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In Reply to: To Joseph posted by Post R on August 16, 2002 at 06:37:50:
This is the letter I was referring to:
Dear WC, Achieck, Mike, Meshach and coordinators of ex-family.org,
Greetings. We have recently run into and perused your new web site,
and felt led to write you about it. We can see that you and those you
are working with are investing much time and energy in your web site.
Pardon our not knowing who to address this to, as it seems that
everyone on the site is going under a pseudonym, unlike most bona
fide anti-cult or Christian apologetic organizations who do so with
at least one legal name, and most with a board of directors,
addresses, contact information, etc. We also tried to contact you
via the information given to register the site, but found it was also
not reliable information.
As you know, the Family has taken great pains to reconcile with
former members and we are truly sorry for any hurts or bitterness
that any former member may have, yourselves included. We believe
that Peter and Maria have extensively apologized for any incidents
from their past that they have grievances about. We also respect and
understand the rights former members have to air such grievances on
their chat board, as long, of course, as individuals are not
slandered. We believe Barney, for example, has taken great pains to
recognize the rights of all individuals on his site, and we commend
him for that. We believe Family leadership and members have shown a
willingness to dialogue and a sincere concern and interest in the
feelings and welfare of individuals who at some point in their lives
were attached to the Family in some way, great or small.
However, it is important to recognize that current Family members
are also individuals with rights and the Family as a fellowship has
rights, just as any other church or organization has. Although we
are willing to do what we can to make amends and help former members
who have grievances, we also must protect the rights of our
fellowship and individual members. Unfortunately your site infringes
on our legally protected rights, as you have posted and are in the
process of posting some of our copyrighted publications. We imagine
that in doing so you are not familiar with the law that protects
copyrighted materials from being used on the Web by people who do not
hold the copyrights (in this case yourselves). A good referral would
be the federal decision in favor of the Latter Day Saints vs. Tanners
(that is, the Mormon Church vs. their most vocal group of apostates,
the Tanners), in which the court ruled that the Tanners had no right
to publish internal copyrighted publications of the LDS on their web
site. Because a person or persons no longer adhere to or agree with
the publications of a group, does not grant them the right to in
effect bypass the group's rights and post their copyrighted
materials. Actually, according to this ruling, you are not even
allowed to provide links to the material or make it available off
your web site. (Civil Action No. 2:99-CV-0808 C)
As Christians, we believe that our duty is to attempt to settle this
amiably amongst ourselves, which is why we are writing to you in good
faith that you are unaware of the infringement and will remove the
"MO Letter List" and Letters you have posted ("The Christmas
Monster", "IRFers Beware", "Old Church, New Church" and "Mountain
Men"). We in general attempt to be tolerant of such anti-Family
activities by former members as much as we can, respecting people's
feelings, unless they infringe upon our rights. While respecting the
rights of others, we must also protect the rights of individuals in
the Family.
We believe that your allegations that the Family promoted or engaged
in: child pornography, adult-child sex, prostitution, adultery,
libel, kidnapping, larceny, evasion and political meddling is
libelous and we know of no court of law that has found The Family
guilty of these crimes (of course some of the listed are not crimes).
We would suggest that the horrendous suffering that over 200
innocent children were subjected to in Argentina due to outright
slanderous libel from former members, most of whom did not even know
these children or have any knowledge of their lives, may serve as a
lesson to the ill consequences of unfounded accusations presented as
fact, and truth twisted beyond recognition, to the point that judges
have to proclaim such testimony as perjury.
Also, in another section of your site, you state: "Another major
purpose is bookkeeping and tax benefits - by redistributing funds
internally and writing them off as expenses or gifts to other charity
projects - they declare themselves non-profit organizations - and
thus benefit from subsidies and tax exemptions designed for bona fide
charity work. By registering themselves as NGOs (Non-Governmental
Organizations) they may also infiltrate countries closed to
proselytization activities. These names were collected through
primary sources. It is difficult if not impossible, to stay up to
date - members uproot frequently and adopt new names to avoid
detection. They do however, use recognizable common themes in their
literature, activities, style and presentation."
We assume by this that you mean that Family members have no right
to run a charitable organization legally, due to the fact that they
are Family members, aka religious discrimination. We don't believe
this premise would hold up in a court of law, rather each individual
project (which is just that, an individual community endeavor and not
"The Family") undertaken by a community is responsible before the law
to represent their charitable works in a legal fashion. We're sorry
if you seem to believe that in order to carry out a local charitable
operation it must be under the name of the Family, but actually that
is no more required than that any other religious charitable endeavor
hold the same name as their church. This is perfectly legal and
legitimate, and in fact, the practice of most churches. We don't
know of a charity called "The Catholic Church", or "The Seventh Day
Adventists".
So we reserve the right as every other church, to have local
organizations under our umbrella that are oriented towards a social
gospel, in other words, charitable works. Our publications do state
that such organizations should be clear about their affiliation with
the Family, which in most cases, except in countries where Christians
are persecuted, is quite straightforward. This seems again a case of
holding Family members to a standard that society does not expect
from its members. We do not feel that we owe an accounting of the
charitable work carried out by current members to you, nor do we
believe that you have had the opportunity to become familiar with the
charitable work Family members do around the world. Therefore, it is
not honest to say that such local endeavors are not "bona fide"
organizations. Perhaps the law as to what constitutes a "bona fide"
charity would elucidate this point further.
Thank you for your prayerful consideration of this letter, we
believe that what we are presenting is only fair and legal and we
hope that we will not find ourselves obligated to seek legal
recourse.
Sincerely,
Public Relations Office for The Family
