Is Shunning of Disassociated People Illegal?

26 Mar 2008 at 20:32

tastyrerun

disfellowshipping jehovah jehovah's witnesses Reed shunning

I was doing a little research today about shunning as practiced by different religious denominations. The Jehovah’s Witnesses practice it, obviously, and they have been brought to court over it and have prevailed using the argument that it’s a religious punishment and as such is a protected religious freedom. I have always felt that there is a some sort of flaw in this logic, but haven’t been able to see the weakness in the argument until today when I ran across the case of the Amish man Andrew Yoder (YODER v. HELMUTH, 1947) and the fact that his religiously mandated shunning was overturned by a court. I was curious how it happened that this man, who sued his Amish community for damages that were inflicted due to shunning, actually came out victorious in his lawsuit.

First, what was Mr. Yoder disfellowshipped for? Mr. Yoder had an ill daughter who needed regular medical attention. He lived 15 miles away from a clinic where he needed to take her. According to Amish law he couldn’t own a car, which he needed in order to bring his daughter to the clinic, so in order to purchase a car he quit the Amish religion and joined, instead, the Mennonites. He apparently did not complete a valid transfer to the new congregation, or some such thing, and the elders in his church disfellowshipped him and subjected him to institutionalized shunning. As a result of this shunning, Mr. Yoder (a farmer, reliant upon the community for survival) suffered severe financial and emotional distress. He went to court and sued the church to have the ban on contact with him lifted. Interestingly, his argument was that since he had QUIT the church he could not be subject to church discipline.

The court agreed with his argument. They decided that the shunning was illegal because it amounted to a violation of the plaintiff’s civil rights of liberty to switch churches at will without intimidation or coercion. The court decided that they could not order any of Yoder’s neighbors to talk to him but they could hold the church responsible for their attempts to coerce him to remain with their particular church. The church leadership had to pay $5000 to Mr. Yoder.

This is apparently a very unusual and rare case. In other cases, (GUINN v. CHURCH OF CHRIST OF COLLINSVILLE is cited in the article I linked to) judges have found that shunning constitutes a protected religious act. While reading about this I realized that there are actually two different things going on here, two distinct situations, one is punishment, one is choice.

The crux of the matter is whether or not a person is free to leave their religion without fear of intimidation, threat, coercion or abuse. If so, a person who quits a religion to either be free from religion or to join another one should be free to do so without repercussion. That person is not being punished by the religion, they are deciding against it in full awareness. When somebody does not wish to leave their religion but refuses to live by the standards of that religion, then the religion is within their rights to punish said individual with community shunning, disfellowshipping, etc, and as unpleasant as that is, I understand that it constitutes freedom of religion. However, to threaten those who wish to leave your religion with institutionalized shunning from family and friends and the attendant emotional damage that causes is a different issue entirely. I am not entirely certain whether the WTS is not treading on the constitutionally protected freedom of religious liberty by treating those who leave voluntarily the same as those who are excommunicated by force. In the first case, the person in question has voluntarily left your religious community and is therefore no longer under your jurisdiction. The leaders in the religious community should not able to instruct others within the community to treat them badly. In the second case, one involuntarily expelled for wrongdoing, you could argue that the person is still a member of your community on some level and therefore the punishment inflicted by the community is legal.

I sincerely wonder if a legal case could be built on this framework. Any lawyers (or law students… Jeff) out there got an opinion?

More From Ryan Sutter

Esther

David,
Thanks for the reply. I apologize if I got a little too emotionally involved in the discussion! I appreciate your insight. It's hard because I live with Ryan and see first hand how he experiences the human side of the shunning issue. It comes up almost every day in some way or another. And there's nothing I can do but be supportive. It's hard to be a helpless bystander. I can't make up for the absence of his family. I know you were just trying to be objective and you made a lot of good points. I'm not the most objective person in the world when it comes to this issue:-)

I hope you will comment again. It's good to have another point of view. Please don't think this one isolated post impacts all of the valuable stuff you've said. Or even that my point of view makes a difference. It's just one person's take on things. You've got a lot to offer! I know Ryan's said on more than one occasion that he really enjoys your take on things. He thrives on lively discussions!
Jennifer

Jeff,

Thanks for the advice. You sound like you will do your profession some good :-) I will look into that article you mentioned and see if I contact the lawyers mentioned in it.
Jeff

Jennifer,

I'm sorry. Sounds to me like my profession has let you down. Of course, I'm not in practice. It is possible that a few years in the world doing this work will harden my edges to the point where I also stop listening to some people's situations and write them off. But I doubt that will happen. I'm pretty sure Ryan & Esther wouldn't stand for it if I lost my soul to this work. Neither would any of the rest of my amazing friends. Nor would I. My recommendation is to find the hell-raiser lawyers in your state. Keep looking. They are out there. In the past couple of months the Star Tribune profiled a couple of them here in Minneapolis, under the headline "The Two Jills". Every state has some of the types of lawyers who are willing to seek out justice, even if the case looks tough to win. But I'm afraid that I've not had my exposure to First Amendment issues as to how religious freedoms stack up against other fundamental rights (or their limitations) and what the current court trends look like. But there have to be attorneys out there who are more willing to pursue limiting some of the recognized constitutional advances of that evil little society you were, I assume, once associated with. You've made me feel a bit ashamed of my soon-to-be-chosen profession. Unfortunately, I know that wasn't the first time, nor will it be the last. Good luck.
david

Esther,

I think shunning is crap. It's not a good practice from any side. EVERYTHING I've said here pertains to that LEGAL side that you "don’t want to get into". Outside of that LEGAL side, I completely agree with everything that Ryan, James, Jennifer, and you have ever said about shunning. I don't know how I can be any clearer. IT'S CRAP! It sucks that Ryan's family treats him the way they do. It's BS that the WTBS has such a retarded policy that only does two things - keeps people in the group against what they believe and breaks up family and friendship. It disgusts me to think I used to be part of that group and participated in shunning others. What more can I say? I'll gladly say it.

Now as far as the Human element goes, this I also agree with. The Human element, to me, is when other people step in and pick up when you've been let down. That isn't the court's place. If Yoder came to me and told me his tale, I'd suggest he not sue, but I'd also offer my support.

Remember when I helped our friends move the other week? You know, when my wife was nine months pregnant and every minute was a hectic battle to get everything ready for the new baby? There was exactly ONE reason I HAD to help.

I had a buddy at work who moved the Wednesday before. I'm much closer to him than to our friends, but I didn't offer to help. It was understood that I had too much going on.

But I felt very strongly about helping our friends move because I knew that, had they still been JW's, they would have had a fleet of people helping them. Every time I've ever moved I've had a troop of Witnesses helping out. I assume the same is true for our friends. I thought it was crap that none of those people (perhaps even their family) would be helping.

Now I suppose they could have gone to the courts and asked the WTBS to pay for professional movers under the pretense that the Org. didn't allow them to make the kinds of friends that would always be there. That the WTBS has restricted it's members from giving a helping hand. But I don't think it's up to the government or to the courts.

So yeah, there is a Human element. That Human element is the friends you make once you leave. The people that support you and become your family.

I'm sure Ryan has shared with you what it's like to have lived your whole life in that group and then leave it. You don't know how to make friends. You don't trust people. Shunning is only one part of how bad they mess you up. No lawyer, judge, or jury is gonna fix that. And IN MY OPINION, they shouldn't. It's up to people. Individuals.

And I wish people would stop it with the "devil's advocate" stuff. I stand by everything I've written here 100%. True, I'm not attached to the WTBS, but I still don't think there's a legal solution to this problem. That was, after all, what the original post was about. And until this Human element stuff came up, that's all I've offered up for discussion. I never said anyone "made and [sic] choice and now [] should deal with it." I never said that anyone was "flat out wrong for even looking for a possible way to talk to [their] family again."

If I've been hurtful, I apologize. It surely wasn't the intention. Even more, it upsets me to find that it was. I don't believe I will comment here again.

(And finally, there are most definitely things I wouldn't do to save my two children.)
Esther

One more thing. Did you read Yoder's case? He left the Amish because they wouldn't allow him to have a car. He needed a car to drive his daughter to a medical center in order to treat a life threatening illness. He wouldn't have left otherwise. And he went through appropriate channels to leave. He should never have had to choose between his daughter's life and his religion. His whole livelihood was based in the Amish community and they took that away from him through shunning. He went through incredible hardship, all to save his daughter's life. Saying you're glad that case is a rarity leaves out the human element. Caring for your fellow human beings is ultimately what our brief lives are about. Wouldn't you do anything to save your child?
Esther

What the hell is going on here? David, all Ryan did was ask for a discussion. Do you realize how much pain the situation with his family causes him each and every day? Yes, he chose to leave the religion but really, how can you expect someone with integrity to choose between his beliefs and his family? It's a horrible situation to be in. Playing devil's advocate is one thing but to tell him that he is flat out wrong for even looking for a possible way to talk to his family again is hurtful. You are saying that he made and choice and now he should deal with it. But he's human. How could he not want to stand for his beliefs and yet have those he loves. I don't want to get into any of the legal stuff as that's been discussed already but there's a human side to all of this and I think you are going way too far as the "devil's advocate". In fact, you've gone into being hurtful.
david

Jennifer,

Yeah, I agree the medical analogy was good. I just wanted to be clear that I wasn't making light of medical (mis)informed consent. I was talking about "new-age-crystals" etc. only within the realm of the analogy to what we were talking about. I got confused when you said "...and to joke about 'new age crystals' when you’ve never had a doctor do anything without your consent..." I wasn't actually talking about the medical side of things, just furthering the analogy.

And I concede your point about not knowing at 15 how you would be treated if you changed your mind about the religion. You're right that the focus was more about DF'ing for a sin.

Ultimately though, I don't think it's WTBS policy to harass people who walk away. How can they be expected to inform you on how your family will act towards you? It's individuals that are causing you trouble (most likely family members) - not the publishing company.
Jennifer

Jeff,

I don't know what the ideals of lawyers are when they start out, all I know is that I was in a situation were I did not give informed consent, or consent at all, and I even clearly stated "no", yet the actions were done to me regardless in front of several witnesses, and this resulted in a great deal of emotional distress. I am trying to file a claim against the county and wanted to consult with a lawyer. Not one would even talk to me over the phone, or meet with me for an hour of their time that I would pay them an exorbitant fee for, simply because they did not think my case was worth their time, or winnable. I called individual lawyers, I called the state's bar to be referred to a lawyer, and after being questioned each time over the phone by their receptionists, I was told that they could not help me. I am not the only one in this situation, I know several women online who have experienced the same treatment and who can not even get a lawyer to speak with them for an hour, even if they pay them. My cynicism about lawyers isn't a personal attack, it is directed at the larger group of currently practicing lawyers in my state that wont give me the time of day to even help me fill out a form.

David,

I realize the medical analogy was off topic, however, many times I've seen you use totally off topic analogies to further your arguments. I thought it was a good example of how the term "informed consent" works, and I thought the term "informed consent" related to our discussion.

Also, I didn't mean to imply that the Watchtower Society should have taught me about other religions, I simply meant that they should not have gone to great lengths to keep me from learning about them, and things like evolution.

Also, it is not ridiculous that I did not know how I would be treated if I left. I was baptized at only 15 years old. I knew about disfellowshipping at the time, and I related it to committing some grave sin. I'm not too sure whether it was clear to me at the time that just walking away would prompt shunning and harassment, but I really don't think it was. Those things are not really discussed in the books that you go over before baptism, and once people who just left were out of my view I didn't ever know what happened to them or how they were treated.
david

Jennifer,

My relationships have changed. What makes playing the devil's advocate easy is that I think you are wrong and I am right. The government shouldn't have anything to do with whether a group decides to shun you so long as it's purely social. If they start telling me I have to talk to people that I don't want to or pay a fine if not talking to someone causes them to kill themselves, well then I'm outa here.

And please keep in mind that this discussion is about shunning not medicine. My comment about "new-age-crystals" was to show how silly it would be to have expected the people who taught you JW teachings to also teach you about Witchery and Buddhism when they think it's completely bogus. They taught you what they believe to be true. I also think it's ridiculous to say that you didn't know how you'd be treated if you left. Especially since you were raised in the group.

I don't think I've missed any points. You feel wronged and want big government to fix it. I've been wronged and am glad little government will ignore it. There's no question as to whether shunning is crap. The issue is whether it's a social issue that requires social justice or a legal one.
Jeff

Jennifer,

I hope that you don't really believe that lawyers really only take cases they think they can win. Lawyers are not part of some homogeneous and utterly cynical profession. We come from all walks of life, and while some may be hard-nosed and cynical, others are quixotic and idealistic. And there are a lot that fall in between those poles. But even discounting that factor, there are lots of reasons that "bad" looking cases go forward. Sometimes a case is taken to make a larger point, or to see if the law can be changed, despite very bad looking odds, or just due to a personal belief that an injustice has been done and that the victim deserves her day in court. Testing the legal boundaries is what lawyers do on a daily basis. We are charged, as part of our legal ethics, not to pursue frivolous actions in tribunal, but if we are making a "good faith argument for an extension, modification or reversal of existing law", then pursuing such arguments is completely acceptable. That quote, BTW, is taken from the Model Rules of Professional Conduct, Rule 3.1, on Meritorious Claims and Contentions. We all get schooled in the ethics rules and tested on them before we can be admitted to the bar.

All I can say is that I'm becoming a lawyer in order to improve our society. As part of that, I may end up tilting at a few windmills in the next 20 or 30 years. I fully expect to take on some actions that look like losers. And sometimes I'll win despite the poor odds. Other times, I'll take what looks to be a sure winner and see it circle the drain. And other times, I imagine that I'll end up moving ahead with a client not really being able to guess what the outcome is going to be and just trusting in my skills to see it through to successful completion. One common law school quote says something to the effect that how a judge rules is largely dependent upon what he had for breakfast, meaning that even judges don't always rule consistently and are affected by all sorts of things that have nothing to do with the law. Not that it is a crap shoot at all times, but sometimes it is. And of course, a judge may not be the one deciding the case, it may be a jury, and that takes the crap shoot to another level.

Certainly law is a profession that allows its members discretion as to whether to take a case or not, but once we do take a case, we're ethically bound to be zealous advocates. I think I'm probably beating a dead horse at this point.

Also, on the topic of informed consent, I'd caution against getting the medical version confused or conflated with the legal standard. They are two different beasts, driven by different underlying reasons and applying to different circumstances. And really, I'd caution against thinking that there is a single legal standard. I can't say this for certain, but I believe that informed consent will mean different things, and will use different standards, depending upon the legal area in which it is being applied. The concept appears a fair amount in different contexts in the law, and so I'd have to guess that it works differently depending upon the specific facts and circumstances at issue.

And last comment is to David, the Devil's Advocate - the Yoder case definitely appears to be an outlier, but it can't be ignored, as that was a battle that was actually won at one time, and so it has the potential to have at least some significance. As a law student, one very fundamental lesson we are taught is that arguments matter. Most of the time, winning & losing boils down to who makes the better argument. The law is constantly evolving. It evolves slowly, and it ebbs and flows in different social directions over time, but there is no doubt that change is a constant and one never knows when the next Brown v. Board of Education or Hamdan v. Rumsfeld will come along and turn a legal standard on its head.
Jennifer

David,

Perhaps it's easy for you to play devils advocate when your relationships with your family hasn't changed at all, and to joke about "new age crystals" when you've never had a doctor do anything without your consent, or coerce or manipulate you into giving consent that was not "informed". You seem to be missing my point, and I don't feel like arguing it when you act as though anyone who gives consent without being informed is an idiot. Your probably right anyway, no lawyer would likely even talk about taking on a case such as this because lawyers only take cases they think that they can win, and this case would be very difficult to win, so I guess anything we say is a moot point anyway.
melanie

You guys do know that David ALWAYS plays the devil's advocate - right? :)
david

One more quick one... are doctors held accountable when they don't inform you of the other competing new-age crystal treatments? Can you sue them for not telling you about the "power of prayer"?

I should be informed of every way conceivable to treat my brain tumor - yes even the controversial Fritos treatment. Otherwise I'm not fully informed.

(every time "buddha" comes up as the security word, I question whether I should hit "submit comment". I hope the people reading this understand that I'm not attached to the side I'm arguing for. Hehheh.)
david

But this isn't legal, it's social.

I mean, take your idea about being a minor when you joined up. You are basically asking for an annulment. Great. Take it. But I'm guessing that when you annul a marriage, the law won't side with you if your never-wife doesn't talk to you and you demand restitution. Would she be allowed to say that the two of you were once married?

With marriage there's many legal issues that an annulment would affect. What exactly is the legal side of being a Witness?

As far as published comments go, it's completely legal to say "men are pigs." If I say, "Ryan Sutter is a liar and a thief and shouldn't be trusted," I'm getting myself into trouble. Saying, "All musicians are liars, thieves, and shouldn't be trusted" should be (and I believe is) legal. Go back to your KKK example - what are they saying about people of other races and religions? Is it legal?

Well let's see. If I apply for a job and get turned down cause I'm Italian, who will I successfully sue, the man who turned me down or his father cause that's the one who taught him that WOPs are good-for-nothing? His preacher cause he agreed? Ron Howard, cause he directed Far and Away?

And keep in mind that in all of this, they tell their adherents to keep business relationships as they are. It's only social aspects.

Okay, maybe you won't get the 10% off discount at Charlie's when you show your death card...

-

"This is clearly a case of religious exemption to standards of conduct that are different in non-religious situations."

Well call me a blockhead cause it's not clear to me. But don't specifically call ME a blockhead. Instead say, "Anyone who doesn't get this is a blockhead." Then in another sentence you can point out that I don't get it.

-

Informed consent.

I completely agree. I mean, if you go to a hospital and a doctor tells you all the details of a procedure, but leaves out the subtle fact that the operation will take place in a hospital, you should be able to sue the pants off him. Of course you'd have to be a space alien not to know, but still...

And another thing, I think one of my ancestors died when they rubbed poop all over his infections. I should seek restitution. I mean, it's pretty obvious to me that doesn't work. He should have been informed of how bogus the procedure was.
Jennifer

I think it's a matter of 'informed consent'. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informed_consent

Many people get baptized not knowing the consequences of what will happen if they someday want to leave, whether they are minors or not. In fact, many people coming out of the org who simply want to walk away, are not fully aware of the consequences of doing so and are taken by surprise when they start getting harassed by the elders. Many people get baptized as minors at the age where their consent is invalid since they are not at a legal age to give consent. Many people stay in the org after the age of consent because they have never been truly informed of other schools of thought outside of it, and therefore have been manipulated from infancy, or childhood, to stay in the org and not be free to even explore information that would make them truly informed.

David, you are right that everyone has the freedom to give consent. That is true, we all consented to joining their club, and we all consented to the rules (at least the ones we knew about). But, we wouldn't feel upset now if we felt like we had given informed consent. It's like a doctor who says you need a surgery, and only gives you enough info, not even all true info, for you to give your consent. Later, after the surgery, you find out you didn't really need it. Your doctor mislead you, or manipulated you, into major surgery that you didn't need. You did give consent, so suing him would be complicated. However, you didn't give informed consent, because the vital information was withheld from you, and the information you did get was not completely correct. And, if you were a minor when you consented to this surgery, and actually not allowed to explore your options, then it makes it all more clear cut that you never gave informed consent.

Unfortunately, trying to pursue a case based on informed consent is next to impossible. Women who are given a c-section, or episiotomy, in childbirth without giving 'informed consent', wont even be able to get a lawyer to speak to them, let alone, go to court and try to fight it. Though informed consent is a legal term, it seems that there are no laws to back it up when it is not obtained.
ryan

Two things I'd like to point out:

1. People baptized as minors cannot be considered members of the Watchtower Society in a legally binding sense because you cannot enter into a legally binding contract with a minor.

2. People who withdraw their membership from the organization voluntarily cannot be punished by the organization because they are outside it's jurisdiction.

That said, the argument that the WTS would be likely to make is that the post-exit shunning is not intended to punish the non-believing DA'd person, but rather to protect the members who are still within the organization, i.e. - they are not overstepping their jurisdiction because they are not exercising judicial authority. Ultimately, people are free to be assholes and the WTS is made up of people who have agreed as a community to be assholes and they cannot be stopped from doing so. I do believe, however, that there is a case to be made that they owe people restitution and that their published comments about former members being demonic and evil qualifies as conspiracy to defame, slander, libel, what have you, for which restitution can also be claimed.

Yes, David, they can run their club however they want. But no, the terms of the contract cannot be enforced against somebody who joined as a minor or against one who leaves the group voluntarily. Other laws come into play in those two situations and I believe that if you applied them to a secular institution rather than a religious one, the behavior of the WTS would be considered illegal. This is clearly a case of religious exemption to standards of conduct that are different in non-religious situations.
david

It is exactly a choice, even if there were punishment involved. If someone puts a gun to your head and tells you to do something, it's still a choice.

Shun one or be shunned by many = choice.

-

It's not a punishment, it's a membership. People ask to be members. Your family asks to be members. And when you are the one wanting to join up (netflix, the Army, the boy scouts...), you are the one who has to comply with whatever it means to be a member. If your friends or family no longer want to be members, they can do what ever they want.

JW's don't go from door to door telling people not to talk to you. They don't call your employer and tell them you aren't trustworthy. They don't track down your friends and tell them all the dirt they have on you. They go door to door and advertise a club. When they get someone interested, the new recruits are told the club's rules. If the person still wants to join up, they have to follow the rules. They can say "no". Most do.

As long as your friends and family want to be in the club, they have to follow club rules. (And yes, most of their rules are legal - not talking to people on their bad-list included.) If there's a rule they don't want to follow, they can leave or be kicked out. When that happens, other club members who want to stay in the group follow the rules that they have already agreed to follow.

When you joined the club you agreed to do the same. When you joined, you knew that the other club members also agreed to do the same. When you left the club you knew that you no longer had to follow club rules. When you left the club you knew what other club members would do to stay in the club.

Now if you want to do something about it, you can talk people out of wanting to be in the club. You can try to prevent people from joining. You can make a website saying how unfair it all is. But what you can't do is successfully sue the WTBS for practicing shunning.

Yoder was a rare case. Don't expect anything like it to happen again anytime soon.

-

My question to you is, what "line" have they crossed? Not a legal line. I'm sure there's some sporting teams that have a rule that says you can't fraternize with the opponent. I'm sure there are religions that require vows of silence. Don't want to do it, don't join.

-

But of course laws are just made up and have no real intrinsic correctness. Maybe tomorrow it will be illegal. I simply don't agree that it should be. (Then again, I also don't think it should be legal to take the creative work of someone and mass distribute it without the original creators consent just because some arbitrary number of years have past since the work was created. For me, the sweat of the one does not belong to the many.)
Jennifer

It's not exactly a choice when there is a punishment involved. It is closer to being a threat then. Sure you can have your club, and you can ban anyone you want, but when you shun one member and tell all the other members that they must shun them too or they will be shunned, then you've crossed the line. The choice those members have is either they shun one person, or they will be shunned by many people. Not much of a choice if you ask me.
david

"David is no longer an employee of Best Buy Co., Inc." Aha, I've got em now - them and their malicious hate speech.

-

I don't feel like loading up the CD-ROM, but I'm pretty sure their position on how a member is to treat a shunned individual when there's a business relationship is to continue the relationship as it was (perhaps without excessive chit chat).

-

I mean, it stinks that it breaks up families and friends, but it's the families and friends who are "at fault". They are choosing their religion over their family and friends.

And as for your KKK example - no one is lynching anyone. No burning crosses. No threats. If the some KKK member disowns his daughter for marrying a Jewish person, writing her out of his will and never speaking to her again, the daughter won't get anywhere in the courts.

-

I don't like it any more than I like the KKK, but I don't think it's the government's job to interfere. Fortunately the government isn't the only path toward change. As a matter of fact, less government might be a solution. I'm betting I could sue you for not hiring me if it was because I was a member of a hate group (JW or otherwise).
ryan

David,

You are right, absolutely, about the right of the "club" to make whatever rules it wants. The big question is whether or not a person who leaves the club has rights for redress of damages based on the rules the club makes.

In the case of Mr. Yoder, as a small-town farmer the treatment by the community resulted in a loss of livelihood as a result of a conspiracy to defame. It was established that he had a right to be compensated for that loss, not that the community was not free to make that rule. This is, I think, an important distinction.

There are certainly other situations wherein a person can sue another person or entity for damages based on treatment received. For instance, if I were to publish damaging information about you in the newspaper or on this website that resulted in loss of your job or even that harder to quantify "emotional distress" you would be within your rights to sue me. Yes, I am free to say bad, even false, things about you but to balance that out, you are free to sue me for the damage that might cause in your personal life. It's all about balancing out the equation.

The fact of the matter is that financial and emotional damages are routinely suffered by those who leave the JW's, whether they leave voluntarily or involuntarily. The only question is, is the person suffering the damages within their rights to attempt to seek restitution? In almost all cases within our civil society, the courts have determined that yes, this can be done. Defamation of character, loss of employment, etc, are real offenses that can be successfully fought in court. In your analogy of a "club" making whatever rules it wants to, there are legal limits to the club's rules and if they violate larger laws of the land in their rules they can be prosecuted and sued.

I would draw the analogy between the KKK and the WTS. The KKK is allowed to continue to exist because they have a constitutionally protected right to be what they are so long as they don't break any laws. It's not against the law to hate your fellowman, as they clearly do. There are no laws against thought crimes. However, if they lynch somebody, burn a cross in somebody's yard, threaten somebody, or in some way act in a way that violates the civil liberties of other people, they run afoul of the law. Just because you can have your disgusting little club doesn't mean that it can do anything it wants to others.

The big question is, what is the extent of protection for an individual's religious liberty? Clearly anybody can leave the WTS at any time and they do not attempt to stop you. But once you are out of their jurisdiction, are they free to act in ways that potentially deny you employment, hurt your standing within the community, destroy your family relationships or (in many cases) even lead you to suicide? If so, why? If any other corporate entity behaved in such a manner, if you quit your job and your former employer was free to publish malicious hate speech about you, forbid your family members from dealing with you without fear of punishment, and cause you financial hardship through the loss of any business relationships you had with people within the company, you could sue them. When a publishing company does that and claims religious liberty, you can't? Is the concept of religious liberty and the protections of such supposed to apply to the individual or to the corporation?
david

There's a group. It doesn't matter if it's religious or not. If you want to be in the group you have to follow the rules of the group. If you don't want to be in the group, that's the end of it - you're out.

Why should it be the government's business if Ryan wants to join my No-Ryans club and I won't let him? He can still come in my public buildings and buy my quilts. The only thing he can't do is be a member.

Oh, and the other rule of my club is you can't talk to people named Ryan. If you want to talk to Ryans, you can't be in the club. But then who cares, right? It's not THAT great of a club.

Your dad's name is Ryan? Hmm... Well, rules are rules. I mean, I suppose you could ask him to change his name. Short of that it's either stop talking to him or find a different group.

I don't see any "intimidation, threat, coercion or abuse" here at all. Or at least, none that isn't practiced by everyone all the time.

People choose to be in the group. People choose to follow the leader. The only power they have is the power people give them. It's all 100% choice.

I don't know how Yoder won his case, but I'm glad it's a rarity.
Jennifer

But shunning isn't a CHOICE. One witness couple I know would not stop associating with their disfellowshipped son, who lived in another state who they only saw about once every year or two, and they themselves were then publicly reproved for dropping in to visit him while they were in that state for a vacation. How is that a choice? They had already limited their association with their son, avoided him when possible, because the religion not only suggested and heavily promoted that course of action, but threatened punishment if they did not do it. Yet, they wanted to keep up some kind of relationship with their child, and were punished for doing so. It isn't a "conscience matter", it is a punishable sin to have more than a business like relationship with anyone who is DF'd or DA'd, even your own child.

Also, what about the slander that the religion bestows on those that leave? This isn't carefully worded in their literature, they are very explicit about what they think of "apostates". Slandering those that leave contributes to the shunning. What about the unfair judicial committees that strip individuals of their basic civil rights? And there is not much "choice" as to whether to submit or not. If you do not submit to the judicial meeting, you will be expelled anyway and treated as though you committed a grave sin, even if you did nothing at all. Also, just the fact that there is no distinction made in the announcement when the person DA's as opposed to gets DF'd, or any distinction in their treatment from JW's, shows that they consider you a member even if you want to leave. That seems unfair, and illegal, to be subjected to the punishments of their system when you don't belong to their system.

Also, it may not stop current family from shunning anyone, but if the language in the religion was softened, and people weren't threatened with punishment, it could make it much, much easier for people to leave the religion without fear that they will be totally cut off from their family.
James

A problem I see with this is that the "punishment" is somewhat voluntary. If an ex-Witnesses parents CHOOSE to shun their child, then no lawsuit will change that. I mean, even if you win millions of dollars, it's not like your family will suddenly think "oops, we were wrong". That's their right to shun you, if they so choose.

Of course, part of the reason they're choosing to shun you is because they themselves don't want to be punihsed by their religion, but they probably don't see that as an infringement on their rights (it's akin to an employee not besmirching their corporation for fear of reprisal).
Falterer

IANAL, so add salt:

Modern literature published by the WTS is carefully worded to express member participation as a matter of personal choice, reducing liability of the various legal entities Jehovah's Witnesses' use to represent themselves for any action or actions individuals perform as a result of reading its literature. An argument based on unfair treatment by a legal entity through the personal choices of individuals who happened to read its literature may seem tenuous to a jury.

In the cases of those who have not formally "disassociated" themselves (and no "disfellowshipping" has taken place), no announcement should be made to the congregation to the effect that "X is no longer one of Jehovah's Witnesses". This reduces liability even further, as the actions of the individuals performing this ritualistic shunning have no precedent in any public announcement concerning the one being shunned. However, the very fact that some have gone to great lengths to avoid disassociation may help establish "fear of intimidation, threat, coercion or abuse".

If the argument for "disfellowshipping" is based on the "disfellowshipped" one's continued desire to be a member of the religious group, the very fact that the formal message to the congregation is identical ("X is no longer one of Jehovah's Witnesses") whether or not X still wishes to be a member of the congregation presents opportunity for wrangling. How is the congregation to decide whether or not X wants to be one of Jehovah's Witnesses--and therefore how X could be treated--unless a distinction is drawn between "disfellowshipping" and "disassociation" at the time the announcement is made.

If neither of these angles presents opportunity for a strong legal foothold, I think you would end up attacking /individuals/ (elders, for example) for "fear of intimidation, threat, coercion or abuse", not the legal entities whose literature is worded with an implicit liability waiver.

Speaking of liability waivers, I'm probably wrong about a lot of this.

Huh. I can't tell the difference between c and e in the captcha.
Jeff

Oops, I simply meant to say in the penultimate sentence that I doubt a challenge on these lines would be successful, since it is even less likely to find traction now than in the liberal court heydays. Unfortunately I didn't proofread and I think it comes out making little sense. And once again, I am not a lawyer and my personal doubts about the matter carry less weight than a single grain of sand in the wind.
Jeff

Well, I just spent an hour writing about the unauthorized practice of law, a sin that law students can fall prey to and then be disciplined for, so I'm a bit reluctant to even stick my little toe into these waters even a little ways here. At a minimum, I'll disclaim any knowledge that should be relied or acted upon, since I'm just a student and not licensed to practice.

Having said that, though, I'd also say that in order to have much of an opinion on the matter and its viability even if I were already licensed, I'd have to read the cases, and I'd have to bone up on First Amendment rights, which I've really had limited exposure to. Even without having read any cases, I can say that if an argument has worked in a court and has not been overturned by the same court or a higher court in the same jurisdiction, then it provides at least a foothold from which to work. But this certainly looks like a real oddball. I had to dig just to find a cite for it. It was not a published case, as far as I could tell. It looks like it was merely decided at the local level and never appealed, so it pretty much has almost no precedential value, I'd guess. That doesn't make the argument nonviable, but it is always nice to be able to back one's arguments up with some good legal grounding. My actual concern here would be more that the current make-up of the U.S. Judiciary is such that it is trending towards a more conservative bent and so I'd doubt a challenge that touches on religious freedoms would be even less likely to succeed than in a more liberal time, like 40 years ago. Anyway, I must go to bed, so enough musing on this.
Jennifer

How about a class action law suit? We are shunned on a certain level even though we never dissociated formally. Simply leaving prompts a level of shunning by everyone we knew in the religion. I think you are really on to something here. Hope you can find someone to give you legal advice on this.

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Is Shunning of Disassociated People Illegal?

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