People are missing the real point. The US Court of Appeal said in Paul v WTS that courts would only uphold cases against churches First Amendment rights in the face of 'extreme and unusual cases' that threaten 'the peace, safety, or morality of the community'. They cite polygamy and snake handling as being in this category, so it seems not unreasonable to consider concealment and mishandling of Child Abuse as being in this category.
Given this is a hot social issue now, the courts may be interested to see how the WTS deals with its members who fail to conceal credible evidence of the mishandling of Child Abuse claims amongst the JWs. What they do is enforce defamatory sanctions that remove all credibility from the whistleblower within the community, which has the effect of preventing further or honest consideration of the matter.
The consequence of that action is the erosion of childrens safety and the morality of the public by the extreme efforts of the WTS silence persons who are otherwise of good-standing but who wish to have their evidence of heinous behaviour within the church examined but are frustrated from doing so by the actions of the JW/WTS.
So far as this layperson can see, the WTS has a perfect First Amendment right to deal with Bill as they see fit. Bill really has the choice of facing a JC alone, or being shunned without a hearing.
I'd think hes better off to be DF for speaking to the media than for disrespecting the Chair for this reason. This may be a trap he was DF for disrespecting our processes (by wearing a bug, say), not for speaking to the media about the rot he was sprouting....
The problem isnt a grown mans hurt feelings becuase the JW say they won't talk to him anymore and he can't tape what they say, but the effect of banning members from speaking about child abuse cover-ups. Thats of direct public interest and may, just may, override a religions First Amendment rights to deal with its divergent members according to its own rules.
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I'm no lawyer and dont mean to give advice only commentary, but this seems relevant:
*883 [7] We find the practice of shunning not to constitute a sufficient threat to the peace, safety, or morality of the community as to warrant state intervention. The test for upholding a direct burden on religious practices is as stringent as any imposed under our Constitution. Only in extreme and unusual cases has the imposition of a direct burden on religion been upheld. See, e.g., Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. (8 Otto) 145, 25 L.Ed. 244 (1878) (polygamy); Hill v. State, 38 Ala.App. 404, 88 So.2d 880 (1956) (snake handling).
I got this from http://jehovah.to/legal/general/paul.htm and can only presume its authentic. The reference is:
875 819 F.2d 875, 93 A.L.R.Fed. 737, 56 USLW 2007, Janice PAUL, a/k/a/ Janice Perez, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. WATCHTOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY OF NEW YORK, INC., Defendants-Appellee. No. 85-4012. United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit. Argued and Submitted March 7, 1986. Decided June 10, 1987.
(Edited for divergent grammar)
Edited by - Max Divergent on 19 July 2002 8:19:14