The short version. (Sorry)
Thursday was the night of the announcement. Though shunned since September 5, 2002 when we both went on local television to expose the WT Society's Pedophile Protection Policy, the official scarlet letter "A" was finally hung around our necks that evening.
No, we are not adulterers as was Hester Prynne. We are much worse, much darker and frightening to our JW friends then an unrepentant adulterer.
We are A postates. Yes, of all the allegations the final charge was the Big A to carry around our necks.
THE SLOW FADE BEGINS TO FLAME OUT!
It started in July of 2002. We made contact with a local person who we met on JWD. After several beers to bolster his confidence this friend knocked on our door. I will not reveal this person 's name because he has enough of his own problems but I assure you he is a good person and had no intention of causing any problems. He has since disassociated himself but only after his wife turned him into the elders. While we were never confronted by an accuser, it seems his wife had presented her elder body with evidence to connect us to our online names. Thus began the long investigation.
THE INVESTIGATION!
I was confronted by two elders, two good ones, on my doorstep with a serious matter. They asked"
Do you know a Jst2laws or a Joy2bfree?
Do you know what JWD means?
Have you ever heard of the "borg"?
This is the embarrassing part. I LIED. I do regret not having a little warning so as to formulate a strategy. (Jody and Joel, I apologize to you) At the time it felt as natural as deflecting a blow when some one tries to strike you. Now I wish I had simply refused to answer and let them try to make their case.
These men new little about what we were really doing. I had been talking to them about the molestation issue in the organization but was largely unable to convince them it was a problem. They were unaware that months before our first investigative meeting we had gone to the "candlelight vigil" in Paducah Kentucky and stood on the courthouse steps before reporters testifying about the Society's terrible neglect of molestation victims within the congregations.
http://www.strike9.com/file.aspx?path=/joy2bfree/fullsize/Jst_paducah.jpg
http://www.strike9.com/file.aspx?path=/joy2bfree/fullsize/Paducah++Sun
Jst2laws (with beard) is standing behind Alan F, in center. Joy2bfree is to my right behind Alan (momentarily hiding. This was a period of decision for us)
This investigative committee was only concerned with our alleged online activity, unaware of our association with silentlambs. I did interviews for two other newspapers months before we publicly revealed our stand to the local media in September.
This first meeting was in early July. They did not speak with Joy at all as she refuse to come out. (smarter then me) Since we were already taking a public stand on the issues from Kentucky to NY to south Florida and the hounds were on our tail for our indiscretions on the internet, we concluded we had little to loose by disclosing locally where we stood on the pedophile issue. So on Sept 6 we did an interview on the local NBC station. The next day I went to a local KH and did another interview for the newspaper.
Hysteria hit the JW community. The interviews were on the Thursday night 6:00 news and that same evening the local boys were labeling us as apostates from the platform.
To be continued Steve (jst2laws)