Common sense is proving not so common: Some knucklehead tried to sue fellow anti-abuse blogger Dee Parsons

In a day and age where people strive to outdo each other in terms of stupid behavior, we’ve hit a new low in terms of stupidity: Some dolt just tried to sue a long-time friend of Anglican Watch, Dee Parsons. Dee publishes our sister blog, The Wartburg Watch, which tends to cover abuse in more evangelically-focused faith communities.

And yes, we alternated between laughter and outrage at the sheer stupidity of the lawsuit.

So, what’s the lawsuit about?

It’s not easy to explain what this lawsuit is about. In fact, it’s darned difficult, mainly because the plaintiff doesn’t appear to know what the lawsuit is about.

At issue is an individual, an alleged pedophile, who was the subject of coverage in The Wartburg Watch.

That said, the lawsuit doesn’t appear to argue with the notion that the individual in question may be a pedophile. Instead, it centers on the notion that Dee and Todd Wilhelm, a contributing author and editor at the publication, somehow defamed the plaintiff by stating that they were not sure that a cease-and-desist letter, received from someone purporting to be the plaintiff’s attorney, was legitimate.

Okay, so right there we have our first issue.

In our own work, we’ve uncovered more than one letter, supposedly from an attorney, that was fraudulently written by someone not actually represented by the attorney. In fact, it happens more often than one might imagine.

Then we get another wrinkle in all of this: Some attorneys, like our longtime buddy Jeffery “Sugarland” Chiow, are so out there that you kind of hope that they did not, in fact, author the document in question. (Chiow’s handle derives from his invention, in his legal pleadings, of imaginary towns in Texas, and equally imaginary church shootings in those towns. And while there is a “Sugar Land” in Texas, there’s no “Sugarland.” Nor has there been a church shooting, either in the real or the imaginary city. We could go on, but you get our drift.)

In other words, it’s neither defamatory nor sketch to question the validity of legal correspondence. In fact, a healthy dose of skepticism is warranted when dealing with many attorneys.

And let’s face it—the fact that the lawsuit doesn’t appear to be about allegations that this guy is a pedophile is both telling and damning.

Why Dee?

Next, we turn to the question: Why go after Dee?

To be clear: While we know a lot of people, Dee is one of the very few we trust unreservedly. Maybe it’s our own negative experiences with faith communities. Maybe it’s just generalized suspicion. Or maybe 11 years of publishing Anglican Watch is catching up to us.

But at the end of the day, if a plaintiff is a slimester — and it sure sounds like this guy is — they should probably stick to trying to shake down their fellow lowlifes.

Indeed, as litigation strategies go, neither Dee nor Todd is someone you want to go after. And we say that as folks who come from the opposite side of the political aisle as Dee and Todd — and from a very different religious perspective.

Then, there’s the money thing

Then there’s the issue of money.

The present lawsuit also appears to name The Wartburg Watch. Unlike this publication, The Wartburg Watch doesn’t have a corporate existence independent of its authors, so it’s not clear to us how someone can sue a blog.

That said, regardless of how things are structured, there is nothing to be gained from suing any of us.

How so?

Well, let’s put it this way: All of the anti-abuse publications, from large to small, are labors of love/ministries. As in, none of us make beans from doing this.

In fact, for Anglican Watch, our annual expenses run about $30,000, including hosting, insurance, technology, newswire services, phones, software, travel (there is a surprising amount of this), and more.

Granted, we have received several grants, including one for IT security, some pro bono legal services, and we very occasionally waive our policy of not accepting donations. The latter typically come from people we’ve helped, or folks whose views are so clearly opposed to ours that no one would argue that they have influenced our coverage.

As a result, total offsets in a good year might reach $3,000, or 10 percent of our total expenses.

And while it’s clear that The Wartburg Watch doesn’t have the same cost structure as this publication, it’s fair to say that nothing in this space comes cheap. And, with the exception of Julie Roys over at The Roys Report, none of us makes a penny from our efforts. 

So, if anyone is looking to get rich quick by suing any of us, please be in touch. We’d love to know where that hidden pot of gold is, because it’s surely not anywhere with which we’re familiar.

And, just to be clear, this is not an avocation for the faint of heart. Whether it’s the constant criticism, people trying to bully us, threats of lawsuits, or even the occasional death threat, people do this because they care, and because, contrary to conventional wisdom, they want the church to succeed.

In sum, we see some amazingly stupid stuff in anti-abuse blogger land, but a lawsuit against Dee, Todd, and The Wartburg Watch is probably the stupidest thing we’ve seen so far in 2026.