The Heavenly New Jerusalem Auxiliary Courthouse #37 Room E19b (“Earth Court”) October 4, 2114 (Earth-time) Court Transcript (prepared by brother Anon)

Brother Chairman: Praise God! On this occasion of the 100th anniversary of the start of our co-reign over the Earth, I call the General Assembly of the Governing Body to order.

Brothers and Sister, please lay down your harps (and other assorted musical instruments) and cease singing God’s praises for the moment. Thank you.

The only topic on the agenda for this Earth-day is whether to annihilate Sister Innocenti Gonzolez for Conduct Unbecoming.

Brother Everest will read the charges.

Brother Everest: That said sister did, knowingly and with full intention, entice a man along the ‘chain of desire’™ by holding said man’s hand.

Brother Chairman: We will now hear arguments from the floor… The chair recognizes Sister Emily.

Sister Emily: Why is this sister the only one being tried: why not the brother involved?

 

Brother Chairman: The brother is an elder’s son. Any more discussion?

Brother Peter: Can we call her just Sister Gonzolez? “Sister Innocenti” sounds prejudicial.

(General Laughter)

Brother Swenson: Innocent my ass!

(Laughter.)

Sister Emily: You haven’t got an ass anymore, brother.

Sister Finehart: (Whispering) He never did.

Brother Alpine: Were these two engaged at the time?

Brother Swenson: They were engaged in hanky-panky, that’s what they were engaged in!

(Loud Laughter)

Brother Chairman: (Half-heartedly) Order, please… No, they were not engaged to be married at the time.

Sister Finehart: She loves him and wants to marry him. She was hoping he’d pop the question if she showed him a little physical affection.

Brother Jorgenson: She put the cart before the horse, that’s what she did. How many times have we seen a “little physical affection” turn into the ugliest of sin? Plus it looks like she dolled herself up with make-up!

Brother Fenster: A hundred year-old make-up! That must’ve been attractive!

(Laughter.)

Sister Finehart: She did not use make-up; that was all destroyed in the great conflagration. She just pinched her cheeks to give them some color. It’s an old trick we learned back in the Old Order since we weren’t allowed to buy blush.

Brother Peterson: Oh, that may have worked for you, but this sister is black, isn’t she?

Brother Alpine: Holding hands is the first link in that inexorable chain that leads to fornication.

Sister Emily: Can’t we just give her a warning?

Brother Bombast: There’s no excuse for this sort of thing anymore! We’re in the New Order now, people! Wake up! There’s no more winking at sins. It’s shape up or ship out time. All infractions against God’s law must be met with the ultimate punishment: no exceptions! You give ’em an inch and they’ll take a mile, every time.

Sister Finehart: Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

Brother Chairman: How dare you quote the King of Heaven!

Brother Jorgenson: That was a quote applicable to the Old Order, not the new.

Sister Finehart: I’m not so sure about that.

Sister Emily: Should we request the King’s attendance and ask him?

Brother Swenson: I think he’s out on the golf-course, isn’t he?

(Restrained laughter)

Brother Peterson: I heard he was over in hall K2: the Klingons’ Court, helping to decide a big case.

Brother Ronald: Yeah, I heard that he had to die twice for them: once on each of their planets.

Brother Chairman: Let’s put a stop to all these rumors once and for all! Christ the King is currently on guard-duty over the Abyss in his role as Michael the Archangel.

If you think I’m about to disturb him to rule over such a simple, insignificant matter as this, you have another think coming!

Sister Emily: It’s not insignificant to Sister Innocenti.

Brother Alpine: What are they still getting married for down there, anyway? The Earth’s crowded enough as it is.

Brother Bombast: It’s only crowded because we’re not meeting our annihilation quotas, as I’ve pointed out time and time again. Right now I’ve got 200 brothers waiting to be tried for passing around an old paperback copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover which somehow survived the book-burnings, while we’re wasting all this time on one erring sister. We need to come to quicker decisions without all this hemming and hawing and letting the sisters speak. You’d never hear sisters speak in my old congregation!

Sister Emily: Probably you just weren’t listening.

Sister Finehart: (Whispering) Just like now.

Brother Bombast: No sir, we’d come to quick decisions in my old congregation. Somebody slipped up? Too bad: no mollycoddling. Poof–disfellowshipped! You learn your lesson, repent and reform your ways and come crawling back begging for reinstatement and then maybe we’ll talk.

 

Sister Emily: But now there’s no “crawling back”; we’re talking about everlasting death here, not disfellowshipping.

Brother Chairman: They are one and the same now.

On a side-note, brother secretary, please send a memo to the Enforcement Squad to do another Earth shake-down for contraband; we’re hearing too many accounts of the existence of non Watchtower books and worldly things like this make-up.

Back to the matter at hand: are we in general agreement regarding the annihilation of this sister whats-her-name?

Several voices: “Sister Innocenti Gonzolez”.

Brother Chairman: (under his breath) “Sister Guilty Gonzolez, more likely.”

Sister Finehart: But we used to just give public reproof for something like this.

Brother Bombast: There was no “we” involved. It was us brothers who took charge of all of that, so we’re the ones with experience, and we don’t need sisters telling us —

Brother Chairman: Sister Finehart: you bring up a moot point; there is no public reproof anymore. Sin is punished with one ultimate penalty. Must I read to you from the Organizing for Eternity in the New World book?

(Collective groan.)

Brother Chairman: All right, then. All we need to decide here is whether a sin was committed, and if so apply the punishment.

Brother Alpine: That is our duty.

Brother Jorgenson: It is our ‘privileged responsibility’™.

Brother Chairman: We can’t afford to have Christ the King come back at the end of the thousand years and find sinners walking about on Earth. Then he’d accuse us of not having been his Faithful and Discreet Slave™.

Several brothers at once: We can’t have that! Think what would  become of us!

Brother Chairman: Yes, indeed. Do I have a motion from the floor?

Brother Alpine: I move that Sister Gonzolez be annihilated for the sin of enticement.

Brother Chairman: Do I have a second?

Thousands of brothers at once: I second the motion!

Brother Chairman: All in favor?

A choir of heavenly voices: “Aye!”

Brother Chairman: Opposed?

(Deathly silence)

Brother Chairman: Motion carried!

(The sound of the gavel banging, followed by the sharp retort of a thunderbolt and a faint, pitiful scream.)

Brother Chairman: Meeting adjourned. Praise God!