Pete Alfano's article mentioned that...the Baptist Standard quoted Jan Daehnert, an interim director with the Baptist Convention, as saying that the convention takes acts of sexual misconduct seriously. What about when acts are covered up, ministers deny abuse, investigations aren't conducted, and there's no unbiased investigative board or committee?

I know because I'm a victim/survivor of clergy sexual misconduct in a Baptist mega-church where I and my family were active and very involved members for more than 12 years. We loved our staff and our church and assumed that our children would be married there and our funerals would be there.

When I reported to the ministers the inappropriate and ungodly behavior exhibited on several occasions by certain ministers, I expected them to say it was wrong and would not be tolerated, to perhaps offer counseling, and so forth. Instead, they lied and said it never happened, and no investigation was done. The minister whom I complained about is still on staff five years later, working with children.

Churches are scary places when allegations are covered up, leadership turns a blind eye, and nothing is done to stop predators from having the times of their lives and getting paid a pretty price for doing it.

Kaye Maher

Oviedo, Florida

(Letter to the Editor, Fort Worth StarTelegram, Dec. 6, 2006)