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'Scientologists believe the Holocaust was planned and carried out by psychiatrists' - They also believe --- Scientology forbids members from contacting police to report a crime committed by a member. It instructs members that reporting such incidents is considered a "high crime" and subjects the reporting member to punishment. Scientology utilizes so-called "Fair Game" tactics to "attack, harass, embarrass, humiliate, destroy, and/or injure individuals who Defendants declare to be an enemy of Scientology, known in Scientology as a 'Suppressive Person' …." |
No Arbitration of Claims Against Scientology After Plaintiffs Had Left the Church
From Bixler v. Superior Court, decided Wednesday by the California Court of Appeal (Justices Laurence Rubin, Carl Moor, and Lamar Baker):
Petitioners … are former members of the Church of Scientology who reported to the police that another Church member [Daniel Masterson] had raped them. They allege that, in retaliation for their reports, the Church encouraged its members to engage in a vicious campaign of harassment against them. {[T]hey state no cause of action against Masterson for sexual assault. Instead, they allege causes of action against all defendants for stalking, physical invasion of privacy, constructive invasion of privacy, [and] intentional infliction of emotional distress ….}
After petitioners brought suit in superior court against the Church and related entities and persons, some of those defendants moved to compel arbitration, relying on agreements that provided all disputes with the Church would be resolved according to the Church's own "Ethics, Justice and Binding Religious Arbitration system." That system was created to decide matters "in accordance with Scientology principles of justice and fairness." …
The contract on its face apparently applied to all litigation against the Church:
My freely given consent to be bound exclusively by the discipline, faith, internal organization, and ecclesiastical rule, custom, and law of the Scientology religion … in all my dealings of any nature with the Church, and in all my dealings of any nature with any other Scientology church or organization which espouses, presents, propagates or practices the Scientology religion means that I am forever abandoning, surrendering, waiving, and relinquishing my right to sue, or otherwise seek legal recourse with respect to any dispute, claim or controversy against the Church, all other Scientology churches, all other organizations which espouse, present, propagate or practice the Scientology religion, and all persons employed by any such entity both in their personal and any official or representational capacities, regardless of the nature of the dispute, claim or controversy.
But the court concluded that, as a matter of California law, the arbitration agreement couldn't be enforced after the parties left the Church:
Individuals have a First Amendment right to leave a religion. We hold that once petitioners had terminated their affiliation with the Church, they were not bound to its dispute resolution procedures to resolve the claims at issue here, which are based on alleged tortious conduct occurring after their separation from the Church and do not implicate resolution of ecclesiastical issues….
According to plaintiffs, Scientology forbids members from contacting police to report a crime committed by a member. It instructs members that reporting such incidents is considered a "high crime" and subjects the reporting member to punishment.
Scientology utilizes so-called "Fair Game" tactics to "attack, harass, embarrass, humiliate, destroy, and/or injure individuals who Defendants declare to be an enemy of Scientology, known in Scientology as a 'Suppressive Person' …." Masterson is a television actor; Scientology granted him special treatment when he achieved "celebrity status." To that end, Scientology worked to prevent plaintiffs from reporting Masterson's crimes and, once they did, declared plaintiffs Suppressive Persons. Scientology then mobilized an aggressive Fair Game campaign against them.
According to plaintiffs' complaint, Scientology's directives are that Suppressive Persons are to be silenced by whatever means necessary. Scientology instructs members "to damage the person's professional reputation, file frivolous lawsuits, and harass and surveil 'the enemy.'" Scientology's "policies and procedures encourage and/or instruct followers to 'ruin [the individual] utterly.'" …
Just like written antenuptial agreements to raise children in a particular faith are not enforceable against a parent who has left the faith, Scientology's written arbitration agreements are not enforceable against members who have left the faith, with respect to claims for subsequent non-religious, tortious acts. To hold otherwise would bind members irrevocably to a faith they have the constitutional right to leave….
Scientology argues that petitioners simply agreed to be bound by Scientology dispute resolution procedures no matter what. As Scientology puts it, "An 'irrevocable' agreement to 'forever' waive civil proceedings and submit to Scientology Ethics and Justice Codes in 'any dispute' with Churches of Scientology is a condition for participation in the religion." It argues that this agreement should be enforced like any other agreement.
Scientology engaged in as retribution for reporting Masterson to police after they left the Church. This harassment allegedly arose because of petitioners' relationship with Masterson and their reporting to police, not because of their prior affiliation with Scientology.
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12 comments:
Sheesh! Until I enlarged the kol koray I thought it was from the Israeli Agudah. Because it's the American Fressers, they are obviously trying to create a smokescreen to distract from something else.
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Is this to drown out the Walder tummel? Or what else did we miss that UOJ can fill us in on?
They're upset about the size of Bennet's yarmulke!
The Fressers are circulating an unsourced, unsigned pashkevil that the Bennetts are BTs but that Naftali's mother is a Catholic with an improper gerus so he is therefore not Jewish.
The Catholic story is a lie. Both maternal grandparents are alter Poilisher who put his mother in a Yiddishist school in California. It is possible that the paternal grandmother is not Jewish, I can't find much on her, but that wouldn't affect Naftali. The father's side is Reform, also alter Poilisher with original name Salomonson, who followed the 49er gold prospectors to California & Alaska in 1851. So after so many doros in America, it would not be shocking if there was an improper gerus or even more visible intermarriage.
Their BT status is al kol ponim very shvach. They became very Left Wing modern ortho. Naftali attended co-ed Yavne in Paramus. Naftali's wife from what I can gather is Chiloni. Even if he made sure she's not in charge of the kitchen at home & he could some way, somehow, reliably monitor her vestos, there is an issur from Asmachta against marrying a not frum woman.
That is precisely why the Agudah never embraced the BT movement. In closed doors they decided that all if not most BTs are not halachically Jewish! When was the last time a BT was honored by their fresserai dinners or conventions?
Wasn't JEP originally the official kiruv division of Agudas Fressers of America?
The only reason they were spun off as a standalone entity is because they saw what happened with Lanner & were afraid of getting sued like the OU was as the parent org of NCSY.
All window dressing - Shuvu, Eiseman's Vaad, Where were they on Free Russian Jews in the 70s? Nobody is meshadech with them ---- from the heimishe.
It's true that BTs are put on the back burner at the yenta gab fests purported to be shidduch meetings, but this is par for the course. After all their lip service to Daas Torah, Fresser baal habatim don't actually believe in it. R' Aron Kotler, R' Moshe & the Steipler agreed for different reasons why BTs with good middos have no pgam & should not be discriminated against in shidduchim. The Steipler even wrote to Menashe Hakutten, telling him he is wrong for his aversion to BTs & should retract.
There are several big name roshei yeshiva who took BTs as eidims. Even in the alter Heim where BTs were a rare oddity, Rav Wolbe was a BT who became eidim by R' Avrohom Grodzinski, Mashgiach Ruchni of Slabodka.
How many Russians, Iranians, BTs in the Philadelphia yeshiva?
Philly was never one of the true yeshivos. Even before they were officially banned due to the mamzerus scandal, they got barely any of their keren into Brisk. (R' Elya alein was refused entry to the Brisker Rov's yeshiva)
Philly is tailored for shvach to mediocre kep (who else crawls on all fours after the personality cult shtick?) who are mostly watered down Hungarians from Boro Park-Flatbush. The rank & file of Fressing baal habatim at the Conventions today is from Philly stock. This is a new religion.
But because at least in the early days, Philly still officially subscribed to listening to gedolim, Sam Kaminetzky's eidim in Ner Yisroel is a BT (that's right, Tzvi Berkowitz) & one of the Philly rebbeyim is a BT (Perman).
I don't know of every guy that R' Elya Svei's daughter went out with, but he has nieces from the Kalmanowitz side who went out with BTs because the alter Mirrers also do not discriminate if the bochur is a feineh ben Torah.
Or does Shmuel Kaminetzky ship BTs off to Baltimore like he does with molesters?
One of the heimishe publications allowed a hesped on the Guruette of anti-vaxx by a genuine oisvorff. As a kollel yungerman, he abandoned his 1st wife, along with frumkeit, to chase women for 'encounters'. First heimishe grushos who he lied to about his marital status, then secular women, until "graduating" to shiksos he met online or at clubs. It got rather messy when some of the grushos discovered he was still married, which led to a vicious tit-for-tat cycle of retaliation & threats. He got remarried after a 20 year pause to a woman who is shomeres Shabbos but gives off bummy vibes. The shvantz says he lived during much of 2015 on the Philly campus, in the home of a former classmate & now Hanhala member, and that he fressed many Shabbos meals that year by the Kaminetzkys. There were disgusting nuances in the hesped that Philly should have known better than to allow in print. (Hey Pinny, you also knew better!)
If R' Dovid Feinstein poskens that my talmid was not allowed to have toizent fun pilagshim & goytas, then I will be mevatel daas to him. Nu, nu, there's episs a technical problem vos R' Dovid lebt shoin nisht. Ahhh, there's a silver lining in everything. This way, Sholom won't have to maintain a secret hotline for hedonists who find any issur to be inconvenient, similar to when we tell the Moderner that they can ignore R' Dovid's psak in the mamzerus sugya.
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