A few points of clarification:
Until last autumn's Kingdom Ministry Schools for elders, the Society had no explicit policy allowing molestation victims or their guardians to go to authorities. Nor did they have, to my knowledge, any explicit, written policy not to allow such reporting. Rather, it has been a spotty but often applied unwritten policy that reporting is not allowed, based on the scriptural injunction not to take one's brother to court. Bill Bowen has on his website and in his files many cases where a person was told not to report based on this principle of not taking a brother to court. I believe it was invoked in the Erica Rodriguez (Garza) case, when elders forbid Erica to report her molestation and threatened disfellowshipping if she did.
At the recent KM schools there were explicit statements made (check the downloadable material on Kent Steinhaug's website) to the effect that no congregational sanctions should be applied to anyone who in good faith reports molestation to the authorities. This was reiterated in the 15-May-2002 letter to bodies of elders in the U.S.
Now think about this: if there were no policy (especially unwritten) to impose sanctions on someone for reporting prior to the KM schools, then it would be pointless to emphasize that elders impose no sanctions on someone for doing what U.S. law says is everyone's right, and often obligation -- to report crimes against oneself or one's family to authorities. Therefore the Society's need to explicitly instruct elders not to impose sanctions for excercising their government-given rights is proof that a policy to impose sanctions existed until last fall -- even though this policy was unwritten.
This kind of unwritten policy, reversed by an explicit statement to elders, has been demonstrated before, with respect to the Society's 1967 ban on organ transplants. People were disfellowshipped for violating that ban, even though there is not a single statement in publicly available Watchtower literature that states that getting a transplant was a DF'ing offense. Clearly, the DF'ing policy was communicated through private letters to bodies of elders, or perhaps orally through Circuit Overseers, as is often done. Nevertheless, in the March 15, 1980 Watchtower, a "Questions from Readers" article answered the question, "Should congregation action be taken if a baptized Christian accepts a human organ transplant, such as of a cornea or a kidney?" The answer stated a new policy: it was now to be "a matter for conscientious decision by each one of Jehovah's Witnesses." It concluded with this: "The congregation judicial committee would not take disciplinary action if someone accepted an organ transplant."
This "oral law" is far more important in Watchtowerland than written law. It is used to hide policies and teachings that would result in government sanctions against the Society if they were stated outright. For example, in 1989 elders were told by the Society, in so many words, to destroy congregation records if authorities demanded them. This was not done by any written means, or even by an explicit statement. It was done by the following trickery: The speaker asked a question like, "What should elders do if authorities demand congregational records?" Typically an elder would give an unacceptable answer like, "comply with the government's demand" or "why don't you tell us?" The speaker would then repeat his question until an elder gave the correct answer: "We should not give any records to the authorities." At that point the speaker would say, "I did not say that", and then he would quit repeating the question. Most elders got the message.
We ex-JWs know how good the Society is at this business of "saying without saying", don't we? They use it in printed publications and in their news media statements. It's really a form of lying, which again we all know the Society is amazingly good at.
Given these facts, it's distressing that otherwise bright people cannot see the Society's manipulation in its statements about imposing no sanctions on those who report molestation. Come on people! Get with the program!
AlanF
