AS226: Sarah Morehead

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:31 Thomas: Hello, and welcome to Atheistically Speaking, this is episode 226, and I'm your host, Thomas Smith. Joining me right now is Sarah Morehead, who is currently the operations chief at Removing the Fig Leaf and also a writer at Patheos. How are you doing, Sarah?

0:00:46 Sarah: I'm fantastic, thanks for having me.

0:00:48 Thomas: Thank you for coming on. I saw an article that you actually guest wrote on Hemant's blog, Patheo's channel, for about, well, I'll just read the title, "Sex Offenders Can Be Nice Guys, How Making Jared Fogle a Monster Encourages Abusers." I saw that and it really resonated with me because I thought similar things. I didn't put it, obviously, as brilliantly as you did and added with your personal experience too in this article, but it was a sentiment I was thinking and you just went out there and expressed it perfectly and I wanted to talk about it with you.

0:00:48 Sarah: Absolutely, Yeah, I'm, I am happy to talk about it, we're getting a lot of feedback on it, and, and certainly a lot positive and negative on, on all sides, so,

0:01:30 Thomas: I was going to say, have you gotten a lot of pushback? It's bound to be something that you're going to get some comment trolls on, I'm guessing.

0:01:38 Sarah: Yeah. You know, it's an inflammatory topic, and I think, for, there's, there are several different levels of, of people who push back, there is the ones who only read the title, and you can tell, Because, yeah, exactly, because they're blowing up about, you know, I'm a rape apologist, and I'm calling sex offenders nice guys and and that kind of thing, which is obviously not the case if anybody reads it. And then, you know, there's... there's other folks who have really read the article and put a lot of thought into it and very respectfully just disagree with my conclusion. And that's I have the utmost respect for that. So that that doesn't bother me at all. We can as long as we're operating from the same information, we can come to different conclusions.

0:01:48 Thomas: Well, there's always those.

0:02:18 Sarah: This is what I happen to think. But, yeah, you know, the ones that don't bother reading it. I mean, you know, it's it's definitely an eye-catching title. And that was kind of the point. And just to, you know, jump ahead just for a few seconds, the point where it says sex offenders can be nice guys. In the article, what I explain is the nice guy persona is actually when that's, that's actually a sex offender profile type.

0:02:18 Thomas: Mm hmm. Yeah.

0:02:43 Sarah: And that's why that's how I worded it that way. Because it's true that, you know, sex offenders can be this nice guy persona and this profile type. And it goes on to explain what that's like and ties it all in.

0:02:56 Thomas: Yeah, well, certainly. And it is very frustrating that it doesn't seem to be anything that's going to change anytime soon. But people really can't just read like one more sentence, you know, and just kind of get even.

0:03:10 Sarah: I even made the first sentence, put away your pitchforks. That was why I did that. Because I was like, just wait. Just give me a second.

0:03:11 Thomas: Yeah? Yeah. I know that that's it's it'S sad. It's a sad reality about the internet, but what can you do?

0:03:22 Sarah: Yeah, it's the attention span of the internet, exactly.

0:03:25 Thomas: Yeah, but so I saw this news and, you know, Jared Fogle, just in case anyone's been living under a rock, or used to eat a lot of Subway and now is living under a Rock. He was the Subway pitch man, obviously, and was busted. Now, do you remember, it's not the most relevant thing in the world, but there's all kinds of people say different things about what he ended up, you know, being busted for. Um, right.

0:03:51 Sarah: My understanding is, and we've got it in an article, he's serving time for possessing child pornography and engaging in commercial sex acts with underage children. Um, that's that's my understanding of what he was convicted and is is serving time for. So outside of that, I I really had no idea. I I know he's, you know, considered a sex offender. Um, you know, and fits the concept of what I was going for, so yeah.

0:04:17 Thomas: Well, sure. That is a separate can of worms though. When, once you get, yeah, the label sex offender has a broad range of things under it, which I think can be kind of unfortunate sometimes. Um. Actually, I just saw an article recently, separate topic, but the label of sex, labeling people as sex offenders may be doing more harm than good, but that's a topic for another day. Uh, but yeah, he was, he's convicted of that, and then, uh, like clockwork, he was, uh, it looks like he was attacked while in prison. And countless people, uh, like to post, it's such an obvious thing though, you know, it's a boring thing to say, but countless people like to pose, oh good, you know, got what he deserves, karma, blah blah, that kind of thing, celebrating it

0:05:01 Sarah: Everything just blew up. And I, and I think one of the things that struck me, I mean, there's... there's the, there's the typical, you know, personality types that will, that'll tweet that stuff or comment that stuff, or, you know, repost it on Facebook. And for the most part, I have a lot of them hidden from my feeds, I don't tend to see that kind of vitriolic, you know, reactionary personality types. But what really surprised me was that after this, the news broke, and I think it broke on TMZ, that after the news broke that he had been assaulted, all these people who I know consider themselves humanists were posting this article and really cheering it on. And I went to go look and see, you know, are prominent people doing this? Is it just, you know, is it just this segment? And people from all walks of life were cheering on the idea that this person had been physically assaulted in prison. And that really bothered me.

0:05:36 Thomas: Yeah. That's What Was what Was getting me So much. Yeah, exactly. Sorry to interrupt. But yeah, that was what I was going to say. Just it's shocking. Like you said, I mean, obviously, mainstream kind of people are going to say this kind of thing. But for people specifically in who should be humanists, who should be, I would.

0:06:13 Sarah: If I've ever seen them identify as a humanist, and even if I've never seen them use the word, but if I seen them share articles and talk about values that, and in general, we share as humanists, it really surprised me to see.

0:06:16 Thomas: Right.

0:06:28 Sarah: And because it's almost like there came a point where they then then justified violence against another person. And that was where I really had to kind of sort through in my own head. I had a huge problem with it, but I couldn't necessarily put it into words. And I put a lot of thought into it and ended up with the article.

0:06:45 Thomas: Yeah. And, you know, another thing, I don't know if you have this experience at all. But another thing that I think is a little contradictory is I can't tell you how How many times in atheist-related podcasts or even Sam Harris's book, we've talked about free will. And I thought that a lot of people were on board with, well, you know, punitive measures in criminal justice don't really make all that much sense. It should be more about containment and that sort of thing. And it just surprises me because for a community that I think usually has that kind of sentiment, like, well, we need to quarantine, but it doesn't make much sense to call people evil, you know, when you're not religious or, I mean, that's debatable.

0:07:31 Thomas: But still, for a community that has that, those kind of views, it's weird to see so much celebration of extrajudicial violence. It's crazy to me.

0:07:40 Sarah: Right. Well, and that's part of what I was trying to explore is, you know, one of the things I've gotten a lot of pushback on is people will say, you don't have any right to tell me how I feel or how I should. And I agree. I worked really, really hard to be very clear that people have every right to their feelings. And I wasn't speaking to the feelings. I spoke to my own feelings. And so this is how I feel about this situation. And this is my emotions I processed about a similar encounter in our family where we've dealt with someone who was a predator to children. And, and I, and the feelings are very, very valid. And I don't discount that for anyone.

Lots of us have different feelings when we see these things, it might be we might be sad that the person was assaulted, we might feel happy that, you know, whatever. But there's a difference between having the feelings and then choosing the behavior to champion the action that happened. And that to me is where I was trying to get there to be some delineation to say, I can own my feelings, but there's a difference between saying,

0:07:51 Thomas: Hmm.

0:08:44 Sarah: This is how I feel and then going on by the thousands onto public media and championing this violence as if somehow that's appropriate and justified. That was the part I was trying to get everybody to just see we can put a stop to that piece of it. And it was, you know, there's definitely people who gave me a lot of feedback and said, you know, I don't appreciate being told how to feel. I don't appreciate being taught how to process this. Some people read through it and heard it as some sort of lecture towards how they They should react or feel about their own abuser in their own sexual abuse situation, which was absolutely not the case. I really tried hard to articulate several times. If you've been a victim of abuse or you've had someone in your family who's been a victims of abuse, no one gets to tell you how to feel or, you know, or any of that about your abuser, toward your aboser. Like some people were telling me, you have no right to tell me to forgive them.

0:08:54 Thomas: Yeah.

0:09:41 Sarah: In fact, I specifically, I think the only reference to forgiveness in the article was regarding my children's abuser that I really didn't know if I would ever be able to get to a point that I could forgive them. And that was all I really weighed in on forgiveness. Yeah. I mean, I was trying really hard to be clear that, you know, owning the feeling is entirely different than championing the action.

0:09:54 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Right. Hmm.

0:10:03 Sarah: And that to me was where we needed to, you know, to see a difference. And I don't know. I did get a lot of people who either in comments on Hemant's page or just on social media as it was going kind of all over where, you know, people would say, you now, I read through the article and I put some thought into it it. And I, I was one of those people that was encouraging us. And I really hadn't thought about it that way. And I'm not going to do that again. And that was awesome.

That that was really validating to me, because, you know, they would even say, you know, I don't really care that he got beat up, but I don't have to, I don't have to advocate that he'd be raped or murdered. And I'm like, there we go. Now we're good. Like, that's, that's what I was looking for. I don't need you to care about this guy. I don't personally care about this guy, I'm, I'm sad that any any human is a victim of violence, but I honestly, I don't know him from a hole in the wall. Why would

0:10:30 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:10:55 Sarah: I care? However, that's different. I can be apathetic towards that particular situation, but then still say, let's not champion the violence. So that's what I was going for.

0:10:56 Thomas: Yeah.

0:11:05 Thomas: Well, and you already alluded to it, but I mean, the real bombshell of your piece was, of course, when you referenced someone who said, well, you've never had this happen to you. And as you said, I mean you have had some experience with that and that sort of lends a whole new view to it.

0:11:15 Sarah: Yeah, we did last year. It was, yeah. And, and I think that was part of it is that I completely, completely, so completely and so deeply empathize and understand what that feeling is like. And I tried to articulate that in one of the paragraphs about the emotion and the rage and wanting the violence and the retribution. I remember that. And, and I'm not going to pretend I don't ever slip into that mindset or that someone shouldn't. There's, feelings are what they are. Like that's, nobody gets to tell anybody how to feel. But I, I think there's, there's just a difference between saying I have this feeling about this situation. But then this is the action we're going to take about it. And for me, in our personal situation, you know, it's very complex, you know.

0:12:06 Sarah: We've got, I've got a lot of kids, as most people know. And, you know, we have a couple of them that were victims of abuse, it turns out. And then we have some that are not. And they have a different relationship with this individual than the other kids do. And And walking that very fine line is very difficult, um, and it's something that has really brought to the forefront the value of, um, speaking honestly about our feelings, but giving other people permission to have theirs. Um, and that's, that's part of what this is about, is, you know, people have a right to the feelings they have, um, but at the same time we have a responsibility as humanists, um, to look beyond our feelings. I mean, you're, it's a primal emotion, you know, the idea, year, that anyone out there would abuse children, much less sexually abused children.

0:12:54 Sarah: I mean, that's literally one of the worst things like anybody can think of, right? And I mean it's so bad that I think even like Cards Against Humanity has like pulled it from the decks, right? Like they don't even have that stuff anymore because it's so bad. So, you know, it's one of those, I get it on a primal level, but part of being a progressive society is taking a look at our primal reactions and saying, how can we do better so that we're not just instinctual and reactionary? And how can we methodically go past that visceral reaction into something structured that's going to create a better society? And I think, you know, one step is let's not advocate violence towards these people. And then, of course, tying it into how that actually does affect the victims of abuse when that happens.

0:13:40 Thomas: Was there anything in comments or that you heard from anybody that made you, because you did say there were some people who disagreed, that you more or less respected their position because it was a considered opinion? Is there anything that you took from that? Are there any disagreements that you could talk about that that maybe gave you pause? Well.

0:14:02 Sarah: You know, I think it's just more, you know—I've had some people tell me that, you know, I have a very idealistic view of this process. And then it's just not that simple. And, you know, the prison culture, the reality of the prison culture is that there's violence in prison. Therefore, there's nothing wrong when that happens with saying, oh, well, I don't care. And I actually feel like they're kind of agreeing with me in a sense, because what I'm saying is exactly that. It's okay to not care. I'm not asking you to care.I'm not asking people to send flowers to this guy.

Like, that's, That I don't, don't care. I'm asking that we recognize that there are ripple effect consequences that seem to be in place just from what I've seen and what I'd been reading, that when we demonize these people and we make them monsters, you know, we're creating a situation where this nice guy persona is able to fly under the radar. And that to me was the bigger issue. Obviously, from just a humanist standpoint, I'm not a fan of advocating violence in any capacity, but, um, but the bigger issue to me was, you know, when, when we take people like Jared Fogel or Sandusky, um, and or any

0:14:15 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hmm.

0:15:20 Sarah: Of them, you know, there's... there's countless of them, um, and we say they deserve everything they got in prison or they're going to get in prison and they're terrible people and and all this, we make them into these monsters, we dehumanize them, um, and in my opinion, and this is just totally my opinion, by dehumanizing them, what we're doing is making it harder for the child who's being abused by a quote nice guy profile persona, by this nice guy sex offender.

Um, we're making it hard for them to go tell someone, and know, that child probably, you know, hasn't necessarily heard us talk about these people or or anything like that, but what's happening is as adults, we have this idea, it's reinforcing that, you know, stereotype that sex offenders are gross, dirty, horrible people in trench coats, and they're ugly and scary and they deserve all these horrible things to happen to them, um, and we forget that really they're, you know, they're very manipulative and they're very cunning and they're very careful, um, to earn the trust of their community. Um, they really can masquerade as nice guys. So when we make these guys out to be monsters and we continue that stereotype, then when a child goes to someone they trust and they say, you know, this person is hurting me. And then the reaction is, but they're such a nice guy.

0:16:39 Thomas: Yeah, like.

0:16:40 Sarah: Then I want people to see how that, I realize it's a walk around, but it's there. And it's certainly something we we experienced last year. It was heartbreaking. And, you know, we've definitely had people in our community who, who reached out to their abuser and people who I see all over Facebook championing the rights of women and the rights to be abused. And reaching out to my children's abuser to say, I've heard these horrible things and I'm so sorry. And you know you're Such a Nice nice Guy There

0:17:14 Thomas: They assumed. It Was Uh They assumed it was like false or something because of the nice guy thing, geez.

0:17:19 Sarah: That would repeatedly, repeatedly, it was, you're such a nice guy, I can't believe this about you, you're so involved in the community, um, they're literally saying exact same things. That I mean, it was textbook. And And that was something one of the detectives who was going through some of these messages, that, you know, this is a textbook response to this personality type.

0:17:39 Thomas: Yeah.

0:17:40 Sarah: This Is what We expect.

0:17:40 Thomas: People Really don't Want to believe it, you know, because It's yeah. They don't Don't want to believe They've been fooled, too.

0:17:42 Sarah: No, of course not. Right. And that, so that's the other part of it is because, you know, what does that say? You know, and I referenced this too, but you know I, let me find it here, but I said, I understand feelings become conflicted. Our emotions begin to substitute for logical thought. After all, how can this person whom we've known and loved also be capable of such atrocities? And if they are capable of such atrocities, how could we possibly have known or love them? And what does that say about them and about us? And those are tough questions. And the only thing I can say to people who are struggling with that is one, you know, anytime they see the news and they see a child has accused someone or disclosed that they've been abused, if there's not a personal connection, a lot of times it's, you know, oh my gosh, that poor child.

0:18:34 Sarah: And if they don't know the abuser, if they didn't know their child, everybody rallies up and, you know, let's protect this kid. But when they have that personal connection to the abuser and they're a part of that abuser's community, it makes it very, very difficult. And it does create a lot of questions, because if they, these are, these are children that, of course, you know, this community would have, would follow themselves to protect, I'm 100% sure of it in every situation across the board. And yet in those situations the response is, but he's such a nice guy, I can't believe he would would have done that.

0:19:06 Thomas: Yeah.

0:19:07 Sarah: And so it's important to me that part of this conversation is how this stereotype on one level filters across into affecting the community's perception of what an offender looks like, acts like, is like, deserves, those kinds of things. In their mind, this person who's, you know, someone has disclosed that this adult has abused them, in their mind they're, they're going, but this person doesn't deserve all those bad things to happen in prison. This is a nice guy. He's, you know, he, he can't possibly have done these things that, you know, I know this guy. Um, it makes them question their own judgment and makes them question a whole lot about their experiences with them. And the only thing I can really do to encourage that thought process to shift is to really have people ask themselves, if it's the, if it's this hard for me, how hard must it be for this child to come to those same conclusions.

0:20:01 Sarah: Because this child trusted them, this child had a relationship with them, this child believed they knew this person and could depend on this person. And if it's that hard for you, how hard do you think it might be for them? And that's part of this is I would I just want to make it easier if at all possible.

0:20:18 Thomas: Yeah, and I mean, I'm in favor, those are excellent points, of course, and, and I'm in favour of just a more rational world in any way we can have that, you know, and one of the things that I think about, like you said, imagining this kind of violence, or for you, you don't have to, but imagining this, kind of, not violent, well, it's kind of violent in some ways, but, imagining, this kind of abuse on someone you know or love love, that is tough. It's easy for someone who's been a victim or knows a victim to come at someone like me when I'm saying, hey, don't pile on this Jared being beaten up in prison. It is easy for them to say, you don't know. But for someone like you, I think it's really amazing that you've had the experience of confronting those feelings, dealing with all that, and still being able to to say, no, we shouldn't be advocating this person to be beaten extrajudicially in prison. And it's amazing. And yeah,

0:21:19 Sarah: Right? Well, I'll tell you another side of this that that really hit it home for me. And it was something that prior to my dealing with all of this on a firsthand basis, really didn't cross my mind a whole lot.

0:21:34 Sarah: You know, when, when our situation happened, there was some news stories and all this. And, you know, my kids, I have some kids that are old enough to be online. And they're, of course, on social media and that sort of thing.

0:21:46 Sarah: And, and they saw the news reports. And I know we as adults all know not to read the comments, but we as adults don't follow that rule. So you can imagine how well the teenagers follow those rules. Um, and so when they're reading these news articles and they see in the comments or they see shared, you know, on Facebook, or they see it shared on Twitter, um, you know, all over the internet that, you know, people are saying, you know, this person needs the electric chair. I hope they fry the son of a bitch, you know, um I can't wait for him to get what's coming to him. He's, you know, he's going to wish that he'd never thought about this. He's going to be raped. He's going to be murdered. Very, very graphic descriptions advocating horrible violence.

What they're not, these people are not considering, and I realize it's the internet, it's this vortex of faceless interaction that that's devoid of emotion and um and and just, you know, it's very one-dimensional, um, for these people, but what they're not understanding is, you know, then I, I got to sit there and and realize, um, you know, I have children who are reading these comments and coming to me in tears, um, one of them, you know, is a part of the case and saying, very, very, you, you know, heartbroken. I shouldn't have said anything.

0:22:15 Thomas: Oh,

0:22:58 Sarah: I shouldn't Have said anything, because now this is what's going to happen to them. And that's going to be my fault. And they're already dealing with the guilt, they're already dealing with the shame, they are already dealing with all of the baggage that comes with, you know just being a victim of sexual assault. And they already deal with the fallout. Because, you know, when it's someone who's a member of their family, there's very instantaneous, you know, effects from someone disclosing this kind of situation. And they're very immediate and they're sudden and they're dramatic and drastic.

0:22:59 Thomas: God, that's not good.

0:23:33 Sarah: And it's unfortunate, but it's, it's just the way it has to work. You know, we were in a situation where very, very clearly we had literally teams of organizations or, or, you know, agencies from different, you know, we had, you had city, we had state, we had county, you know, completely involved in our lives and for quite a while and we still do to some extent and they've all been very wonderful.

I want to be very clear, like, that's, it's not been a problem, it's just part of the process. But obviously the kids see that very quickly and it's traumatic and it's difficult. There's changes in relationships, there's changes in contact with people they normally had a lot of contact with. Those kinds of things, so when you add to that, they're already feeling guilty in the sense that I said these things and now our entire life just blew up. Like, that's tough, you know, in our situation we lost all of our income, you know, things, things are changing for our life that are just never going to go back to normal. And working with them and their trauma therapists to understand that that's okay, that's still the right thing to do. They absolutely did the right things by disclosing. Um, that's tough enough when

0:24:43 Sarah: You add in that a child then says, but I did also see, is it true they're going to be murdered, is it truth they're gonna be raped, um, and and they're in tears, you know, they, they want this individual to be safe, they want to be, um, you know, that's how we frame everything. I was very careful, when all of this happened, um, but it was that it all came out to word things with my kids because I have kids in different perspectives of this whole process. I was very careful to word this with them that, you know, we're working with a safety team, the police are part of our safety team. The detectives, the sheriffs, the, you know, social workers, the case managers, the endless list of people. These are all part of our safety. And they're helping us be safe and they're helping this individual be safe.

0:24:43 Thomas: Yeah,

0:25:32 Sarah: And I'm doing everything I can to reinforce that to them because kids need to know their world is safe. So when they read in the comments of an article and they realize there's a way this person is going to possibly, and and by all accounts on the internet, you know, it's going to happen, um, that's difficult for them. It's one more thing that makes them wonder if they did the right thing and that was the point for me where my my perspective shifted. And, and I said, you know, I, I can be angry, I can be sad, all those things exist. And my kids have seen me very deeply invested in all of those emotions sometimes.

0:25:56 Thomas: Yeah, yeah.

0:26:17 Sarah: But I know,

0:26:15 Thomas: Yeah, well, coming at it from, oh sorry, go ahead.

0:26:19 Sarah: Just to say, but I but I also need them to see that emotions are different than behavior. I can have all of these feelings. But I I am still responsible for how I choose to behave, right?

0:26:31 Thomas: Right, I mean, I can't imagine what it would be if you, for example, caught someone in the act or something. I mean, you may have, or I may have a very difficult emotional response to that. Who knows what it would be?

0:26:46 Sarah: And that's self-defense, yeah, I mean, like, and even if you're protecting a child and that was something, you know, there's, that's another one of the common comments where people are going, oh, if I ever saw somebody doing this, I'd kill them, and, you know, although they would, well, I think that's a slightly different scenario where that's defense, that's you're protecting a a child, at the moment that's not the same thing, right?

0:26:47 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, it is, of course. But yeah, Well, and yeah, as premeditated kind of retribution. But one thing that I think of when I see all this is, do we really think that these people don't know this? I mean, do we really think that Jared, for example, or any other, you know, abuser of children, do we really think the problem is we just haven't threatened them enough? Like the problem is we haven't threatened them with enough violence for, I mean, these are obviously sick people, it's it's not, and this isn't to excuse it or something and say, like, it's but you know, there, honestly, could there be any worse thing path to choose for your life if it was some sort of free, easy choice for you? I mean, who on earth would decide, well, I think I'm going to abuse children and take on everything that comes with that? I mean, clearly, there's got to be some level of sickness there, otherwise, why on earth?

0:27:30 Sarah: No, Right. Right. Well,

0:28:05 Thomas: I think the philosophy of free will and of justice system and all that, I mean I think we're better off as a society if we take some of that on, if we realize, look, understand we're going to have emotional responses to stuff, of course. I mean, if a family member of mine is murdered, it's going to be very hard to think rationally. But as you said, as you put it so well so many times, there's a difference between how you might react in the moment, or if somebody very close to you was a victim of something, and then how you ought to carry yourself and to emote over the course of time or with unrelated cases. I mean, it's just not something we should encourage. The idea that, and another, taking it from even another angle, one thing that blows my mind about it is how far, is how comfortable so many people are with like, oh, you know, the other inmates, they're almost our proxies.

0:29:04 Thomas: Like we're okay with them carrying out this justice for us. Like it has to be done. Like all that, because I'm sure they're all great too.

0:29:11 Sarah: There was, there was the one tweet, the, and I posted screenshots of these, um, in the article, but, you know, one of the tweets was, you know, somebody wanted to send the guy a gift card that that assaulted, and I'm just, I'm just sitting here going, you know, I, again, I understand the emotion, I understand that the feeling there, because you, it's it's like, you know, what we're trying to do is somehow, um, you know, justify, like, you know, in a sense we weren't there to protect the child at the time, so now we'll do everything we can now and yeah and it's like, I I understand, I I really and truly do. You know, there was, there was a point of all of this where, in our situation, you know, and I talk about it a little bit in the article where, you know, they they have all these teams involved and they get to interview everybody and interview everybody, you know, outside of our family. And, oh, my gosh, they were, this was very involved.

And at one point they sit me down in this room and and they start detailing everything, everything. And, you know, one of the things that that's always tough, I think, is, you know, we, for for quite a while, because I had no idea what was going on. And I, basically, you know what, the, obviously investigators do their job and whatever. But I didn't know the extent of things that

0:29:40 Thomas: Right. It's like an overcompensation sort of, gosh Yeah.

0:30:33 Sarah: They were that they were dealing with. And I, you know, there's... there's a huge difference, not that there's a difference in in people's emotions, again, again, but there is a huge difference between, you know, a misdemeanor, inappropriate contact, and, you know, first degree sexual assault of a child. There's a huge difference between the two. And in my mind, because of course, I wanted things to be as, you know, not awful as possible.

0:31:00 Thomas: Yeah. I can I can relate

0:31:02 Sarah: I kind of, right, I kind of had in my head that this was like, you know, we're misdimeanor. I don't and I didn't know anything about any of this at the time. I just, you You know, I only have the TV, you know, see as I step in my head or whatever. And they start describing all of this to me and they were very clear. They said, we can tell you as much or as little as you can handle and it's totally up to you. But for me, there were two things about it. I said, I need you to tell me everything.

0:31:12 Thomas: To that. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

0:31:30 Sarah: And they stopped for a minute and they said, you know, just be really sure about that, because this is a lot. And I said, I need to know everything. And there were three reasons for that. One was, I don't feel like I can make rational forward thinking decisions unless I have all of the information, whether I like the information or not. I need to know everything. Otherwise, I can talk myself into, you know, maybe it wasn't that bad or whatever, like, I need to know, um, but but the other part of it, quite frankly, was I felt like I had to hear it and and somehow that was taking it on a little bit, like I could, and I talk about that in the article, that it was like, give me all of that pain of all that information, um, because then somehow, um, I could at least share that burden with them, I couldn't take it away from them, but, like, it was it was this this desperate emotional need to be like, you know, just give me all of that.

And I'll take it in a heartbeat. And I feel like some of this reactionary stuff online, in some sense, is similar to that. It's like, you know, I want to do something, I feel like I'm involved. It didn't do all of anything for me to, for my kids, for me, to hear all of it. I didn't take their experience away.

0:31:56 Thomas: Yeah.

0:32:44 Sarah: But I felt like I was doing something in a situation where I was totally helpless.

0:32:49 Thomas: Well, that sounds very understandable, I mean, it also could be you don't want to feel like you're avoiding it or you're, you know, like somehow shirking, you know, I can really relate to that. That makes sense. I mean, it also sounds very tough. Now, do you have any regrets as far as that is concerned? Or are you glad that you got, you know, the decision you made and you're, in the end, glad that you have all the information and everything?

0:32:56 Sarah: And Right.

0:33:17 Thomas: I'm sorry. That might be a bad choice of words.

0:33:14 Sarah: I'm, I'm... No, no, you're fine. No, it's tough to say I'm glad I have all the information, but that's the truth. You know, there's a part of it too, where if I didn't have all the information I wouldn't... All the information they gave me, I do want to be clear that there was some information they could not give me, just because they were still a part of the investigation. But, and I, you know, I obviously don't know what all they have. But, but what they were able to tell me was pretty extensive. And, and I feel like, you know, not, not having all the information would have given me permission to make blinded decisions. And I wouldn't have necessarily been able to understand and appreciate the kind of individual I was dealing with, that prior to this moment, I had no idea. Idea. And so when I have, you know, multi-agency sitting there saying, you know, well, here's our report, and here's our report and here is our report.

0:33:23 Thomas: Yeah, sure. Yeah.

0:34:14 Sarah: You know, we're skeptical people and we're people who require evidence. And I'm sitting in a room with, you know, all these different badges and all these different titles saying here's, our evidence and here is what we've decided. And there's something about that that you you can't walk away from that and go, it wasn't that bad.

0:34:40 Sarah: It's not possible. And as tough as it was, and as much as I wished it wasn't true, and I still to this day, obviously, you know, I've got people with hundreds of years collectively of investigative experience with child sexual abuse situations, telling me that the reality was something that I didn't realize. And that was was important. And whether I liked the information or not, um, these are credible people who had no vested interest in making this up. I mean, you know, they, they have a million other cases as well. You know, I'm sure, I'm certain, you didn't, you Know, that

0:35:12 Thomas: Right. And who knows how often people just won't accept it? I

0:35:19 Sarah: Was something that they talked about a lot actually. And that kind of ties into this as well, Where, youknow, one of the concerns, um, that they repeatedly had, um、, you know, was, was just checking in with me on where, where my level of acceptance was and was was there a risk that the children would be interacting with people who had been sympathetic to and encouraging their abuser you know and and those kinds of things, not not that anyone was aware that this was happening, I don't want to imply that, but what I'm saying is, you know, as this was obviously developing, this took weeks for the investigation teams to be involved. Their, their abuser was interacting with people who were doing the nice guy thing with, with them. And, and, you know, but you're such a nice guy and I, you know, blah, blah.

0:35:22 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:36:10 Sarah: And all this. And so they, you know, these people were checking in with me going, you know, is, is there any risk that these people are going to be in contact with the, with the kids? Because that's not good. We can't do that. You know, they wanted to make sure my head was in a supportive place for what they were trying to do and essentially I just, you know, one of one of the other things about having that many people involved that professionally and that quickly was I had the luxury of just saying, you tell me what to do, like this is all so awful, I can't think, I'm going to deal with my kids and I'm gonna deal with breathing tomorrow, um, so as long as I can get through those two things, you tell me what I can do, and that's kind of where I went from there, but, um, yeah.

0:36:50 Thomas: Well, it's really, I mean, obviously this is the worst thing in the world, but I have to say, I think it does show the benefit of just being a critical thinker and being someone who's willing to trust expertise in that area. I mean really, because I could imagine this going wrong And like you said, it sounds like maybe it does go wrong based on the officer's experience where, you know, I could imagine being in denial. I could Imagine not trusting what, you Know, like you Said Hundreds of years of experts are telling you and all these things are, I think this is just fascinating. I encourage people to, of course, to read your post, but but also just everything you've said, it's it's really like testing these excellent principles in the worst circumstances, you know, testing the principles of being skeptical, of accepting data when it's shown to you, you know. All these kinds of things in the most difficult times, and I think it's a real testament to it.

0:36:50 Sarah: Oh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:37:48 Sarah: When when every emotional part of you is saying, I would really like this to not be true, please. Like I need this to not be true, um, on a visceral, primal level, I need this to not be truth, um, and yet, you know, it's it's there and my choices were, I could, you know, tell them all that they were making it all up, um, and probably, quite frankly, lose my kids in the process, um, because, you know, we've in with all of this you have Health and Human Services and you have child protective services

0:37:51 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

0:38:17 Thomas: Well, I suppose that's a testament to the system then, if that's true. But who knows? I mean, who knows in a different circumstance, maybe an attitude like that would have stopped kids from coming forward or who knows, you know?

0:38:19 Sarah: Yeah yeah well they were they're right, and and that's something that, you know, I've learned just as I've been dealing with all this, that certainly happens, you know. Where, you know, if if kids feel like they're not going to be believed and they don't tell, there's a couple things that seem to be, um, the after effects of this. And one is, you know, that emotionally, they have a really, really difficult time dealing with healing from the abuse, because they're being told by their surrounding community that it didn't happen the way that they're reporting it. And that ties back into this whole concept of, you know, how do we make it safe for these kids to be believed. And I think part of what we have to do too, is understand that guys are obviously, you know, women as well sometimes, but, you know, people who abuse children, in order for them to do that, they have to be in a position of trust. And they have not just be in the position of that child, but be in that position of trust with that community.

0:38:37 Thomas: Yeah.

0:39:26 Sarah: So that means that valid, trusting, kind, caring relationships exist with that child, with them and with other people in the community. So by default, when that child comes and says this is what's been happening to me, it makes it very difficult for us to actually believe them. And I did put a link to a PDF from the FBI in my article that references the rarity of false accusations of child sexual abuse, it's very, very rare. And then when you add in the, you know, just the probability that multiple agencies would investigate situations, and that's something else I didn't realize, you know, you've got the police, police will investigate, child protective services investigates, case managers at Health and Human Services take a look at everything. You know, you've got the, you know, the victim witness department takes a look at everything, you got the prosecutor takes a look at everything.

0:40:14 Sarah: You these are all people who, you know, they kind of know each other, but these are not buddies who are colluding together, you Know, to come up with, you know, they've got a million things to do. They're not after one particular individual. So when you, when you look at one, the false accusations are rare in and of themselves. And then two, how many people are involved, um, when these disclosures occur, um, in our situation it was disclosed to a health care provider and they're mandatory reporters, so they are required to call the police and and all that stuff, um, but when you have all of that come together, you know, when you have then these teams decide to press charges, decide to move things to trial, um, decide to convict, as in Jared's situation, um, you know, there's been a lot of checks and balances to to get to that point. Um, so when a child says, the very beginning domino, right?

0:40:19 Thomas: Right.

0:41:07 Sarah: When a child says this, this person who I've trusted and who all of you like has been hurting me, they're taking a huge, huge leap of faith in their relationship with you, um, that you're going to set aside all of that that says, you know, God, what a nice guy. And you're gonna look at this kid and and understand how much they have to trust you to be able to disclose that, that to me is really, really powerful, um, so again, you know, by demonizing these people once they get in prison, by by saying, oh, they're monsters, that was the biggest one that I saw all over social media, he's a monster, story he's a mom, I would go out on a limb to say, you know, prior to Jared getting investigated and all of this, a lot of people liked him. I remember when, you know, the the news broke that they were investigating him and everybody was, I can't believe it, and there there wasn't people, you know, going, oh, the FBI raided his house, you know, I saw that coming a mile away, not how that worked

0:42:05 Thomas: Actually, I first thought, I thought, because at first it seemed like, oh, he was, it was just someone he was involved with. Well, but it was because it was actually a part, business partner had child porn or something. And so my first thought was, oh, maybe it was, you know, maybe somehow that business partner used Jared's computer or something, but yeah, it turned out to be much worse.

0:42:07 Sarah: Right right because he's a spokesman and he's involved in all the health programs and, you know, he, you know, she's certainly been in commercials with kids and, you know, has this, you know, kind of friendly, affable thing, um, and I don't know how involved he was in the community or not, but I mean, you know, certainly, you know, someone that the nation recognized and that kind of thing.

And you look at people like Jerry Sandusky and people were coming out of the woodwork going, he's such a nice guy, he would never do this, you don't understand, you know, this is something common. And then as soon as they get convicted, all of a sudden the tables turn. And instead of everybody talking about what a nice guide they are, now they're a monster. Now they deserve to be raped. Now they reserve to be murdered.

And there's something about that, that I think we need to address and we need to take responsibility for. And even if it's as simple as, you know, when we see on social media, this kind of thing fall out, just posting and, you know, either posting my article that I wrote or posting something that says, you know, everybody's entitled to their feelings, but we need to be better than the criminals.

0:42:30 Thomas: Yeah, yeah,

0:43:29 Sarah: We need to do better than advocating violence towards the violent. I mean, that's just not a solution. If it was, we wouldn't have this problem. Prison violence is rampant. So if that was going to fix it, it would have done it by now.

0:43:37 Thomas: Yeah. Like I said, I mean, the idea that that's what we need. We just need a little more violence toward predators.

0:43:45 Sarah: We don't have enough violence is really what it comes down to.

0:43:46 Thomas: Yeah. Well, Well, it really is incredible that the prison system, I mean, how is it true that we can't even keep inmates from killing, raping each other, you know, in this kind of environment? It just is insane that the violence and the horror that the prison system is. I mean, I can imagine if you were somehow in the system for maybe nonviolent offenses or something, you know, the idea that you're going into this, because that's what this attitude creates, you Know, the attitude that it's okay to do some, you know, some extra justice, some just a little bit cherry on the top justice of their own in prison. And that attitude creates that environment, and it's got to be a horrible one for anyone who's in the system who maybe you wouldn't think deserves that kind of treatment, you know?

0:44:41 Sarah: Right. Well, and my argument is that, you know, the justice system, flawed as it may be, broken as it may be. It exists. It has things in place. This person, you know, Jared is he was convicted and he's serving his time, you know, and and we as a society, I don't think get to tack on on top of that sentence and say, and now this has to happen to you. And now this has to happen to you, totally deserve, you know, all of these things. I, I understand, you know that what he did was horrible things. And I'm, I certainly am not going to weigh into the severity of child porn versus actively molesting children. Like that's, it's irrelevant. And the beauty of this is I don't have to have an opinion on all of that necessarily because the justice system already does.

0:44:55 Thomas: Yep. Yeah.

0:45:25 Sarah: He was convicted of these things. He's already, you know, that's already being dealt with. He is already separated from children. You know, he will, even if he's out of prison at some point, he won't be allowed in contact with children again. We've done all the the things we can do. I think, obviously, it can be argued that there's prison reform necessary. There's other countries who have done much better jobs at dealing with child predators and sex offenders in general. But that's obviously a completely different subject.

In general, in our country, there is this very, you know, retribution, revenge focus of, you Know, Now we're going to the humanist end of it, where I think, you know, we can all agree that it's not the most humanist thing in the world to say, you know, let's, you know, he's gonna get what's coming to him, he's gonna get raped and murdered. I do find it interesting that on the other side of it there was a lot of religious people posting the same thing, um, and for people who are very convinced that someone like him is going to burn in hell for all of eternity, I don't understand the need to escalate, um, the situation, because it seems like, you know, if he's already going there, why are we concerned, um,

0:46:21 Thomas: Yeah.

0:46:34 Thomas: Oh, absolutely. I mean, that's always a thing with Christians, too. It so should be about letting God sort it out, but it never is, you know? It's always, yeah, yeah.

0:46:34 Sarah: Yeah.

0:46:43 Sarah: They want to, they want to help the process. And I will say that, you know, I, I do know a lot of religious people who did not have that opinion, who are very humanist, so I'm not painting, you know, a huge brush there, but I, but I did see plenty that were cheering on the idea that that this guy was assaulted and I'm just like, I don't think that was in the Bible, and if it was, like, I mean, at what point is that wrong, like, Just come on, right.

0:46:51 Thomas: Sure. Sure.

0:47:06 Thomas: Well, and, you know, really, especially responding to the point of, well, if this happened to you, if this happened to a loved one or whatever, yeah, that's going to be true of almost every crime. Or is it, should we make it so that every single criminal, like we make sure they get extra beatings in prison all the time? Like, yeah. If someone mugs me, if someone beats me up, someone, you know, murders a family member, yeah I'm going to feel very, very angry at them, but that doesn't, you know, it has no relation on whether the system should involve these horrible, you know, medieval punishments because we're all so mad or we would be mad if it was us.

0:47:41 Sarah: Well, It's almost exactly, that's almost exactly why we have this justice system in place. I mean, you know, I, I, regardless of my feelings about the situation, in my personal experience, and, you know, I talk about the absolute, and I call it a cold fury, and that's the best way I can describe it, um, you know, I said, I think it's something like Jerry Bruckheimer's Natural Born Killers level retribution, like, I mean, I was. The level of absolute anger and all of that unquestionably is there. That to me seems even more the reason that it shouldn't be up to me what happens. It's up to the justice system.

0:47:45 Thomas: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

0:48:21 Sarah: One of the fascinating things about this process, just from a very detached perspective, has been how completely uninvolved, other than I get letters in the mail, I get phone calls, I have a lot of meetings with a lot of different representatives of agencies, but they're gathering information. They're not giving me information. There's really only been one meeting where they gave me information, and after that, this is all being handled. It's being handled, it's being handled By them.

I get to show up in court, um, you know, I, I get to be a participant only because I'm a witness, um, uh, and by witness that just means you're involved in the whole thing or whatever, but, um, but I, I don't, I don't have a say in any of this, um, neither do the children, quite frankly, I mean they're a part of the process as the victims, but the state is involved, the city is involved, a county is involved, you know, it doesn't matter how I feel about it, that's not why they're doing this.

Laws were broken. And there are steps in place and gears are in motion. And it's beyond my reach. I mean, it truly is as it should be, because I'm a little too close to this.

0:48:48 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:49:30 Sarah: In my situation, I mean, I don't want to even think about, you know, at that exact moment in time, what I would have wanted to have happen. Um, you know, and it, it, it's not an appropriate way to to govern society to let people just make decisions about others based on, you know, emotional fallout. It's just not healthy, we can't do that. Absolutely.

0:49:52 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for coming on and sharing this very difficult topic. Sarah Morehead, thank you so much. Is there anything you want to point people to to visit you and find you?

0:50:01 Sarah: Yeah. Um, obviously you know, take a look at the article, um, and you know, still a part of getting a lot of feedback and all that, um, and then the other thing, you know, um, completely different topic, a little word, sex is still involved, and in a much more positive way, um, so. So I'm, I'm a part of a cool project that we're really excited about. It's called removing the fig leaf and it's a sex positive team blog over on Patheos and we are exploring unpacking the baggage of religion and sexuality. So it's, we've got about, I think we're 45 or 50 writers and everybody's just, yeah. And we've got, you know, people from all walks of life and diversity. We're being really careful to make sure we have those represented. And it's just an exciting, you know, writing adventure of people taking a look at different aspects of sexuality what it means to have positive sexuality after Religion, um, so it's, it's a lot of fun, and, um, and I hope everybody checks it out. Cool.

0:50:59 Thomas: All right. Thanks again for coming on. And I encourage people to check that out and check out the article. Thank you very much.

0:51:04 Sarah: Thanks, man. I appreciate it.

0:51:19 Thomas: Right, that wraps up another week, here, at, Atheistically Speaking, I've got lots of fun stuff, on the horizon, good interviews, good, good commentary, everything, it's, it, there is so much to talk about, I love doing the show, and I love, most of all, the support of my, fantastic listeners, over at, patreon.com/atheist, go there, if you'd like to pledge, as little as you can, a dollar a show, you'll barely notice it, but I will notice it a great deal. And I will thank you publicly. A very special thanks to my top pledgers, Kaylee Reiser, Zimu Zinu Jr., Adrian Borschoff, Jonathan Moyet, Jay Alden, Walt Bangs, NaughtyBits, Christian J., Peter Skelton, Brian Gareford, Dale, Matt Garrett, Lizzie and Samantha, thank you guys so very kindly, I really appreciate it.

0:52:05 Thomas: If you can't pledge on Patreon, you can definitely write an iTunes review. Please do so. We're still ticking up slowly, but surely. I'd love to get to 500 someday, and I'll do a bonus episode. Alright, that's it for me. I will see you guys next week.