I have followed the silentlambs issue for awhile now. I saw the special on Dateline, and read a few things on Newspapers and online links. I have a question though and wonder if someone could answer it for me, as this was asked to me by someone "outside of the organization" and I did not know.
What is the goal of the silentlambs organization?
Is the goal to have the society admit publicly that they made mistakes? In doing so, to what degree? Do they want financial retribution for the victims, much like what is happening in the Catholic Church. Are they looking to have a letter of public apology read or printed in the Watchtower or Awake, or some other public forum?
Is the goal to make changes to the way they handle things in the congregation? If so, has this not taken place already? I ask, as when I mentioned this to a good friend in Sacramento, he said they have changed their ways a lot on this. He credited Silentlambs with the change, as it brought it to the organizations attention ... basically, the embarrassment did something good.
Is the goal to take the Watchtower organization down? To use this as a means of taking the whole organization down and out of the picture? I ask this, as your average Witness would think this is the goal of all ex-JW's.
My aunt started a national organization for the support of woman and men with breast cancer. It is a "make a wish" style organization, that allows people with terminal cancer to do one last wish to do in life before cancer wins. Now the reason I mention this, is because in the beginning she only started small with a select group of victims. In time, her love for the people helped her to broaden the realm of help to include several different groups.
So what I was wondering. Couldn't the purpose of the silentlambs organization grow to include victims in other religions. This is after all a problem far far larger then the Watchtower. Victims are in all the churches of the world. I would love to see the purpose become a "world action group" for all victims of abuse at the hand of religion. I would love to see it set up with lawyers who specialized in these cases and support numbers and people in regions around the country. I say this, as I have seen the immensely positive love that has come from what I have seen my aunt's charity. Not that they should back away from the Watchtower, but rather show that this problem is everywhere now. I saw something mentioned "it is about the children" and I agree. I just think there are a lot of children suffering at the hand of churches and would love to see a large organization emerge to fight for all of them, whether they be JW's, Mormons, Catholics, Baptized, Seventh Day Adventist, etc.
My basic question then is this, "what is the purpose of the silentlambs, what results are wanted and where does the future take it?"
Just wondering
