Maybe this is the way hope begins.
A Dallas woman invited three sex offenders to her house for a tea party, with the hope of starting an honest conversation, reports CBS DFW.
“We have to talk about this in polite society, and what’s more polite than tea?” asks Judy Safern.
Safern also invited friends and neighbors over for the gathering and had plenty of them RSVP with an adamant NO!
An honest conversation. An opportunity. A beginning.
This was a chance for the neighbors to meet sex offenders and for sex offenders to educate the neighbors. We never know when those opportunities will arise; they are not all formal affairs with invitations.
Sometimes the opportunity comes at a soccer game, at the PTO meeting, at a church potluck, or at work. Be ready with simple answers that will introduce the truth that sex offenders are not the scary monsters we have been encouraged to think they are.
Only a tiny number of sex offenders are child rapists.
Most child sexual assaults happen within the circle of trusted family members and friends.
Most sex offenders will not offend again.
Sex offenders have families who suffer right along with them.
Not everyone will like what we have to say. Some will hear us.
That’s the way it begins.
~ marie