The voice heard on the trailer talking about the destruction of gays and wicked people belongs to old time Bethelite and Writing Dept. staff member, Ciro Aulicino. Yes, this is the same person who went to the UN every Wednesday to their library on a so-called press pass and told me he could now attend UN meetings. What Ciro didn't tell me was that it was then that the Society had become an NGO to get that pass and other perks.
Oh, by the way, Ciro is the one who wrote the first Awake! cover series article extolling the UN that is found in the Sept. 8, 1991 Awake!
For what it's worth, I've had some interaction with Stephen McGuire over the past four years and watched how successful he's become as a film director. Stephen has been determined to bring to fruition this film, Loosing My Religion, for quite some time and I'm pleased to see that he's actively moving ahead. He's quite a guy and puts his money where his mouth is. And he certainly needs some of our money too to get this project moving. Personally, I'm not making an endorsement because that's sort of meaningless. Who am I to say where a person should donate money to. Each of us participates in activities after personal investigation and comes to their own conclusions in such matters. We all want our money to be well spent to accomplish the biggest bang for our bucks. I'm just saying that I'm happy that Stephen is so determined to use his medium to tell the world about the injustice of shunning.
One thing about Stephen and some of the other former JWs that hang out together-- there are lots of activists in this group who are shaking up the WT world here and abroad that most of us are not aware of. They go behind the scenes and do their thing to make the press and government understand what is really happening to the human rights of former JWs and they deserve our thanks. Sometimes we see the results but never think how many people it took to get to the final outcome.
Many people have the notion that Watch Tower will never collapse because they don't see anything transpiring in their world with regards to WT's control and power, or with their JW relatives and friends leaving the religion. But believe me, things are happening, many times quietly, unbeknownst to you and me that has put the fear in the WT, especially in the realm of their shunning policies. Their attorneys know that if the voices against shunning get louder and louder thereby influencing public opinion, they will be forced to change or disappear mainly through few converts or through a huge loss of members.
Internationally, human rights rules differ and the WT knows this, so how they handle what they say in press releases or letters about shunning situations are different. This means activists have to be aware of the laws of each area they protest in. This is not a simple undertaking, but slowly there is progress being made. I never thought ten years ago that WT's image would be so damaged over the expose' of their pedophile protection policies, but with the Internet and other media, it's a done deal. Now, with so many voices speaking up over shunning, just wait and see what the next ten years will bring. Nothing happens over night, but slowly, one newspaper article, radio or TV talk show, or news or documentary program, at a time, and the message will get out there that when a person ceases to associate with JWs for whatever the reason, they experience the tragic loss of their family and friends because WT demands that it be so. That's the legal key folks--Watch Tower demands that it be so. Not that individually a person decides to shun, because his/her religious conscience tells him to do it, but that it's a requirement of the religion to shun people whose name is announced at the KH as no longer one of JWs. Is that a civil right's infringement? Let's just be patient and wait and see.
Barbara
