Obvious Lies and Gratuitous Spins

As more and more has come out about the sex abuse scandals in Christ Church, some have suggested taking complaints through the “proper channels” instead of airing everything over the internet. With this guest post, Doug Wilson has efficiently proven why this would be impossible. He writes in concerned tone, citing truth, and meanwhile telling several lies in the process. He is not concerned with truth. He is concerned with protecting the (nonexistent) integrity of the decisions he made ten years ago.

Everything he says is intended to distract his audience from the only legal question of any importance in the Jamin Wight case: whether Jamin was a sexual predator when he abused 14-year-old Natalie Greenfield, and whether he should have been taken to trial for justice instead of plea bargaining out based on Doug’s faulty legal understanding and subsequent meddling in the court case.

Doug’s reasoning for encouraging the Greenfields not to take this case to trial and his current refusal to apologize for these actions, according to Doug:

1. By saying Jamin wasn’t a sexual predator, Doug just meant Jamin wasn’t abusing two-year-olds like Steven Sitler was.

Why this is a lie: Doug’s letter to the investigating officer says nothing to this effect whatsoever; this is the spin put on the thing in light of the Sitler case, ten years later. The reason Doug actually gave the court in writing the letter: implied consent based on a “foolish relationship” encouraged by Natalie’s parents.

2. The “foolish relationship encouraged by Natalie’s parents” legitimately shifted part of the blame away from Jamin.

Why this is a lie: Natalie herself has spoken at length about her “infatuation” and about Jamin’s expressed interest in her (a classic abuse scenario, by the way) and has stressed that her parents allowed no such relationship. In fact, when her Dad noticed Jamin taking unhealthy interest in her, he kicked Jamin out. Natalie writes more about these allegations here and here — pointing out that Doug was witness to nothing that went on in her house, but is claiming to be an expert anyway — far more of an expert than Natalie, in fact. Again, this is ironic, given how much Doug loves to complain about the so-called “clairvoyance” of third parties commenting on this situation.

3. Natalie was significantly bigger than Jamin (implied in this statement: the fact that she should have been able to resist him).

Why this is a lie: Doug claims that Natalie was 8″ taller than Jamin. Natalie, full grown, is 6’1″ and even if she had been that height at age 14, Jamin is approximately 5’9″ … Not 5’5.” Either way, height has no bearing on someone’s ability to resist the emotional manipulation of a serial abuser. However, rounding up a few inches difference to eight inches difference should tell people just how concerned Doug Wilson is with the accuracy of his account. Which is ironic, given his insistence that people don’t know everything and aren’t fact-checking.

4. That any of this, even if it were all completely true, makes one iota of difference legally or morally.

Why this is a lie: Natalie could have been sneaking into Jamin’s room and Jamin would still legally be the one convicted of sexual abuse due to their massive experience and age difference. In fact, as was clearly shown in this particular case, consent was not even a possible defense in this situation. But the abuse goes way beyond age difference. Jamin has proved over and over that he is abusive in every sense of the word. He was highly abusive in the situation with the Greenfields. He was highly abusive in the situation with his ex-wife. He has proven his colors beyond any shadow of a doubt.

Again, why the need to minimize Jamin’s crimes by bringing up things that are a. untrue and b. legally inadmissible due to the fact that Natalie was a minor at the time? Doug recently contacted Natalie and in a show of concern, proceeded to counsel her using kindly-worded blackmail, claiming that he had access to a journal she’d written during her abuse and insinuating that he would not hesitate to use it in order to make her look bad. I say “kindly-worded blackmail” after specifically consulting with a lawyer on what Doug wrote to Natalie. I say this because, whatever Doug Wilson is claiming about Natalie, Natalie is taking the high road and not mentioning the emails Doug has been sending her. But on my part, I’ve examined the evidence, I’ve looked at their correspondence, I’ve talked to legal counsel, and I can say that based on everything I have seen, Natalie’s character exceeds Doug’s by a mile. But this is textbook Doug Wilson: slandering a woman’s character because she dares to speak up (if you doubt this, take a stroll through his blog where he has anything to say about women who disagree with him). Also textbook Doug Wilson: asserting that because at one point a woman was infatuated with her abuser, she deserved the abuse she got.

I was, as I mentioned, consulting on this case with a lawyer in London, someone with extensive experience dealing with corruption at the highest level. And he pointed out that anytime someone is this enraptured with defending the wicked at the expense of the innocent, there is a reason. And the reason is usually more corruption, more control. This lawyer is also Catholic, and he pointed out that the Catholic church’s pedophilia cover up was routinely denied in the church as “propaganda” and “persecution” until the cold, hard light of outside investigation made the thing impossible to deny. Doug is the Presiding Minister, a role criticized as being similar to the pope of the CREC, for those unfamiliar with the term “Presiding Minister.” Thus far, all the proper channels have been too busy defending him to look into the truth or legal validity of his statements, or cautioning all and sundry “we don’t have the full story.” Now we do. The full story: Doug is making false and legally invalid claims in order to avoid taking a good, hard look at the way he and his church deal with sexual abuse. He’s going on record with statements like “Jamin’s crime was that of engaging in sexual behavior with an underage girl,” which shows a staggering ability to downplay and re-word the abusive behavior Jamin has continued to exhibit. If I attended the CREC I would be running for the hills. Remember, parents: next time you invite one of Doug’s cronies into your home, according to Doug, it’s your fault if your children are abused. But make sure you take things through the proper channels when Doug’s cronies abuse you or your children… Doug doesn’t take kindly to people who go to the police first instead of initially consulting with his infallible legal and moral wisdom. If you cross him, he might just try to tell everyone it’s all your fault.

Update: The above closing lines were based on what someone told me regarding Doug Wilson not wanting the Greenfields to take the case to trial, and being upset they took it to police in the first place. A totally different person has since informed me that he had a conversation with Doug about this in 2006 (“by the mouths of two or three witnesses”):

“In a personal meeting with me in 2006, [Doug Wilson] brought up Jamin and strongly implied that he did not think [the Greenfields] should have gone to the police or courts at all. He wanted it handled all ‘in house.’ He was angry with [Gary Greenfield] for coming into the initial meeting and announcing what he was going to do, which was go to the police.

DW said (from my memory): ‘Gary should not have already made up his mind on going to the police. The purpose of my initial meeting with him was to figure out what OUGHT to be done, not to be told what he was going to ALREADY do. Even though he is within his right to go to the law, it would have been better to handle this outside of court due to the parental negligence involved.’

In short, it was made very, very clear to me that DW did not want Jamin to go to jail AT ALL. This totally contradicts what he is saying now.”