Talk:Jehovah's Witnesses and child sex abuse

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Contents

[edit] POV

The lack of information on how Witness articles don't address protecting children within the church itself seems incomplete - it seems misleading because the Wiki article tends to acknowledge there's a problem, but the Witness articles alluded to only bolster a false sense of security within the church (from what I recall reading them). The Witness articles focus on protecting children from non-Witnesses, but don't address the potential dangers from within the church.

Additionally, the Wiki article does not detail the strange procedure that Witness church leaders are told to use to report such abuse - anonymously, from a pay phone - which prevents law enforcement from taking meaningful action (this from reports from former church leaders). Voideater (talk) 01:37, 4 January 2008 (UTC)


The addition of "cases of abuse" seems very questionable. If the info is that important it should be part of the article, like the example of "Erica Rodriguez". (see info on external links) However, the point that child abuse does happen is illustrated in the article itself. It just seems this is a section that is open for attacking a religion. Can we have a section below that presents the other side? Namely "Cases of Trust?" The point being- is that the article itself makes clear the issues involved, beyond that seems like an agenda to slander a religion that has had some of it 7 million members involved in abuse. Again this is not a "let's hide it" but about presenting a balanced presentation that is fit for an encyclopedia and not for a personal vindictive. Johanneum 14:32, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

This section does not seem questionable. These cases are points that support the article. It is neither attacking the religion nor is it excessive. There is no agenda to slander the religion by providing facts to support the article. Although the cases are important, only one or two examples are needed to enrich the article and provide enough information to be clear and concise in conveying information about the topic. Usually a topic requires several bulleted list items in order to substantiate the topic of the article. There should be no attempt to either 'white-wash' or 'muddy' the information to sway readers to one point of view or another. Protector of the Truth 14:49, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

"These cases are points to support the article"....??? Does the article need one sided points to support it? The article can stand for itself! Again the "Cases of Abuse" is clearly one sided, and not necessary to presenting an article which already clearly defines the issues involved. 22:28, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Points to support the article are neither one sided or two sided, but just facts to support the article's existence. The article requires proof that there is a need for such and cases are just that, proof that the article should exist. Cases are not one sided but merely points for justifying that the article should remain and not deleted.Protector of the Truth 22:40, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
I believe you are mistaken. The issue is not whether abuse happens (it does!) but how it is handled. Do these cases highlight how it is handled? The article itself shows that abuse happens! Why do you need proof to support proof? The proof is already in the article! Besides what is in excess of the main article can be viewed as supporting one's own agenda. Johanneum 23:00, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
The cases are just facts that substantiate the article and provide the reader with a chronology of incidents in recent history and a source to obtain more information. There is no supporting of one's own agenda. Listing eight bulleted points is in no way excessive or slanderous or attacking the religion. Highlighting incidents within the previous 12 months is hardly excessive or one sided.Protector of the Truth 23:12, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Once again the article stands on its own. Which of these external links supports an article on HOW abuse is handled? Your additions show that it does happen, that is not what this page is about but how they are handled.

Would not several recent cases in the news provide a reader with more details on how those cases were handled? Aside from what is included in the introduction of the article. As a reader I would like to have the ability to search from several other cases and learn about what happened, how they were handled or what was done. If there were a dozen or more cases listed, I would opt for a summary statement and links to external sources, but with eight happening in the previous 14 months, I just don't see that as anything other than providing more information for the reader. I would benefit from reading about recent events pertaining to the article from other news sources. Do you feel that the title of the news reports are offensive or slanderous to the article or religion? Does their title detract from the article or cast it in an unfavorable light? I'm not sure how wording can be edited in order to present such a topic favorably.Protector of the Truth 23:27, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

This is an encyclopedia and not a News column, we need to make sure it has NPOV Encyclopedic content. It seems dishonest to say as you did "Other religious denomiations are also linked to this category" and then to link the Catholic church! There were no such links before! Johanneum 23:47, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I am working on building links to more religious denominations as they relate to Child Sexual Abuse. I find it attacking that you would bring it up as 'dishonest' since I am beginning this work as I believe there is much work to do in order to build good cross references to similar topics. Instead of wasting time attacking me, build bridges of collaboration by providing more detailed information on articles such as these and others that may incite your interest. And did you know that encyclopedias commonly point to reference sources such as new outlets. Check Encyclopedia Britannica and Microsoft Encarta. Protector of the Truth 02:50, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

It was not necessarily meant to be an attack but an expose of what you stated, which was not true. Note the words "it seems dishonest" I stand for Truth and do protect it.Johanneum 04:21, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] ?

I would propose merging this with Jehovah's Witnesses sex abuse scandal, but I have two problems.

  • 1: I don't know how to merge articles or I forgot how.
  • 2: The articles seem almost identical.

--T. Anthony 08:44, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

That's weird. I searched for "Jehovah's Witnesses sex abuse" and didn't get any results, so I created this article. Anyway, I think Jehovah's Witnesses and child sex abuse should be the final article, since it can cover JWs policy on child abuse and history too, without limiting to the current scandal. I copied the info deleted from the Opposition to Jehovah's Witnesses article, so I think the Jehovah's Witnesses sex abuse scandal can just be VfDed. Yeah? --K. AKA Konrad West TALK 02:38, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
Sure thing. I'll see if there was any useful information from it not covered here. I didn't think there was, but if there was maybe I'll see where I can fit it in. Assuming you didn't already do that. I think the information was mostly the same, just structured a little different.--T. Anthony 03:44, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
I can't find the other article anymore, it seems to just redirect to this one. I am going to remove the "Discuss Merge" template from page. Evident 14:05, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Speed of Reporting Sex Abuse to Civil Authorities

I thought it was important to add the practical consideration of how important it is to quickly report the crime to civil authorities. DNA collection is much more likely to add weight to a prosecutor's case if collected quickly after the crime took place. I referenced the Presidential DNA plan regarding Forensics collection as support for the statement that speed in reporting is critical to successful use of DNA evidence in prosecution. Evident 15:16, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] someone needs to get a transcpript from the dateline episode on this.

They asked the society to point to a cases where they society turned over pedphile cases to the authorities. The society handed them only two examples both were about a child being molested by someone on the outside of the organization. If my memory did not fail me.--Greyfox 03:03, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Religioustolerance.org

This article uses the religioustolerance.org website as either a reference or a link. Please see the discussion on Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/Religioustolerance.org and Wikipedia:Verifiability/Religioustolerance.org as to whether Wikipedia should cite the religioustolerance.org website, jguk 14:07, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Not neutral

This page has obviously been edited by someone sympathetic to JW's, making a general judgement statement favorable to Jehovah's Witnesses in the first paragraph. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Paulshrug (talk • contribs) 05:13, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

  • Absolutely! Working on it. One thing is to outline their child abuse policy, another to explain the factual problem of pedophilia missmanagement within their ranks. Significant work needs to be done with including valid references. BatteryIncluded (talk) 17:27, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
    • I'm concerned that User:ProofreaderXL, a single-purpose account has been trying to add pro-JW POV to this article (through [[WP:WEASEL|weasel words), see [1], [2], [3]. I will revert these changes. nneonneo talk 22:59, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Citations needed

This article contains many statements in need of source verification. The sensitivity of this subject demands careful presentation and verification.--Marvin Shilmer (talk) 18:33, 12 February 2008 (UTC)