Law Jehovah’s Witness elders made teen listen recording of her rape for hours, lawsuit claims

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Elders at a Utah congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses allegedly forced a 15-year-old to listen to a recording of her rape over and over again for hours as part of a religious inquiry, a lawsuit before the Utah Supreme Court claims.

The case seeks to hold the leaders and the church at large responsible for inflicting emotional distress.

The church claims, and lower courts have ruled, that to hold them liable would violate the religious freedoms of the First Amendment of the US Constitution, since it involves weighing the appropriateness of religious conduct.

In duelling briefs, as well as oral arguments for the case on Monday (recordings of which are not yet available), the two sides wrestled over the meaning of this bedrock of American civil rights law.


Karra Porter, a lawyer representing the church, argued there was a difference between the government regulating physical harm and that of the facts in the case, according to the Desert News.

But at least one justice seems not see it that way.

“The allegation here is a mental and emotional equivalent of waterboarding,” Justice Deno Himonas said. “I’ve been a judge for a long time and a lawyer for a long time. I’ve never seen, in court, anything like this that’s alleged.”

The lawyers on the other side have previously argued that neglecting to challenge the church’s alleged actions here would set a precedent that “would give actors free rein to injure others under the guise of religious freedom—a proposition that the US Supreme Court has rejected repeatedly for over a century.”

Lawyers representing the church and the alleged victim did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The suit, originally filed in 2016, argued that the leaders of a congregation in Roy, Utah, made the teen girl sit and listen to the recordings for hours in 2008 as part of a religious inquiry. The woman in question, now an adult in her 20s, said in court documents a fellow Jehovah’s Witness, age 18, bullied her and allegedly raped her three times, including one instance in which the man involved recorded the incident.

This triggered an investigation from the church in early 2008, where the leaders called the girl and her parents into a committee which would decide whether she had engaged in sinful conduct. During the meeting, they played the recording on and off “for hours” in an attempt to extract a confession, according to court documents, as the girl “continued crying and was ‘physically quivering’ from the trauma of having to listen to her assault over and over.”

This led, her lawyers say, to anxiety, nightmares, loss of appetite, and poor performance in school, leading her to seek damages from the church.

But two lower courts found that the church couldn’t be held liable.

As the Utah Court of Appeals held in 2019, doing would require “an inquiry into the appropriateness of the Church’s conduct in applying a religious practice and therefore violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment," which bars the government from instituting particular religious practices.

Dozens of suits nationwide have accused the Jehovah’s Witnesses of mismanaging or covering up abuse inside the church, including one in early 2020, when the Montana Supreme Court reversed a $35 million judgement against the church for not reporting a girl’s abuse to authorities
 
How is this cult supposed to be legally in the wrong here?
I mean, did they imprison her in the room while they played the recording or something? Where's the force?

On a side note, is this cult admitting to possessing child pornography?

Why would church elders have a rape tape and force her to watch it? Hm. Were they collecting rape tapes? Is this a cult abuse tactic?

This sounds weird and like systemic rape initiation.
 
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Why would church elders have a rape tape and force her to watch it? Hm. Were they collecting rape tapes? Is this a cult abuse tactic?

This sounds weird and like systemic rape initiation.
Hi Pam.
This cult in particular has a long history of a "no outsiders, especially the government" ethic/'church' policy.
All infractions by members against other members and any evidence is supposed to be delivered to the 'church' elders.
 
Hi Pam.
This cult in particular has a long history of a "no outsiders, especially the government" ethic/'church' policy.
All infractions by members against other members and any evidence is supposed to be delivered to the 'church' elders.

So they taped her being raped? Doesn't this sound like trauma bonding tactics and retraumatization torture to ensure compliance?
 
The rapist taped her rape, not the cult.

It sounds fishy. No one in their right religious mind would want to hear a rape audio tape much less force a teen girl to listen to it. I understand the Jehovah's Bitches have certain rules but this sounds like deviance to me on the elders part.
 
It sounds fishy. No one in their right religious mind would want to hear a rape audio tape much less force a teen girl to listen to it. I understand the Jehovah's Bitches have certain rules but this sounds like deviance to me on the elders part.
Yeah, but the question here is: Did they legally do anything wrong?
I could see it if they actually forced her to listen to it, tied her to a chair or locked her in a room or whatever.
But if she knew she was going to hear it before they played it and didn't leave? It just seems like the trauma being sued over is really on her parents for letting this farce happen.

A giant shitshow all around and another way to get blacklisted by the doorknockers. Just ask them about this case or any of the other cult scandals and they will blacklist your address from ever having a Witness visit again.
 
Yeah, but the question here is: Did they legally do anything wrong?
I could see it if they actually forced her to listen to it, tied her to a chair or locked her in a room or whatever.
But if she knew she was going to hear it before they played it and didn't leave? It just seems like the trauma being sued over is really on her parents for letting this farce happen.

A giant shitshow all around and another way to get blacklisted by the doorknockers. Just ask them about this case or any of the other cult scandals and they will blacklist your address from ever having a Witness visit again.
Do you know what spiritual abuse is? It's a real thing. It's where Spiritual institutions use their religious spiritual rules and power to force people to do their bidding. Its a form of duress. A teen who has attended a church is under their spiritual submission. To get up and leave is to be "excommunicated" and kicked out of the church and the social ingroup-like family she only knew. This behavior isn't just limited to Catholics, its shown up in Baptist and other denominations. Good teens are obedient and go to heaven no matter what they are asked to do.
 
Do you know what spiritual abuse is? It's a real thing. It's where Spiritual institutions use their religious spiritual rules and power to force people to do their bidding. Its a form of duress. A teen who has attended a church is under their spiritual submission. To get up and leave is to be "excommunicated" and kicked out of the church and the social ingroup-like family she only knew. This behavior isn't just limited to Catholics, its shown up in Baptist and other denominations. Good teens are obedient and go to heaven no matter what they are asked to do.
Yes, I do.
Irrelevant to if there's actually a tort here or not.
 
Yes, I do.
Irrelevant to if there's actually a tort here or not.
Let's say it wasn't her rape.

Do you think church elders have a right to expose YOUR child to an actual audio or video committed sex crime? How would this NOT traumatize a young teen, much less the teen it happened to?

What would the elders gain from it? A sex traumatized conditioned girl, who could be raped again.
 
Let's say it wasn't her rape.

Do you think church elders have a right to expose YOUR child to an actual audio or video committed sex crime? How would this NOT traumatize a young teen, much less the teen it happened to?

What would the elders gain from it? A sex traumatized conditioned girl, who could be raped again.
Again, it depends on the exact circumstances, if I knew they were going to do it, and took my kid there for them to do it, it's entirely on me.
It's not right, it shouldn't happen, I just don't know if they actually did anything legally wrong here.

I don't try to figure out what cult members are thinking or trying to accomplish, it's just as bad as trying to do the same with any other insane person, even if you're insane in the exact same way the chances of you reading their minds is very low.
 
I always knew Jehovah’s Witnesses were creepy, it's a cult, not mainstream Christianity.

Agreed on this.

Despite their textbook cult behavior, Jehovah's Witnesses tend to skate by in the eyes of the mainstream for three reasons. At most, you'll see TV shows crack some jokes about them being annoying when they go door to door and that's usually about it.

1. They're explicitly apolitical by virtue of their own core tenants and didn't get caught in the mix of the old "Religious Right/Neocons vs. Liberals" culture wars of the Reagan, Clinton, and Bush years.

So a lot of the media and the snarky New Atheist assholes didn't really pay them much attention like they did to the actual mainstream Christians who are by and large actually sane. As much as I like to rag on the old Religious Right for their screw-ups, they were a lot better than the Woke Left that succeeded them and definitely a lot better than groups like the Jehovah's Witnesses.

Even the majority of the true and honest fundies tended to be full of hot air and not much else outside of a very few extreme exceptions like the West Memphis Three incidents.

Even WBC are just really annoying attention whores at their absolute worst and Jack Chick was the OG lolcow and otherwise harmless.

At most, JW's would get a cursory mention of their weird views on blood transfusions from the fedora tippers and that'd be it.

The media was more focused on the old guard Boomer fundies (and liberals/leftists who worked with them pragmatically like Joe Lieberman, Tipper Gore, and Andrea Dworkin) as well as the corruption and abuse scandals of the Catholic Church.

2. They're also small in number and aren't as outwardly strange as other cults like the Scientologists with their ties to Hollywood and roots in Sci-Fi or the Moonies with their communal marriages. The only big red flags that most normies know about them are the door-to-door missionary work and maybe the issue with blood transfusions. The only major celebrity figure that was a practicing JW was Prince, who was known for being really quiet about his private life compared to other pop stars.

Michael Jackson was raised JW as a kid, but he left the cult when he entered adulthood, as did most of the Jacksons.

3. To their slight credit, Jehovah's Witness are very strict about self-policing and maintaining good optics as opposed to other cults on their level of severity. They're also a lot more secretive and are very strict about the behavior of their own members.

That's probably why the JW's usually don't get as much attention for their cult behavior and tactics as they should.
 
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Why does this read like the elders were blackmailing the girl into confessing to a sin and beg for forgiveness or something? Why zone in on her but not the boyfriend? Do they think she was a seductress (at age 14) or what?

I always knew Jehovah’s Witnesses were creepy, it's a cult, not mainstream Christianity.
My brother, when he was a newly-returned missionary, stupidly invited a pair in for a chat and they kept coming back to the house for a couple months even though my brother never said anything about being interested in lessons or conversion. Until he was able to be home one day to catch them and say he wasn't interested at all, when we wouldn't answer the door, they would actually park themselves across the street to stare at our house for up to thirty minutes at one point. It was super creepy. Also is worth noting the missionaries that first came around were an elderly couple, but the wife never said a word, 'cause women shouldn't minister to others even alongside her husband I guess.

The "birds of a feather" comment from earlier is kinda amusing as it's a bit of an LDS in-joke that our churches don't exactly get along to the point of rivalry, but I don't know the origin. It might be because of the similarities, I dunno. I hear of more contention between Mormons and Church of Christ than Jehovah's Witnesses tbh.
 
Agreed on this.

Despite their textbook cult behavior, Jehovah's Witnesses tend to skate by in the eyes of the mainstream for three reasons. At most, you'll see TV shows crack some jokes about them being annoying when they go door to door and that's usually about it.

1. They're explicitly apolitical by virtue of their own core tenants and didn't get caught in the mix of the old "Religious Right/Neocons vs. Liberals" culture wars of the Reagan, Clinton, and Bush years.

So a lot of the media and the snarky New Atheist assholes didn't really pay them much attention like they did to the actual mainstream Christians who are by and large actually sane. As much as I like to rag on the old Religious Right for their screw-ups, they were a lot better than the Woke Left that succeeded them and definitely a lot better than groups like the Jehovah's Witnesses.

Even the majority of the true and honest fundies tended to be full of hot air and not much else outside of a very few extreme exceptions like the West Memphis Three incidents.

Even WBC are just really annoying attention whores at their absolute worst and Jack Chick was the OG lolcow and otherwise harmless.

At most, JW's would get a cursory mention of their weird views on blood transfusions from the fedora tippers and that'd be it.

The media was more focused on the old guard Boomer fundies (and liberals/leftists who worked with them pragmatically like Joe Lieberman, Tipper Gore, and Andrea Dworkin) as well as the corruption and abuse scandals of the Catholic Church.

2. They're also small in number and aren't as outwardly strange as other cults like the Scientologists with their ties to Hollywood and roots in Sci-Fi or the Moonies with their communal marriages. The only big red flags that most normies know about them are the door-to-door missionary work and maybe the issue with blood transfusions. The only major celebrity figure that was a practicing JW was Prince, who was known for being really quiet about his private life compared to other pop stars.

Michael Jackson was raised JW as a kid, but he left the cult when he entered adulthood, as did most of the Jacksons.

3. To their slight credit, Jehovah's Witness are very strict about self-policing and maintaining good optics as opposed to other cults on their level of severity. They're also a lot more secretive and are very strict about the behavior of their own members.

That's probably why the JW's usually don't get as much attention for their cult behavior and tactics as they should.

It's called "America has too many damn churches and denominations and JW's fly under the radar" crap.
 
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