Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Doug Phillips = Pervert

I never really thought I'd title a blog post with that phrase... but this is a new era. Doug Phillips is going to court. But this time, he's the one on trial. See the news article here and the official legal complaint here. (Trigger warning: Both links contain graphic details about sexual and spiritual abuse.) I knew it already but this just cements the fact that Doug Phillips is a freaking pervert. Can I just say that again? Doug Phillips is a freaking slimy pervert!

Most of you know the story: On October 31, 2013, Doug Phillips confessed to a "lengthy, inappropriate relationship" with another. See my brief post here, with a link to his statement. Since then, there has been much speculation about the details. What did Phillips mean? Who is "the woman"? Was this all that happened or was there more? More than one person tried to unravel the details and one blog in particular, (*cough* Jen's Gems *cough*), was rather invasive and emotional about the whole thing. I stayed out of it... mostly because I knew a bit more than I was able to disclose.      

Lourdes Torres c.2007
Now that the details are public, I can state that I've known that the "mystery woman" was Lourdes Torres for several months. When Phillips' confession was posted, I immediately thought the woman was probably Torres. Soon after, I received the information confirming this from one of my sources who also told me that a lawsuit was in the works. However, I did not feel it was my place to disclose that information until Torres chose to release details. I just kept praying that she was recovering from her experience and receiving counseling. I encourage everyone to continue to pray for her and her family. I'm very glad she's taking Phillips to court. I praise her bravery in speaking out. Doug Phillips can be an intimidating man... but maybe not as much as we once thought. Phillips is far more of an idiot than even I imagined. I mean, knocking on Torres' window in the middle of the night? Going to talk to Torres' parents, with Beall? What a creepy idiot! And Beall's sending threatening e-mails to Torres was hilariously stupid of her. Very incriminating. It's such perfect evidence of the sickness that is Doug and Beall Phillips and Vision Forum. Though Beall meant to be intimidating, her efforts backfired beautifully and will now be extremely valuable in court.

The fact that the Vision Forum Board is implicated and that the likes of Scott Brown, Voddie Bauchum, and etc. are mentioned in the complaint, may turn out to be a good thing. Maybe all these so-called ministries can go down together.

On a side note, I am both amused and aghast at Michael Ferris' distancing himself from Doug Phillips and Vision Forum. Ferris is himself a fundamentalist, has espoused some parts of the patriarchy movement, and I recall reading about the courtship of one of his daughter's in Josh Harris' Boy Meets Girl. Ferris was freakishly controlling and separated his daughter from her future husband while they were in college. He made his daughter cut off contact with the young man and manipulated the couple's feelings and actions. The couple finally reunited when Ferris decided it was time. They could have had a happy, normal relationship all through college but oh no, Ferris had to be in control. It was totally ridiculous and a terrible waste of everyone's time and energy. In fact, it was emotionally abusive. And if Ferris didn't like Phillips' teachings, why didn't he tell the homeschool community sooner? That would have been helpful! In addition, Michael Farris has handled reports of rape on the Patrick Henry campus in a completely antiquated and dismissive manner. See this link. This is completely unacceptable and disgusting. Thus, I have a very difficult time respecting Ferris and believing anything that he states.

There's more to come I'm sure... this issue is far from over.

Ingrid

P.S. Does anyone else find it funny that the lawsuit was filed on April 15th? The 102nd Anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic?