The sad thing about all this is how keeping up appearances overrode doing the right thing. For the most part, I would say the majority of people in my family are Christians (not the "Born Again, Hail Jesus!" type, but quiet practitioners -- we try to keep an open mind), but even among those in our faith, there's a certain pattern about the more pious ones where they feel this great need to keep up certain appearances. I guess in terms of absolute value, it would make sense -- "People think of us as pious and spiritual, so gosh darn it, we need to look like we're pious and spiritual" -- but in the real world, it tends to cloud good judgment after a certain point.

From what I'm reading in the article, it sounds to me like the mother and father basically made their decisions based on: "Oh no! What would the neighbors think if they found out our son was in jail? What would the neighbors say if they found out our son was in counseling? What would they suspect? Good heavens! What would we have to say if they found out what was REALLY going on?" And so, to protect their reputation, they chose to cover it all up, which actually hurt them most in the end, because eventually everybody found out anyway.

I do believe it's true that every family has secrets, and we all have to keep secrets in our current state in order to protect those we love, but once keeping that secret becomes something that could hurt MORE people in the end, especially your own blood and kin, then that's when you need to take measures to stop it. It's like trying to contain a nuclear blast by building a larger building when the real problem is to defuse the bomb.

Anyway, I actually think it's a good thing this all came out SO, one, this could hopefully put a stop to what I would consider as evil behavior, two, those who might need the counseling can finally get it, and THREE, this might open the eyes of the family to see what's really important versus what they thought was important -- AKA a damned phony facade of a reputation. I'm not hating on the family personally, but seriously, they need to take the blinders off and see a bigger part of the picture.

Anyway, those are my two cents. (sense, scents....)