Yes, there are many "experts" who defend organizations that are criminal, abusive, and even homicidal. These defenders do so for two chief reasons: (1) out of a misplaced sense of "fairness" usually based upon ignorance, or (2) because the criminal and destructive cults pay the defenders money, goods, recognition, and services.

Reason number one is the most common: many (perhaps most) decent people wish to be champions of "religious freedom," which is laudable. The problem is that this nobel desire is often blind to the activities of criminal and abusive cults. In the desire to be "fair" and "just" and to "protect religious expression," these "experts" blindfold themselves to the horrors committed by the organizations they defend. These "experts" generally fail to recognize the fact that while religious belief and expression is certainly sacrosanct and thus defendable, criminal, abusive, and harmful *BEHAVIOR* by and/or based upon religion is indefensible.

For example, the "type one" expert might object to law enforcement raiding a church, claiming (far too often with no evidence and little or no thought) the raid was an act of "religious persecution," regardless of the evidence which showed the raid justified and necessary. This occured recently in Japan where law enforcement worked to prosecute the perpetrators of the murderous subway poisonous gas attack. The cult apologist Dr. J. Gordon Melton rushed to Japan to object to this "religious persecution," even though Japanese law enforcement was merely working hard to prevent more homicides by the same cult. Dr. Melton has also often defended the international crime syndicate called "Scientology," ignoring the highly well-documented and horrifying testimonies of Scientology Inc.'s many, many victims. In my opinion, Dr. Melton does this defense out of wilfull ignorance: he chooses to believe that Scientology Inc. is a benign "religion" and not the secular organized crime business that it is: he has certainly been provided with the massive data that proves this fact.

Many countries have law enforcement agencies that keep criminal and abusive cults and pseudo-churches under observation. For example, Germany, Norway, Spain, France, and other countries all consider Scientology to be the criminal business it is, and thus keep the Scientology crime syndicate under close watch. This has angered the cult apologist "experts," even though such law enforcement activity is not only justifiable, but necessary to protect the citizenry's civil and human rights. The people who benefit most from law enforcement's interest in criminal and abusive cults and pseudo-religions are thus members of the very cult being investigated.

In the name of "protecting human and civil rights," these cult apologists aid and abet destructive cults' civil and human right abuses. Thus these "experts" protect and defend the very behavior they believe they are fighting. For an excellent look at this problem, see Dr. Steven Kent's paper When Scholars Know Sin.