A person has to be a bit nieve to think that if the WT suddenly gave into all of the demands of Silentlambs that Silentlambs would somehow cease to exist and or let up their pressure on the Society.
I think there is a broader agenda here, one that includes a measure of revenge against the WT and one that won't stop until they are out of business. No child is truely protected or safe when they are raised in a cult. A logical extention of Silentlambs would be expanding their agenda to include the blood issue and children.
It is this obvious broader agenda the Silentlambs group has that invites criticism from active Witnesses. The "anti-WT" combined with "protect the children" has dogged this issue from the beginning. For me, I would like to see children protected and I would like to see the destruction of the WT. I just have mixed feelings when I see these two issues collide in the way they have. I hope the end will have justified the means. I hope we haven't resorted to anything too unethical to achieve the results we wanted.
We can pretend all we want that all we care about is the children, but we all have a mixed agenda here. When you see threads talking about "Spanking the WT" etc, we all want a measure of payback and justice too - and I think there is nothing wrong with that. If anything, victims deserve some sort of payback. But don't deceive yourself and think this is "all about the children".
I would have liked to see a group that Witnesses and non-Witnesses could go to for support and help for a range of problems and get qualified professional help. Problems ranging from sexual and physical abuse to drug and alcohol dependancy and even marriage counselling. The Witness community is severly lacking in the way it "helps" people with problems and complaints and in the manner it gives advice.
The Silentlambs group is a noble effort, but because of it's split agenda, it is not as neutral as they claim and therefore not as effective as it could be in actually helping victims or in protecting children. They have not presented themselves in a way that would generally encourage active Witnesses from seeking them out for assistance. On the website, right away a person is bombarded with anti-WT comments.
I have mixed feelings about reforming this religion too. A by-product of reform is that it makes the religion a somewhat less harmful place, making it more difficult for one to see the reason to leave. The net result might be more people actually staying in this harmful religion than leaving if it reforms. I can't really accept that the Silentlambs group has any true intention of reform in only this one area. No one likes half-measures. Like I said, there appears to be an obvious broader agenda which probably is more about destruction of the WT and revenge than coming to some agreement with them on an acceptable way of dealing with child abuse.
For the moment, I am happy to see the Society exposed for what they are and how they operate, but I have been uneasy from the beginning and remain so on this whole matter. It appears to be an organized effort to take a shot at the Society on the backs of victims in the claimed interest of children. When the dust settles, the "anti-Witness" caused will have advanced but will the victims really be better off and will children be any safer? I certainly hope so, but only time will tell.
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