So, as a follow-up to yesterday’s post:
One, Andrew Torrez put up an apology, which he started by saying the details in the article were wrong and he could prove it, and that’s… certainly one way of beginning an avowed apology for wrongdoing, but anyway, having said that he then went on to also say the accusations were basically true, and that he did that sort of thing when he was dissatisfied with his marriage. Hell of a thing to admit in a Facebook group your wife’s a member of, but whatever. He’s basically been booted from all PIAT groups and duties.
Two, Noah from PIAT addressed their silence on the subject. He claimed to have known since November ’22 when he was first approached with the news that complaints had been made against Andrew, but had been instructed to keep schtum about it (except with Heath and Eli, the other two main hosts) and not do anything about it until all relevant legal stuff was done. Once he knew the story was about to go public, he felt he was no longer under any compunction to not take action, so action was accordingly belatedly taken. He thinks they did the only viable thing that could’ve been done, but he regrets having lost people’s trust as a result.
And I think he’s actually being perfectly sincere, particularly on that last point, cos I think people do have perhaps higher expectations of him given his particular place in the atheist community. It was a pretty good explanation of where he stood in the whole thing and I see no real reason to doubt it. Unfortunately, it contained absolutely no reference to reports that they knew of stories about Andrew’s misbehaviour since 2017. Accordingly, a lot of people (comme moi) are still… unsatisfied at best, and I think with some good reason too. I know there’s legal issues involved, but the longer they hold off answering questions, the unhappier people are going to be with them…
