Topic: Power
Sometimes, in stories involving professional abuse, I feel like we should bring back an old show, from the 50's, entitled "To Tell the Truth." A contestant was brought on the show, on one side of the stage. On the other, behind a screen that allowed the audience to see while the contestant could not, were three people who were introduced by the host with a one-paragraph teaser. The contestant was allowed to ask questions of the hidden people, one by one. Only one of the hidden guests was the real person, the only one who was telling the truth.
This morning, I woke up to the news that Eric McLean was found not guilty of murdering his wife's teenage "lover." OK--on that I'll agree. As the story shows, the shooting was not murder, though McLean was recklessly using a gun. If he'd wanted to only scare the teen, Sean Powell, I don't understand why Eric was carrying a loaded gun to the confrontation in the first place! Nor why he, an adult, would have been dumb enough to have his finger on the trigger, especially knowing it was loaded, when Sean reached for the barrel of the gun!! Eric McLean made a HUGE error in judgment and brings into question the whole issue of why we so readily allow such easy access to guns in America, to start with!!
That's a sub-issue, however. So before I get too far afield, I would like to be like Horton with his tiny little voice, and ask: "Will the real perpetrator please stand up?"
At this prompting, if we had the whole scene on an episode of "To Tell the Truth," the person to stand would be MRS. McLean (I can't even quickly locate HER name this morning). While she certainly didn't shoot her student, she certainly ABUSED HIM. And all of the journalists and lawyers with big names are missing the main point of the story.
Eric McLean was a victim, though a secondary one. SO--especially so--was Sean Powell. He was even a minor! Teachers do NOT have affairs with their students. Neither do ministers have affairs with their congregants. PLEASE GET THIS STRAIGHT!
The biggest perpetrator here may even still be teaching, or soon will be, the way things go! Let's face it. The real perpetrator--the one who betrayed her student and also her husband--got off without much notoriety at all. Meanwhile her primary victim is dead, leaving a huge impact on the lives of all the secondary victims, especially his family.
