When my jw joined he was NOT told many things! I told him many things, printed out from the old Quotes site, many of your stories here, news stories, etc... He would then go to the elders about some of it and they would minimize what I had said, said it was out of context, refused to let him see the actual books the quotes came from and on and on. It was like WW3 here between me, the elders and a very confused and gullible (?) man. I then spent a small fortune buying a few old jw books and some reprinted (example-Millions book) from Freeminds and elsewhere but by then he wouldn't look at them and he and the elders claimed an apostate probably made them and changed them to make jw's look bad.
Let's take his baptism for example, they had already changed the wording to being baptized into the org and not Father, Son and Holy Spirit only. I brought this up to my soon to be baptized jw and what the real implications would be. He naturally brought it up to his 'study' guy and they again downplayed it because I was a ubm, a spiritual danger, etc.... not only that, but satan was in me according to the elders. They also told him that he may have to separate from me and the family if it continued, meaning my trying to tell him the truth about jw's. So yes, maybe he was not told all the rules because they were too busy trying foil my attempts to get him to think and question. As you well know they held out a carrot even his wife could not compete with, a chance in paradise earth.
Is shunning coercive? yes, I believe it is. If the choice is to follow a written rule/law of an organization or to possibly lose all your loved ones, job and even your home then you are being coerced.
From online dictionary- coerce-persuade (an unwilling person) to do something by using force or threats.
obtain (something) by using force or threats.
"their confessions were allegedly coerced by torture"
If the organization has only an unspoken rule about shunning then there is not much one can do. If a country bans such practices and a person loses everything due to organizational policies at least the person may have some recourse in at least retaining their job and home. Not much luck with loved ones though.
Baptism as a minor with all that entails for a jw is unconscionable. In other churches that even practice infant baptism it is not such an issue. For example, a person was baptized in say a Methodist church and later left to join a non denominational church there would in all likelyhood be no repercussions for that person at all in either the family, job or home situation. Clearly not the case with a jw.
While I agree that love and human decency cannot be legislated I still applaud the negative publicity the petition will bring upon jw's as small as that may be.
