I have been out for over 20 years and was involved in the Crisis of Concious witch hunt in the late '80's. I was young with a 4 year old son at the time. Both my husband and I left together and wrote our seperate letters, but we got legal help as we knew we were being painted into a corner. Well to be short my husband and I wrote our letters and the letters were both filled with scripturial stuff based on what we were taught. As I watched our attorney read our letters before we sent them, I cringed at all the red lines of ink in a letter that took me nearly a week to write. It was a two page letter and the attorney whittled it down to two paragraphs: The introduction, the intent of the letter, a paragraph of what would happen legally if our names were defamed in any mannor and a closing. Although our names were NEVER mentioned from the platform we were treated as any DA person. I did not think the omission of being annouced from the platform was tied to the legal paragraph of our attorney, but 7 years later I realized how important that paragraph was.
Seven years later, when our son was 13 years old he was visiting his Grandma, (not a JW), but my brother-in-law was also there who is a JW. Dispite his obvious dirinking problem he had been recently made a Elder. Well he took my 13 year old son aside and proceeded to tell him what a wicked mother I was because of things I had done in my past. My son asked me if all this was true and I explained to him we all do things we later regret. It was several months that went by and I heard the same thing from a girlfriend of mine whose family were JW. I went back to our attorney told him what happened. Together we fired off a letter to the WBTS, cc to CO and to the local KH and then he filed suit based on defamation of character. Our demands were simple....to remove my bother-in-law as a Elder so that no other abuse of children will occur and a undisclosed settlement for the defamation and abuse of my son. I never did see a court room. My BIL was removed promptly, the amount of the settlement went back and forth for some 8 months. We sued the WBTS, the local KH and my bil personally.
What I am trying to convey here is.......Do by all means write your letter, but don't play in "their court". Leave all the scriptural stuff out of it. Make your own rules and make them abide by them.
