Let's try again, as the board does not seem to allow proper editing of posts. This piece is an excellent illustration of the way the Watchtower Society deliberately muddles issues to protect itself from the consequences of its vile actions.Watchtower head lawyer Brumley's statements are stereotypically JW, in that they fail to address the actual allegations. Instead they carefully steer around the allegations in such a way as not to admit guilt, or declare innocence of the actual charges, but only make it appear that innocence is being claimed.Note the actual allegations:
The Davidow suit claims that when Cathy Davidow learned of her son's abuse in 1985, she went to the elders of her church and they told her not to make a report to the police so they could deal with it internally. Elders never addressed the matter, the suit claims.
This is completely consistent with the testimony of a second complainant:John Muir, a former member of the Corvallis congregation, came forward, claiming that McKenzie also abused his son, Eli. When Cathy Davidow reported her son's abuse to the elders, other parents were not informed of the allegations against McKenzie, Muir said. But Muir heard about the allegations from another church member. He also heard that Davidow was not the only boy who had been abused -- and that Muir's son was one of the victims.Shocked, Muir went to the elders and asked them to tell him what they knew."When I asked for information I was told I didn't need to know. It would serve no purpose," he said.
Clearly, the elders did not deny Muir's charges. They only told him that it was none of his business. This strongly confirms the testimony of Tyler Davidow that his mother Cathy Davidow reported his abuse to the elders and they did nothing. Otherwise, the elders would have flat out denied to Muir that any abuse had taken place.Now note lawyer Brumley's statements:Brumley, the Watchtower Society lawyer, said that the elders aren't to blame for acts committed by another person.
A meaningless truism.The point is not that the elders are to blame for the original abuse, but that they are to blame for failing to direct the parents of the abused to go to the police, and thus to remove the abuser from JW society and protect other children. The abuser, Troy McKenzie, was thus never censured and went on to abuse other JW and non-JW children until he was caught outside the JW system.Next, Brumley attempts to take advantage of the public's ignorance of JW culture:He says McKenzie wasn't even an official congregation member, though he may have attended some meetings."To our knowledge, he was never a baptized Witness," Brumley said.
From the facts presented in the story, it appears that both the molester McKenzie and the abuse victim Davidow were raised as JWs, since both of their mothers were JWs. McKenzie would have been a teenager of 15 and Davidow a small child of 5. In the normal course of things, because his mother was apparently a JW in good standing and young McKenzie attended meetings enough to pick out victims, McKenzie would have been looked upon just as a great many unbaptized children of JW parents are -- as unbaptized publishers, or at the very least, as members of the congregation by virtue of their parents' association.Thus Brumley's statements are irrelevant. Even the most upstanding of JW children are not "official congregation members" until they get baptized, but they are certainly looked upon by the JW community as members. Brumley is attempting to confuse naive readers with his misleading statements.JWs will certainly treat unbaptized teenagers as if they were disfellowshipped if they fall afoul of various Watchtower rules, and they will treat unbaptized teenagers who follow all JWs rules as if they were full, baptized congregation members in a social sense, so the claim that if a teenager is unbaptized, he or she is unrelated to the congregation for good or for bad is patently false.Here is another non-sequitur:Brumley said his clients will continue to dispute the allegations.
Duh. No denial and no admittance of the charges. Brumley is walking a fine line here."While our hearts go out to Tyler for the suffering he may have endured, we are confident that neither Watchtower nor any of the local congregation elders are responsible for what he alleges happened," Brumley said.
Of course the Watchtower and local elders are not responsible for what happened! They didn't do the dirty deeds of abusing children!But again this has nothing to do with the charge that the local elders, likely directed by the Watchtower's Service Department, failed to notify police about a child molester in their midst. It fails to acknowledge that elders -- supposedly "shepherds of the flock" -- failed to perform the most basic of civic duties, namely, to report crimes against innocent children.Finally we see that lawyer Brumley has no problem lying to the press. The lies are obvious in view of the above-quoted statements from the article.A lawyer for the Watchtower Society said elders at the Albany and Corvallis Jehovah's Witnesses congregations had no idea children in their flock were being abused. "The elders did not know about this and were not responsible for this," said Philip Brumley, general counsel for the Watchtower Society, which is the Jehovah's Witnesses headquarters in New York.
The truth is more like this: Watchtower lawyers, including Phillip Brumley, advised the local elders to deny whatever they could, and claim not to remember everything they could. But their lies are revealed by the fact that they told John Muir that the abuse by McKenzie was none of his busimess.Once again, Watchtower lawyers reveal themselves to be lying scumbags.AlanF