Invisible Children Co-Founder Detained, Time and Culture to Tell the Future of Kony2012's Reputation

photo credit: Brendan McDermid - Reuters

          I know that I usually reserve Fridays on my blog for light-hearted fun and chuckles, but I feel this update to an issue about which I've previously blogged takes priority.
          Apparently, the co-founder of Invisible Children (IC), Jason Russell, was detained yesterday by San Diego police for being drunk in public. I won't go further into the police report from there as it gets a little graphic. Nonetheless, it's a bit of a blemish on his personal integrity and IC's already-questionable reputation, seemingly the loudest voice against Joseph Kony and his forced child-soldier training overseas.
          Myself, I've never gotten to know IC, but I've had a few friends in ministry who have voiced their causes. IC isn't a nominally Christian organization, but Russell is a self-dubbed Christian who has publicly spoken at places like Liberty University, connecting his faith to his work. Now, he's a laughing stock of cynical online-forum posters.
          No organization that avows a seemingly righteous venture should sweep hypocritical scandal under the rug, but does even the smallest scandal bring the entire cause into question? Aren't the heinous crimes of Joseph Kony still an issue, deserving attention from those who could help? I don't think we should let a scandal of one of the people who made us aware of an issue (true on its own merits) distract us from an opportunity to combat injustice. Otherwise, it'd be like explaining to the recipients of Bono's DATA program of the early 2000's (helping the AIDS crisis in Africa) that funding and support is short because Bono sometimes got drunk on his earlier tours, and some people prefer the music of other groups. Similarly, right now I imagine Joseph Kony's LRA is still going full speed ahead while some Americans just make crude jokes about Russell on their smartphones.
          Simply put, as Christians, for example, no matter what happens, we have a call to be the voice of the voiceless and to take care of the widow and the orphan. But maybe not through IC. I'll leave that to individual discussion.