I admit I'm curious, did something specific happen, or is about to happen, that caused Danny to go public with this now? It continues to be such a sad and disturbing story all around.
Directly below is the e-mail Danny sent to the church in November, when he first became aware of the situation. Below that is Danny's Twitter thread from tonight.
At that time, it was my hope that the Menlo Elders would conduct a confidential and thorough investigation of the report, and make such arrangements as were necessary to protect the community. In January, Menlo Church published the broad outlines of their investigation.— Daniel M. Lavery (@daniel_m_lavery) June 28, 2020
neither he nor the church ever made clear what, exactly, they thought he had done wrong. Parishioners were not given the full story of Ortberg's relationship to this volunteer, or his interest in keeping their strategy a secret.— Daniel M. Lavery (@daniel_m_lavery) June 28, 2020
Around that time, I published a statement expressing dismay at Menlo’s institutional failures. At a town hall meeting, Beth Seabolt responded to my comments by smearing me, claiming that I was “lashing out” at my family and insinuating I was mentally unstable because I am trans.— Daniel M. Lavery (@daniel_m_lavery) June 28, 2020
Given the brevity of their investigation, I no longer trust that inquiry process. So I'm now publishing the letter I sent to staff at Menlo in November, redacting only details that might identify children.— Daniel M. Lavery (@daniel_m_lavery) June 28, 2020
The volunteer was my brother, John Ortberg III. When we last spoke, he admitted to seeking out unsupervised contact with children (including overnight travel) for well over a decade.— Daniel M. Lavery (@daniel_m_lavery) June 28, 2020
During the conversation where he admitted his sexual obsession towards children, John III repeatedly described his work with children as the most important thing in his life, and described his feelings for the children in his care over the years in deeply romantic terms.— Daniel M. Lavery (@daniel_m_lavery) June 28, 2020
"The instinct to nurture children," he told me, "is for me bound up with a sexual response to them." My understanding of that phrase was that he indicated physical arousal.— Daniel M. Lavery (@daniel_m_lavery) June 28, 2020
As an adult, he has habitually sought out contact with young boys, both professionally in his past work as a tutor, as a music teacher, and youth group volunteer.— Daniel M. Lavery (@daniel_m_lavery) June 28, 2020
My brother only resigned from his positions working with children in November when I said I was going to do it for him. I believe that if I had not threatened to do so, he would never have stopped. I do not know whether he has ever harmed a child, as he claimed.— Daniel M. Lavery (@daniel_m_lavery) June 28, 2020
I hope that my brother is safe, healthy, in treatment, and never alone with another child. I hope that his previous work with children, at Menlo Church and everywhere else he pursued such work, is thoroughly scrutinized.— Daniel M. Lavery (@daniel_m_lavery) June 28, 2020
To be clear, there is a typo above: John Ortberg III claimed that he had never harmed a child. I do not know whether that is true.— Daniel M. Lavery (@daniel_m_lavery) June 29, 2020
Update on Monday morning: Ruth Hutchins, a member of Menlo Church, has posted a summary/timeline of all of this at her website. You can read it here.
As I've read through this stuff again this morning what strikes me most is that John, Nancy, and Danny's sister Laura felt it was important that Laura's son never be alone with Johnny; that keeping her son (John and Nancy's grandson) safe was paramount. What about keeping the kids at the church safe? No worries. We're sure Johnny would never hurt them. Wow.
Update #2. A few tweets from Grace:
I want to recognize how absolutely devastating this was so many of our friends. Nicole Cliffe, among others, called the Ortbergs to confirm what we had told her (which they did) before she cut them out of her life. I admire her so much for that.— Grace Lavery 🐬 (@graceelavery) June 29, 2020
The Ortbergs did everything within their power to make Danny the problem. When pushed, they admitted we were right on the ethics but blamed us for reporting to the church, rather than urging John to do so. But our friends held us up, and kept us in the light. Thank you.— Grace Lavery 🐬 (@graceelavery) June 29, 2020
Update #3: Yesterday, Grace posted this on Instagram, which was a surprise because Danny has talked about quitting smoking:
One of the comments is from Danny, who says this, in response to a comment acknowledging that he had been trying to quit:
WORTH IT!!!!! the quitting road is a good road but oh my goodness does a cigarette soothe a trauma for ten minutes.
I admit I'm wondering if the trauma, whatever it was, was what led Danny to out his brother as the "volunteer." And now Laura Ortberg Turner has tweeted this:
I would like very much to talk with him about this and offer corrections, but he cut off all contact with our family in November and made it very clear that we were never to contact him again. That is all I'm going to say! (2/2)— Laura Turner (@lkoturner) June 29, 2020
Note: The response to this tweet was mostly negative and after a couple of days Laura deleted her Twitter account.
Update #4. Grace has been posting all afternoon; in a couple of posts she explains how Johnny came to share his secret with Danny:
The irony is that Johnny talked for hours - two hours? - about how hard his life is, how sad and alone he feels watching kids graduate, *before* Danny had a chance to talk about transition. And then, when D *did* say something, J responded “hm i’m sorry i just don’t get it.”— Grace Lavery 🐬 (@graceelavery) June 29, 2020
When all the time they all knew that Johnny was keeping a FAR more consequential secret, that was being applauded and sanctimoniously mourned by all of them, which evidently warranted none of the panicked “family meetings” occasioned by D’s queerness and transness over the years.— Grace Lavery 🐬 (@graceelavery) June 29, 2020
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