Although being "in the loop" gives you a unique perspective on certain things, it often results in being unapproachable. People whom i've considered my close friends have concealed important aspects of themselves that friends really should know about, simply because i am the son of an elder and there exists the possibility that i would go and tell my father. I've always tried to be approachable and i've never been a tatter-tale especially in light of the cold, non-communicative relationship i have with my father, but often i've overheard things about my friends from other people that they've viewed as having "slipped out".
I think that because of my outgoing way on the platform and my logical way of bringing out an arguement from the Bible (i always tried to avoid the Watchtower if possible), many in the congregation viewed me as "super-fine" and "ultra-spiritual", when i was in fact openly admitting that i had "weaknesses" (never directly stating what they were, because if i had, i would have been thrown out before you could say "judicial comitee").
You admit you have "weaknesses", then people say "Woooow, he is so spiritual for admitting his weaknesses, AND hes the son of an elder, he must be sooooooo spiritual... i could never tell him about this, i'd look so inferior next to his elevated spirituality"... Its a Catch-22 that i could never get out of...
Being the child of an elder can be pretty lonely...
Coming back to the point though...... yes, toladest, i also agree... i see the pattern unfolding many, many times, of people being put in unfavourable situations and then the seriousness of it being shrugged off as as inconsequencial. OutOfTheBox, you should have been informed of the the elder's son's tendencies. However if they felt uncomfortable telling you this, they should have used their discretion and not have allowed the two boys to be alone together, what-alone share the same bed. It seems they have a warped view of homosexuality. They seem to have believed he would "grow out of it", that it was a "phase"....... Well, he might have done, but this does not seem to be the case here. It had happened more than once, evidently because "the elders knew about it", and the boy was obviously struggling with what the meetings had told him was wrong.
Think about it this way: if your child had been a girl, and this situation had taken place, there would have been a lot more candour and less dismissal. Discilplianary action would have been put in place because deviations from "normal" heterosexuality are viewed as permanent abnormalities. As homosexuality was involved, it is merely viewed as a "phase" or a "one-off sin" (albeit a more serious one) ... Its precisly this attitude that was manifest in the Questions from Readers in the 1972 Jan 1 Watchtower. Anal sex does not constitute adultry because the two individuals do not become "one-flesh" there is therefore no reason for divorce... Fantastic reasoning...
They don't view homosexuality as a normal sexual development, and consequently they don't view abusive homosexal behavior to be of any particular importance, so therefore they have caused their son to view it in the same light. This is the reason i believe that he was moved to do this abusive act, because he felt subconsciously that his feelings were already wrong, so it wouldn't phase him to stretch this wrongness-in-his-mind to actual wrongness. (This is a key reason i believe why in the past, a higher ratio of adult gays had multiple sex partners, because of this cultural indoctrination that what they are doing is already wayward, so whats the harm in being even more extreme?)... If the boy was taught that he could be "normal" and still gay, i doubt he would have done this to your son... Obviously JW doctrine leaves no room for this "liberal" thinking, and i've heard of a similar incident in my own KH which proves its not just a one-off thing in the organisation.
We understand and felt people had different ways of living after all I had discussed life with them and I continued to discuss this insident with him so that he could tell me how he felt and we worked it out.
It is good that your son learnt this lesson, and i hope the other boy also came to realise this, instead of going through life feeling wrong.
My first visit to the "Common Bond" forum last week, left me gobsmacked at the amount of gays who stay clinging to the organisation and view themselves as disgusting, some even avoiding meetings because of the shame, but clinging to the idea that this is the Truth. I fear that they will never be at peace, that they will never find balance, that they will not be able to settle down in a normal monogamous relationship, that they will continue to be involved in socially "abnormal" activities and they will go to their grave with a guilt-ridden conscience.
