However, I should say that how the elder's judged her (using the WTS policy) in the confrontations did actually turn out to harm her.
  

  I think the JWs two witness rule for DFing is completely within their realm of freedom of worship, especially since they have conceded to allowing two single witnesses from two single accounts in the case of sexual offenses. But their unwillingness to report accusations of such an illegal abhorence is damaging to society and people in general. That is what I would like to see changed.

  I would like that changed. But there are many aspects of the policy that need changing or need to be created. Where I live, in Ontario, Canada my place of employment was taken to task for a screw up in public water quality that cost the lives of little children. The words of His Honour (Justice O'Connor - who I have met with) in recommending solutions to prevent that disaster from happening again seem to come to me all the time when I look at this issue. His words were ... "The best way to achieve a healthy public water supply is to put in place multiple barriers that keep water contaminants from reaching people" (Walkerton Report Part 2, Chapter 3, page 72). Its clear to me that if the GB adopted a "multi-barrier" approach for child abuse from reporting, educating, spirtual gudiance to whatever etc. with proper checks and balances, then I think kids and the public at large would be protected. They are definitely tough approaches to take that are not quick fixes, do cost money, time and patience. But, hey if you want people to stay in your Organization and you want a base to recruit from that won't be angry at you, then it is well worth the effort.
  

  If any JW says that the WT is just following caesar's law, then they should be reminded that the law was created for confidentiality of Christendom's tradition of confessions to priests which JWs do not practice, so they are participating and abusing a law created for Christendom, not "true Christians." Again, just my 2 cents on a very personal issue against the WT.

  Agreed

  hawk
• 

  blondie

  For those that don't want to miss updates on news re child abuse and the WTS

  First,

  http://www.silentlambs.com/newsletter/index.cfm

  or sign up to have the newsletter sent to your email.

  Second

  http://news.google.com/

  put Silentlambs in the search (that way you don't have to see all the JW articles)

  or sign up to have Google send news updates to your email

  http://www.google.com/newsalerts?hl=en

  If you like an article or have a comment to make, email the reporter. Thank them for taking the time to deal with this subject.

  Blondie
• 

  kls

  Any media attention this get's brings more victims out to get the help they need. As i watched my cult husband read the article on Silentlambs and watched him have no reaction , i am wondering if to many people are getting callus to the word pedophile or sexual abuse.How can we bring the real agony of these children to the front page? i mean the physical harm the mental anguish in a explicit way but not to explicit. Maybe when people see what these kids have suffered, they would not think of it as just a word. Like if you hear someone was beaten , you can imagine it but if you saw the pictures of the bruising you would see the pain. Maybe transcrips from medical personel and psycologist of what these kids suffer. I am probably way out of line here but it is just a thought.
• 

  hawkaw

  Your thoughts are not out of line.

  I am off for the weekend folks. Maybe a few of you can keep "bumping" this for a little while.

  Thanks for your help in advance.

  hawk
• 

  asleif_dufansdottir

  This article was discussed on the JW debate board on Beliefnet as well. The active JWs there expressed a lot of skepticism about this line in the article:

  Their opponents are motivated by what some say is a problem comparable with, or even worse than, the scale of abuse by Catholic clergy.

  Here is my response to them (I hope it's OK to add here?).

  There is one key point on the question of how widespread abuse is in the JWs vs. the Catholics that most people don't see.
  
  The problem in the Catholic church is abuse by priests...and the church is being required to take responsibility for inaction and even shielding and moving pedophile priests. Abuse by individual parishoners who happen to be Catholic is not being laid at the doorstep of the church, just that done by priests. As far as I know, it has not been claimed that the church tried to cover up abuse by all Catholics and tried to keep victims from going to authorities...just in the case of priests.
  
  The problem in the JWs is not just with a clergy class. No activists are claiming that only elders or MS are the abusers. The problem is that the "corporate climate" of the WT has made it possible for individual JWs, not clergy to avoid being charged both by JW judicial committees and the secular court system. As a matter of fact, in many cases the abuse could have been proved by rape kits and DNA testing by the secular courts, and could have been used by judicial committees. Unfortunately, many victim's families were threatened with judicial committees themselves if they were to go to the police, so evidence was not available. When the Biblical doctrine of "2 witnesses" was written down, the possibility of scientific proof on the level of forensic evidence did not even exist - you'd think the WT would acknowledge this!
  
  In short, it might be possible that there are more JWs (since all JWS might be included in the sample) who are child or spouse abusers, than there are Catholic priests (not all Catholics) who are abusers.
• 

  waiting

  Philip Brumley, Watchtower's general counsel, says his religion cannot alter its beliefs and doubts secular courts will demand this.

  1. WTBTS has changed it's "beliefs" - even in the "two witness" belief - which is central to this huge problem. There was no two witness belief before the WTBTS instigated it .....back in the '70's - '80's? What did they do before then? Adulters, fornicators, abusers just ran rampant in the KH?
  2. The two witness belief changed AGAIN recently because NOW it can be one witness at one act, and another witness at another act.
  3. If the two witness belief is in harmony with the scriptures....then why wasn't it always that way? If a jw says "New Light!"......nooooooooooooo, because it's CHANGED AGAIN since it was instituted. That would make the Old Light, Newer Light, and New Now Light......which means that scripture INTERPRETATION & CHANGES by the WTBTS is done consistently over the decades.
  4. There are sooooooooo many articles about the necessity of New Light. The famous "tacking" like a sailboat comes to mind. What about the one where CT Russell saw The Truth like a "hazy mirror" but since then, there's so many changes, jw's now have a bright mirror (paraphrasing that tripe.)

  doubts secular courts will demand this. - Brumley

  THAT is one misleading statement by Brumley. The courts (even xjw's, parents of molested children, and victims themselves) aren't demanding scriptural changes. Where does it say:

  • "Do not report child molestors to the police."
  • "Do not encourage parents to go to police (and it's the law btw) to report child molestors."

  even if it's not in harmony with Scripture?" he asks.

  Loaded statement!!!!!!!! What does "in harmony with Scripture" really mean? It means "going along" - it does NOT mean "the Scripture states.........."

  "Do you change doctrine because someone feels something is more convenient, even if it's not in harmony with Scripture?" he asks.

  O yeah. I'm just betting those "stiff necked" child molestor victims want the JW elders & parents to report child molestation because they "feel" it's "more convenient." Those "spiritually weak" kw parents who want to help protect other children........what a convenience!

  The news reporter says "Brumley said".............but are they DIRECTLY QUOTING BRUMLEY?

  (I edited this to make it smaller........it doesn't want to do that. sorry.) The post above me? GOOD POST! Thanks!