Being a Ba'al/as Teshuva in the Chareidi World

I just read this very interesting and disturbing post over at Emes Ve'Emuna, Rabbi Harry Maryles' blog. He discusses Ba'alei Teshuva being treated as second class citizens in the Chareidi world. They are shunned, he says, especially when it comes to making shidduchim, rather than being seen as people who are on a much higher level than anyone FFB.

In fact, Chazal said that Ba'alei Teshuva stand in a place not even a complete tzadik can reach. Chazal put in safeguards against treating Ba'alei Teshuva like trash, and once again, because it's inconvenient, the Chareidi world ignores Chazal's wisdom. Instead, they prefer to depend upon an obscure halacha that states that all Ba'alei Teshuva have in them a permanent "Pegima" - a blemish which can never be cleansed.

This is a sick attitude. One person even had the gall to comment that since Ba'alei Teshuva are Bnei/Bnos Niddah (children born without their mothers going to the mikvah after their period and whose mothers therefore became pregnant in a state of still being a nidda), they are, OF COURSE, second hand citizens. This same person believes that there is no such thing as spouses cheating on each other on the Chareidi world. My first reaction was to laugh hysterically at this last because I KNOW people who cheated. There were two women in my Chareidi town on Israel who "opened" their doors (and other things) the male public after the husbands went to work.

This is just another piece of evidence, more indication, that the Chareidi world is no frummer than the Reform one, and perhaps even less so.