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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Pederastic priests, molesting fathers -- charges of sexual abuse are everywhere these days. But a growing movement of aggrieved men claim the accusations have gotten out of hand.
May 22, 2002 | The Rev. John F. Barrett cried. The 69-year-old Chicago-area pastor, recently placed on temporary administrative leave for a sex abuse allegation made a decade ago, declared through tears that "there is no truth to these accusations." Barrett has been pastor of the Mary Queen of Heaven parish since 1966, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. In the last five months, 10 priests have been removed from his parish following accusations of sex abuse.
"I am innocent," Barrett said at a press conference two weeks ago, responding to allegations that he molested a boy 34 years ago. "My reputation has been tarnished, and I wonder how I am supposed to refute unsubstantiated and terribly false accusations."
On the surface Barrett may be no different from the scores of other men accused of sexual misconduct each day, but his predicament couldn't be more central or timely. Nearly 200 priests have resigned or have been dismissed since the first wave of accusations early this year, according to the Boston Globe. As this number grows in the coming months, the potential for hysteria is likely to build -- and a strange, furious fellowship of false-accusation sentinels will be watching closely.
An aggressive resistance to America's occasional panic over molestation has mounted in recent years, complete with a substantial online network; it is largely concentrated in certain men's groups and fathers' rights groups. The lives of too many innocent men and women, these critics say, are ruined by baseless allegations of sexual misconduct. With its roots in the original backlash against recovered memory cases in the early '90s, this loose-knit community is intent on revising a culture its members say has overcompensated for the days when child abuse was largely ignored or underreported.
"It's a collateral-damage issue," says Dean Tong, a false-accusation consultant and professional forensics expert, of the unfolding Catholic Church scandal. "We're going to see more guilty priests in the future, and therefore more falsely accused priests. The motive and the means are there."
Tong and his allies were vocal before the priest scandal and will remain vocal long after it's passed. As they see it, any allegation of child abuse isn't a step toward closure, but rather a chance for an innocent man to go to jail, to lose custody of his children or to end up like Alfred Bietighofer, the priest who apparently hanged himself in a psychiatric hospital after resigning from his parish amid accusations of sexual abuse. At times they're spot-on in their critique of a frenzied, litigious culture. At times they prove to be just as hysterical as their adversaries in what they call the "child molestation industry." Their engagement with various child advocacy agencies has reached a standoff: Neither side -- not those fighting child abuse nor those fighting the perceived preponderance of false allegations -- can claim victory.
Whether or not they prevail, the so-called false abuse watchers have unwittingly shown that we are at a fundamentally murky crossroads: On the one hand, we trust kids. Having disregarded their rights in the past, we've since cultivated an atmosphere highly attuned to their reports of inappropriate behavior. On the other hand, Americans hate putting innocent people in jail. Our reluctance to institutionalize DNA testing in relevant murder cases notwithstanding, we can't get enough Hollywood fare about noble men falsely accused.
Near the front of the movement is Tong. Through high-profile consulting work and an impressive online presence, the 45-year-old has emerged as one of the leading voices for the cause. As a consultant, he advises clients on beating the rap ("You must prove your innocence, which equates to psychological, and/or psychosexual testing; and you must impeach the credibility of your false accusers"). He also testifies in court as a professional forensics expert, and delivers lectures about false accusation around the country. He's an advisory board member on the Coalition for the Preservation of Fatherhood, a member of the Children's Rights Council and a director at the National Fathers Resource Center.
Tong clarifies the motivation for the latest of his three books, "Elusive Innocence: Survival Guide for the Falsely Accused," in his online press kit: "American Enterprise Institute legal scholar Douglas Besharov, founding director of the National Center for Child Abuse and Neglect, says that 70 percent of child abuse cases are unfounded. A national study done in 1986 by the Child Welfare League showed that more than 60 percent of child abuse cases were proven false. Wouldn't it make sense that a system producing a 60 to 70 percent error rate be examined for deficiencies?"
