Topic: Possible class action lawsuit against evangeical church for sex abuse cover up.
Anonymous A started this discussion 14 years ago #22,810
A lawsuit was filed in Maryland regarding church cover-ups of child molestation. Sovereign Grace Ministries, the evangelical church that reportedly didn’t handle these situations correctly, has around a hundred congregations. Most are in the United States. There are three girls in the case that are claiming they were abused.
The Washington Examiner reports the following;
The church did not immediately respond to a written message or to a phone message left on its general voice mail box. It wasn’t immediately clear if the church had a lawyer. The suit names as defendants about a half-dozen pastors and church officials who plaintiffs say were alerted to the accusations but either failed to take action or actively covered them up. One official said he had not seen the suit and declined comment. Other defendants either did not immediately respond to phone messages or did not have publicly listed phone numbers.
In accusing church leaders of turning a blind eye to sexual molestation, the lawsuit bears parallels to the allegations of priest sex abuse and the resulting cover-up that have rocked the Roman Catholic church over the last decade. But while that scandal centered on sex abuse by priests, the accusations in this case involve molestation by church members instead of clergy.
The Examiner goes on to say, “The suit only covers alleged abuse that occurred in Maryland and in northern Virginia, but the church has faced scrutiny on other occasions for its handling of sexual abuse claims, and Susan Burke, a lawyer representing the three plaintiffs, said there are other alleged victims prepared to join a class-action suit.â€
A class-action lawsuit for sexual abuse? The fact that such a thought can even be associated with that church is morally repugnant. Institutionalized child abuse is one of the worst evils in the world today.
Here are the stories of the three plaintiffs, as reported:
One of the three plaintiffs, a high school student in Virginia, alleges she was sexually assaulted when she was 3 years old and that the mother of the boy who abused her revealed the molestation to the church. But church officials discouraged her family from reporting the allegations to police and, instead, repeatedly interviewed the alleged abuser and worked with him and his mother to determine how best to prevent any prosecution and publicity regarding the abuse.
A second plaintiff, a college student in Maryland, says she was sexually abused as a toddler by a church member. She says the church pastor scolded her parents after they called the police and then tipped off the accused that he had been reported to the police. She says her parents were instructed to bring her to a meeting with her alleged abuser so they could be “reconciled,†but that she was “visibly scared and crawled under the chair†after being brought into the same room with him.
The third plaintiff says her adoptive father, a member of the church, sexually abused her older sister for three and a half years. She says the church warned her mother not to pursue a prosecution, then kicked the family out of the church and denied the children reduced tuition to the school. The man was ultimately prosecuted and imprisoned, the lawsuit says.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/lawsuit-claims-evangelical-church-hid-abuse-claims/article/feed/2039754#.UH8RD8XjUco
In other words, while the church personnel did not perform acts of molestation, they protected those who did. That is nearly as bad — if not equally — as directly doing it. You are allowing the abuse of children to happen in order to protect the “reputation†of an institution claiming to be a force for good
The Washington Examiner reports the following;
The church did not immediately respond to a written message or to a phone message left on its general voice mail box. It wasn’t immediately clear if the church had a lawyer. The suit names as defendants about a half-dozen pastors and church officials who plaintiffs say were alerted to the accusations but either failed to take action or actively covered them up. One official said he had not seen the suit and declined comment. Other defendants either did not immediately respond to phone messages or did not have publicly listed phone numbers.
In accusing church leaders of turning a blind eye to sexual molestation, the lawsuit bears parallels to the allegations of priest sex abuse and the resulting cover-up that have rocked the Roman Catholic church over the last decade. But while that scandal centered on sex abuse by priests, the accusations in this case involve molestation by church members instead of clergy.
The Examiner goes on to say, “The suit only covers alleged abuse that occurred in Maryland and in northern Virginia, but the church has faced scrutiny on other occasions for its handling of sexual abuse claims, and Susan Burke, a lawyer representing the three plaintiffs, said there are other alleged victims prepared to join a class-action suit.â€
A class-action lawsuit for sexual abuse? The fact that such a thought can even be associated with that church is morally repugnant. Institutionalized child abuse is one of the worst evils in the world today.
Here are the stories of the three plaintiffs, as reported:
One of the three plaintiffs, a high school student in Virginia, alleges she was sexually assaulted when she was 3 years old and that the mother of the boy who abused her revealed the molestation to the church. But church officials discouraged her family from reporting the allegations to police and, instead, repeatedly interviewed the alleged abuser and worked with him and his mother to determine how best to prevent any prosecution and publicity regarding the abuse.
A second plaintiff, a college student in Maryland, says she was sexually abused as a toddler by a church member. She says the church pastor scolded her parents after they called the police and then tipped off the accused that he had been reported to the police. She says her parents were instructed to bring her to a meeting with her alleged abuser so they could be “reconciled,†but that she was “visibly scared and crawled under the chair†after being brought into the same room with him.
The third plaintiff says her adoptive father, a member of the church, sexually abused her older sister for three and a half years. She says the church warned her mother not to pursue a prosecution, then kicked the family out of the church and denied the children reduced tuition to the school. The man was ultimately prosecuted and imprisoned, the lawsuit says.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/lawsuit-claims-evangelical-church-hid-abuse-claims/article/feed/2039754#.UH8RD8XjUco
In other words, while the church personnel did not perform acts of molestation, they protected those who did. That is nearly as bad — if not equally — as directly doing it. You are allowing the abuse of children to happen in order to protect the “reputation†of an institution claiming to be a force for good
squeegee !firstkPE1Q joined in and replied with this 14 years ago, 1 hour later[^] [v] #357,632
you're going to need to summarize this for mei'm not going to read all that.
is it interesting?