"http://www.stepstolife.org/php/view_article.php?article_id=1777
I think this account is…"
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Primitive Christianity Revived, Again
Radical Acceptance: When an Attender is a Sex Offender
At the end of last year, a man began arriving every First Day at our Meeting. I noticed him because he kept plain dress. As is true with many houses of worship these days, the preferred style of clothing for most of us is casual. The tall, bearded man I saw downstairs prior to First Hour was clad in white shirt, black pants, and suspenders. He appeared deeply uncomfortable, shuffling back and forth uneasily.
Because my introversion usually keeps me anxious around people, I made an extra effort to be friendly. He stared at me as though unsure of what to do with the gesture. I thought nothing of it and made my way upstairs to Meeting for Worship, like usual. Perhaps he was a visitor from another Meeting. We have so many, after all. Washington, DC, is a haven for tourists and a few of them are traveling Quakers.
The mysterious man turned out to be a registered sex offender. He had reached out to our Meeting some weeks before via an old-fashioned letter in the mail. Sad to say, we’d displaced his correspondence for a few weeks, the first of many mistakes later to follow. In the letter, he explained his situation and circumstances. He was to be released in a few days from prison after a lengthy sentence for molesting a child.
He found Quakers because of a Conservative Friends Meeting in his place of incarceration. Their prison ministry had reached out to him. With the zeal of the new convert, he had become a Friend, idealizing his new found faith as many do in the beginning. Eager to start a new life, he followed the letter of the law to a T, desirous to follow the many requirements and restrictions placed upon all registered sex offenders.
His correspondence did not hide the nature of his crime. A native of the area, finally returning home, he wished to Worship with us. Due to his conviction, correspondence from his parole officer was a mandatory part of the process. Since nothing quite like this had ever been taken on by the Meeting, no one was sure how it ought to proceed.
Two Meeting committees were assigned an exceeding delicate task. Quaker process is slow as molasses in the best of circumstances, but this matter was sensitive and potentially toxic, especially if it got out of hand. The man met frequently with our Personal Aid committee for several weeks. Later, Healing & Reconciliation was incorporated into the process. Deliberation followed deliberation. Two months passed.
Those on committees contributed lots of extra time, establishing a support committee alongside other efforts. Each of these was conscious of a need to control the news and present it in a responsible, sober fashion. This man’s past was a liability, and not just for strictly legal reasons. A very different letter through the mail shared the news with the Meeting, urging discretion. Members and regular attenders were requested to keep the words of the letter to themselves. However, as Robert Burns wrote, the best laid plans oft go awry. And awry was a generous word to use under the circumstances.
The parents went into full out panic mode. Why had they not been told of this man’s presence in the Meeting until he had been actively attending for two months? What if he stalked their children? Skittish, frightened parents expressed anxiety after anxiety. What was thought to have been handled sufficiently by two committees spilled out beyond its intended borders. Once the cat was out of the bag, hurt, fear, and pain were on full display.
Meetings can be fast asleep in matters such as these. Business placed before us must season, we say, and so we adopt a deliberative approach. In emotionally intense situations, we have no choice but to act swiftly and firmly. In this setting, insistence upon strict secrecy meant that multiple, conflicting versions of the truth leaked out, much like a giant version of the game Telephone.
It was discovered that two regular attenders had also been convicted of child sexual abuse. One of them had once even served as a clerk of a committee. A child safety task force was hastily formed. Alongside it, a punitive system of strict supervision and boundaries not to be crossed was eventually adopted to apply to sex offenders. In part, it was drafted to comfort worried parents. In reality, it did not begin to address the multiplicity of issues that this crisis situation had brought forth.
The input and involvement of the most vulnerable was overshadowed by worst case scenario. Parents will sometimes lose all sense of perspective when their own offspring is concerned. The stridency of discourse omitted essential considerations.
Basic protection aside, children need to be taught to speak up on the own behalf. They must be told to assert their own rights as individuals. Should they be left alone in a room with an adult who is not a RE teacher, for example, they should vocalize their discomfort and tell other adults. No amount of punishing the offender in a preemptive fashion will stop the possibility. Legalistic language and adopted protocol is purely a panacea. Absolute security simply does not exist.
I’m adamant about this debate for a very specific reason. For the past several months, I’ve written in great detail about a part of my own early life. Or, to put it another way, I was molested because I had been taught to do exactly what other adults told me to do. My parents instructed me that, out of respect, I ought to have obedience and respect for my elders. When an older man directed me to do exactly as he said, I obeyed. Though what I was asked to do felt uncomfortable and somehow wrong, I believed that, as someone my parent’s age, he knew best. Then only a child, this was all that I knew.
In the meantime, the man whose intended presence among us had sparked the firestorm withdrew his intention to join us. The vituperative nature of criticism led him to believe that he was unwanted. Among some, but not all, I believe that he was. Many Friends felt as though their effort to accommodate him in fellowship had failed. The process had been emotionally draining for almost everyone.
The Meeting continues to deal with the fallout. Three listening sessions have been scheduled. A majority of voices have resolved to allow a sex offender to Worship with us, albeit with severe strings attached. Yet, questions remain. How will we handle something like this in the future? How can we confront a topic that is severely verboten for many, especially for survivors? To me, the truth lies in our willingness to wake from our slumber.
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Comment by Ramona on 5th mo. 24, 2012 at 7:07pm -
Kevin,
I was with you all the way until you seemed to say that the answer is teaching children to "Just Say No." Sadly, even those of us who were able to say "No" as children were traumatized by the attempted molestation. I speak from experience, as you do. Yes, teaching children to set boundaries or to tell someone can help. It should be done. But that is ALSO not a panacea. Speaking as both a parent and as a victim of childhood sex abuse, I could not be comfortable with a known sex offender in my Meeting.
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Comment by Kevin Camp on 5th mo. 24, 2012 at 7:13pm -
I'm afraid we may have to disagree, but I respect your opinion.
Let me add that I don't think teaching children to be their own advocates is the only solution. But it is a solution rarely utilized. Providing a facade of protection is what most people do in similar circumstances, and it's simply not effective.
I myself felt a strong sense of disgust during the abuse, and it's complicated my recovery. As much as it pains me, there is no absolute method of keeping children safe. It doesn't exist. But, statistically speaking, most childhood sexual abuse comes at the hands of parents and close family members. That would not be the case in this circumstance.
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Comment by Will T on 5th mo. 24, 2012 at 10:51pm -
The issue of promoting child safety is a very delicate topic. It triggers parental concerns, it provides all sorts of triggers for abuse survivors and it seems to bring out any unresolved sexual issue for anybody. In the best of all possible worlds, a meeting will work these out and come to a set of policies before there is a triggering event, whether it is an incident of suspected abuse, or a sex offender shows up at your meeting. Our meeting did that, but it took a long time, it was hard, and it took a number of people taking up the issue and keeping it before the meeting even when people would rather not deal with it. And we had the advantage that a number of us had previously attended a meeting that had dealt with a case of abuse in the meeting and, being in the Boston area, we had the backdrop of the sex abuse scandal in the Boston Catholic Diocese, and we had members with professional experience in field of child protection.
One of the things that we had to keep coming back to was that we could not guarantee safety. We can only provide mechanisms that make us more safe. It is a balancing act. You have to balance concerns for safety with the trust that is needed to be a true community. Another conflict is between the Quaker tradition of discretion and being careful with the reputations of others and the need for the community as a whole to process and come to unity on such a charged issue.
Once an incident has happened, it is perhaps helpful to remember that there are probably no "good" ways to deal with the situation, there are only ways that are more or less "bad."
I hope your meeting is finding healing.
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Comment by William F Rushby on 5th mo. 25, 2012 at 12:23pm -
Jane Smith wrote: pious parents calling themselves "Christians"
Did the people involved self-identify as "Christians" or is that a presumption you made?
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Comment by Kevin Camp on 5th mo. 25, 2012 at 12:35pm
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Some were Christians, most were probably theists. It's a liberal unprogrammed Meeting in a big city. Very typical dynamics.
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Comment by Forrest Curo on 5th mo. 25, 2012 at 1:37pm
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Well, are they putting their faith in God to protect themselves and others? (Not failing to take appropriate precautions-- but starting from an assumption that this world is not being Operated as a intricately clever and malicious trap intended to exploit and punish their rightful trust?)
Do they trust that God is at work in all persons?
Have they bought into fears that Those People are 10 feet high with fangs?
Or the notion that there are "two kinds of people"? (I know, "those who believe there are two kinds of people, and those who don't." But also: those who talk themselves into insane self-images and behavior... in one context-- vs those who talk themselves into insane self-images and behavior... in more typical contexts.
My friend LoVerne Brown, concluding her (alas, lost!) poem on 'The Sane': "The Sane are blowing up the Earth." Since her death a few years back, the bulk of them still persist in "normal" habits guaranteed to accomplish the same thing, whichever gets there first.
In the present climate of mutual suspicion and fear, an adult is simply not safe, alone with a child. Just how it is. But do Friends need to buy into the mentality that makes that necessary?
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Comment by Kevin Camp on 5th mo. 25, 2012 at 1:42pm
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I certainly hope they're placing their faith in God. A minority of parents in this situation are very intractable and I think unwilling to see beyond their instinctive fears. That's the problem. My Meeting has a habit of attracting stubborn, unreasonable people, which often keeps me and other people very frustrated.
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"Stubborn, unreasonable people" you shall always have with you... God made so many of us; and we have to go somewhere!
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Comment by Kevin Camp on 5th mo. 25, 2012 at 2:13pm
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But they shall not always have me! :-)
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Comment by Stephanie Stuckwisch on 5th mo. 26, 2012 at 11:21pm -
My meeting is reeling from this same issue. My meeting also polarized and the level 3 offender withdrew his request to attend.
There is a meeting in my area that has succeeded in having a convicted child molester as an attender for a decade. Unfortunately, members of my meeting did not choose to follow their example.
Their approach was different from anything mentioned in the various comments.
Everything was open from the beginning. Parents and survivors of abuse were listened to without judgement.
The meeting decided that safety of children was first priority (no it can't be guaranteed, but there are still safeguards that can be put in place). I would like to point out that care of children is a responsibility of the community and not just the parents.
The second priority was care of survivors. Since an alarming number of survivors came forward, this included educating meeting members about effects of trauma and how it can color reactions even years later.
The third priority was integrating the offender.
I know that this sounds harsh to those who put a priority on welcoming forgiveness, but as far as I know this meeting has managed it better than any other meeting that I know about. I think they succeeded because of this 3 step approach. It was a long and difficult process. The offender respected it and stuck with it.
From my perspective, biggest hurts in my meeting were caused by the people who were callus towards victims and parents. When people don't feel heard, don't respected and think knowledge has been withheld, then polarization occurs.
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