“LostGeneration”: “Forcing someone to speak to someone they choose not to speak to for religious reasons would be a VIOLATION of the 1st Amendment. And why in the hell would you want to talk to someone who is being FORCED to talk to you in the first place?”
In that particular sense, I believe you are right. . . . . Although, looking at the other side of the coin, it is really the many families and friends of those disfellowshipped who are being forced – i.e., coerced through intense and dishonest “undue influence” – to completely shun, or to NOT speak with, one of their own who should unfortunately find him/herself disfellowshipped by the Watchtower corporation, and it is likewise the disfellowshipped individual who is in the same way forced (coerced!) by the Watchtower corporation to NOT speak to or be spoken to by their close friends and family. So, if anybody is being forced to do – or in this case NOT do – something (communicate in any way), it is the many unfortunate victims being forced as such by the Watchtower!
This vigorously enforced policy by the Watchtower corporation is an obvious and glaring perversion and hijacking of the natural bonds within friendships and especially within the family unit, which is a profoundly intimate and sacred institution.
The real and profound damages caused by the Watchtower’s stubborn and belligerent insistence on enforcing this harsh and harmful policy just in the name of Pharisaically demanding their own interpretation of the strict “letter of the [Biblical] law” – and far beyond – makes them most culpable in their glaring travesty against the simple “law of love” to which they hypocritically claim to espouse.
The Watchtower may not get all the legal kamuffins they really deserve, but, well, all I can say is, Shame on them!