When I was a child, there was a molester by the name of William Blackwell aka "Grizzly".
He was arrested and "we" were asked to testify.
I was ask if I believed in God.
I had been in quite a precocious child and had researched many religions and had already concluded it was ridiculous.
My answer was no
I was then asked if I knew the difference between good and bad, a lie And the truth.
I assured them that I did
They proceeded to take my testimony and I was cross examined. This was back before children were protected behind video cameras and the like. In the 1980s really, not that long ago perhaps I should mention this is Canada.
After putting me through this, I found out immediately after because I had not sworn on the Bible and claimed not to believe in God my testimony was not taken stricken from the record and considered untrustworthy.
Somehow, to this day we still allow the majority with obvious delusions to have influences in our courts and political systems.
We need far more outspoken anti theist to stand up to this ridiculousness.
What a significant story! The world is full of fools.
But if you had lied and said you did believe in God, your testimony would have been believed. So very sad, that the delusional folks always seem to get the last word. Hopefully the testimony collection wasn't rigged politically to protect the alleged perpetrator.
We all gotta keep speaking up for more awareness about this kind of thing. Have you ever thought of submitting an article to your local paper or something, so it would be read by your local community? It might make a difference going forward.
So sorry to learn you had a molester in your childhood - I imagine most of us did also - but they never were reported. Glad you were able to testify.
I'll never know if my testimony would have made a difference he was not being protected because he was convicted and did show up at court, rather beaten up at the time.
I do know that years later I read about him being involved in the death of a child.
It seemed he had befriended the parents of 2 young children and brought them out for a joy ride, allowing 1 to drive on his lap resulting in the death of one of the children, when the vehicle crashed.
Perhaps if not for this strange mental illness that seems to be not only allowed but extremely pervasive throughout our society
Had not been a factor. The course of history would have been changed, but that's just speculation.
It's truly a shame that the pendulum has swung from the raising awareness. To vilifying an entire gender.
The 70s and 80s were a rough time on kids.
keeping children uninformed about human sexuality is one of the main sins of religion.
I would have to truthfully say in my lifetime I have been sexually harassed equally by both men and women.
Ironically men have always been much more subversive about that kind of thing.
Whereas women in my lifetime always seemed to felt like it's their right to treat men as sexual objects and that we should feel privileged.
The cultural taboos are all remnants of religion within our society that create these misinformed attitudes, behaviors and dangers surrounding sex within our society.
The legacy and current acceptance of this continued behavior is truly damaging the next generation of humans as much as it's damaged every other one.