Jehovah's Witnesses Cover Up Child Molestation

NBC's coverage of this problem

How about those nicely dressed Jehovah's Witness families going through your neighborhood passing out Watchtower magazines and urging you to "study the Bible" with them?

That family-friendly image they present is a tremendous facade behind which are tolerated some of the most vile acts of deviancy known to man.

I was raised a JW and left in 1998. One of issues that got me to start re-evaluating my faithfulness to the JW organization was their insistence on covering up the many instances of child molestation that occur in their organization.

Like many other religions and cults, the JW's rely on their squeaky clean image to attract new followers, and any publicity regarding their child molestation problem would make bringing new people into their cult very difficult.

From my personal experience, I would say that the hundreds of JW molestation cases that have been publicized are just the tip of the iceberg, and I will go further in saying that every single JW elder and every congregation of JW's has covered up at least one child molestation case for the sake of their image and reputation.

NBC publicized the JW child molestation problem in late November, 2007. The case centered on Frederick McLean (pictured on the left), a JW and fugitive from justice for at least 17 counts of child sexual abuse in califronis.

The JW's believe that as the only God-approved organization on earth, the pastoral/ministerial authority granted them by their false god is a higher authority than that of the State.

Hence, the JW's believed for years that child-molestation cases should be handled in-house, leaving the perpetrators free to find more victims. And believe it or not, to privately warn parents in the congregations of the potential danger to their children was highly discouraged, if not permitted at all.

A quick examination of the JW's would lead you to conclude that they are not a child-friendly religion:

*Blood transfusions for children are not permitted, even when the child's life is in grave danger
*Playing with non-JW children, wearing certain haircuts, and listening to modern secular music is highly discouraged
*Children are not allowed to celebrate their own birthdays, Christmas, Easter, or Halloween.
*Participating in school sports, clubs, proms, summer camps is highly discouraged.
*Until very recently, JW teenagers were highly discouraged from going to college or furthering their education beyond high school, in many cases not even being allowed by their parents to take the SAT's
*Patriotic activities like saluting the flag, singing the national anthem, participating in Scouts or other community volunteerism, and joining the military and voting is prohibited.

Not surprisingly, a cult as hostile to the outside world as the JW's are has a lot of home schoolers, which further isolates their kids from any contact with the real world. (This is not a reflection on the many fine Christian families that home school their children.)

The JW's are a very secretive cult that uses psychological and social isolation to keep it's members in line. That isolation is a protective layer of security that makes finding and prosecuting JW child molestors almost impossible, since the victims and their families believe that any disloyalty to the JW's will cost them their favor with God, their prospect for eternal life, and could result in them losing the only family and friends that they know.

So instead of admiring those nice families as they walk down the street in their suits and dresses distributing their Watchtower literature, feel sorry for these trapped people, especially the kids.