There is something that I have started to feel pretty strongly about. This is a recent feeling and one that today I am feeling stronger than ever. I know where it is coming from but I have not figured out how to actually act on it.
Since we discovered what M was being investigated for I joined a few groups for support for families and actual offenders. What is coming to light to me is the harassment and anger that is directed to those who are on the List. The mean and nasty comments on posts is distressing to me. Comments wishing SOs go to hell and that God does not love them and they should be castrated. The comments and general feeling of society is disheartening.
I do admit that before I knew M would be on the registry we knew about it and worried about all of the molesters and rapists who were on it and if they would live close to us and our children. Little did I know what the List really was. A way to ostracize a group of people who had served their time and were just trying to get back to living a normal life. SO's are looked upon as lepers to society, evil doers who should not be allowed to actually live.
What has really surprised me is those who profess to be Christians kicking SO's out of church. Christians who villainize and attack people on the list all in the name of God.
How is this of God?
It is not. That is what I am coming to realize. This is NOT of God.
One of the 10 commandments is to love your neighbor. One of the most used words in the New Testament is Love. There are more instances of the word Love than the word Sin. God commands us to love one another. Jesus spent more time with sinners than saints. And who among us is a saint?
Jesus was also a big proponent of forgiveness. Who needs to be forgiven? Sinners. Forgiveness is granted to those who profess their sins and ask for forgiveness and sin no more. The percentage of SO's who are on the list that actually reoffend is 5-15% according to most studies.
Sex offenders should be treated as any other sinner who is trying to sin no more. Not as a leper to society who should never be seen or heard. Who should be tortured and tormented just for living. This is where I feel God speaking to me. There are many organizations that are trying to get rid of the registry. (I have them listed on my side bar) But so far I have not found a faith based group or organization that is willing to show love and support and no judgement. I am not sure what this means for me. But it is something I am feeling in my heart that there needs to be. People who are on the list deserve to be loved and cared for just as much as those who were victimized.
People make mistakes.
People deserve forgiveness.
Those who are without sin cast the first stone.
The registry is so misunderstood and applies to such a broad range of people, more than the laws were intended to warn the public against, and more than most people imagined. Just like you and I imagined it before we found out the hard way how easy it is to end up on the registry. If several things hadn't come together to go our way, including a prosecutor who was willing to think outside the box, my son could have ended up on the registry for being a curious middle-schooler. For touching a girl under the age of 12--even though he was also under the age of 12 for part of the offenses (and never over the age of 15, even though the age of consent in our state is 16). Crazy--you can be labeled a lifetime sex offender for things you do before the age of consent! It's because he was 18 when it came to the attention of police and they had to charge him as an adult at that point, and the only charges for adults are charges that assume that it was an adult who touched the child under the age of 12. I don't know how often that happens but on some of the SO sites I have seen that the median age of the perpetrator in a sex offense is something like 14. And even those who are charged as juveniles can end up on the adult registry. Yes, kids that age can do real harm to victims--my son's victim did get PTSD but improved a lot with therapy once she disclosed. But to brand someone as a threat to society for life and close off many life opportunities before they even get to adulthood is insane. I'm sure not what the legislators had in mind when they wrote the laws, but that's how they are ending up.
ReplyDeleteAnd more to your son's case, the world of porn has changed so much since the laws about that were written. Guys are being baited over and over and it's not even a click away, it's there tempting you and any guy could slip up and head down the wrong path because the sites know how their brains are wired and take full advantage of it. I recommend the book "Your Brain on Porn", it helped me to understand this and is written respectfully. Laws also assume that looking at CP is a precursor to enticing or molesting children and that is not the case the vast majority of the time. Especially if your state defines "child" as "under 18"--and it's pretty hard to distinguish a 17 year old from an 18 year old in an image.
About the Christian side of it, I have thought a lot about that too. Our church went through the gospel of Luke this summer and I was struck by how often Jesus was hanging out with sinners and outcasts. "What Would Jesus Do?" takes on a whole different meaning when you look at what Jesus actually did. I read those all with different eyes now that I have tasted what it is like to actually be an outcast and sinner, or at least under threat of that public label. Jesus didn't just preach to them, or give alms to them, he ATE with them (which was a big deal back then, and actually still is a pretty intimate act now), went to their house, was FRIENDS with them. I thought many times about how the tax collectors or lepers in the gospels could easily be the sex offenders of today.
ReplyDeleteI go to a pretty "progressive" church and in the last year they had a big campaign to emphasize that they welcome all people, mostly as an umbrella to make the case that they are ready to welcome openly LGBTQ people. They had several "conversations on sexuality" but I never heard a word about sexual abuse, or porn, or sex offenders. They went through a long process to draft a "welcome statement" emphasizing that everyone, no matter who they are, are welcome. I did successfully lobby to have language added to include people who have done something wrong or who are currently struggling with some kind of darkness. I also brought up the issue of people with criminal records in general in some of the conversations. But no matter what it says on paper, it didn't get to the point where I "came out" about what happened in our family, and our kids have only told a few trusted friends as well.
I think that Christians do need to walk a fine line, or actually walk on both sides of a line, between saying that wrong is wrong (and porn in general is wrong in my reading of "whoever looks with a woman with lust in his heart has committed adultery"; also touching someone without their consent or who is too young to know what's going on is wrong); while also acknowledging that we all do wrong things and all need God's grace and forgiveness, and the power of God and support of others to turn away from wrong and do better in the future. It is so hard to do, and so rare to happen...
This exactly.
DeleteWe do not go to as publicly progressive of a church but we know the paster personally so hopefully we can have a talk with him when M comes home so that he can go to church with us.
What M did was wrong, he knows it was wrong, he sinned greatly. But he does have a chance at redemption and forgiveness if he repents and asks for forgiveness, which he has done. He has accepted his punishment and just needs the grace to continue.