Not so proud to be an American

My first read of the day. My reaction was, “Are you kidding me?”

A pair of Native American brothers who had traveled seven hours to tour Colorado State University this week had their visit cut short after a parent on their tour reported them to the campus police.
- via www.nytimes.com

Revisiting hypocrisy

It’s hard to completely disconnect from blogging. It was such an important part of my life for over a decade. As I read the news, I feel compelled to comment on the issues the piss me off. My interests have not changed. I loath hypocrisy, but I’ve noticed that politics is starting to become rival religion. A lot of this has to do with President Trump, but also think that the hypocrisy of our political reality is in the front of my mind as well. 

I’ve noticed a lot of pastors making the news. I see that the clergy sexual abuse continues unabated. I used to think that perhaps I was making some small difference, but I see now that this was not case. The cases keep hitting the news. 

Baptist pastor and high school teacher Joseph “Joey” Smith was arrested for statutory rape. The orginal newspaper article listed Smith as a pastor, a subsequent edit removed that from the article. I’m guessing that Valley View Baptist Church in Whitwell, TN might have concerns about tainting it’s reputation? 

Pastor Gerardo “Jerry” Martinez of Miricle Christian Church in New Port Richey was arrested for sexual battery against a 17-year-old parishioner. He convinced her parents to let her stay after a servcie so he could pray over her. The parent heard “pray over her.” I’m thinking the pastor said “prey on her.” Why else would parents turn their daughter over to a pastor without supervision and why would they allow it continue over several months? The parents were not arrested for neglect, but they get to deal with knowledge that they failed as parents. 

Martinez is an excon truned pastor who teaches spiritual healing. He was trying to cure the victim of demon possession. Becuase, that’s a thing. 

The Church of England has another scandal with the Rev Stennett Kirby, who was caught on video using cocaine and watching porn. Oops. Rev. Stennett is on sick leave while the church investigates. Nobody was hurt, let the dumb bastard watch porn in peace. 

Rev. Brian Sean Dicken was arrested for taking indecent liberties with an underage girl. Dicken was the pastor at Church of Christ at Mountain View, where the alleged abuse took place. Any mention of Dicken or his arrest was removed from the church website (I looked). They don’t even list anyone working at the church, just this message, “Our team consists of Elders and Ministers as well as other select members who work in harmony with each other to lead the ministries of CCMV.”

The article about the arrest is behind a paywall, so I don’t have much more. I’m not going to subscribe to Winchester Star for one damn article. 

These four were just a few of the pastors clogging my feed. If you want an eye-opening experience, read the Pastor Arrested subreddit on Reddit. Check this out…

• Priest accused of sexually abusing a 12-year-old
• Pastor arrested, accused of raping teenage boy, breaks silence
• Arrested pastor please guilty to sexually assaulting 5 juveniles
• Ex-pastor pleads guilty to hidden juvenile bathroom camera case
• Ex-priest who fled to Philippines pleads not guilty to sexually abusing kids
• Former youth pastor charged with Child exploitation, possessing child porn

The arrests just keep coming. This will never end. 

And so passes a demon

I am happy to hear this news. Every day he lived was a slap in the face of the victims of clergy sexual abuse.

Cardinal Bernard F. Law, whose stature as archbishop of Boston and America’s senior Roman Catholic prelate was shattered in a maelstrom of scandal, acrimony and resignation in 2002 after revelations that he had protected abusive priests for years, died Wednesday. He was 86 and lived in Rome.
- via www.nytimes.com

File this under wtf

Newspaper headlines… sometime they make me say wft.

In Michigan's Wayne County, Prosecutor Kym Worthy has spent years processing 11,341 rape kits. The kits, found in 2009, were forgotten in a police storage warehouse, where they were routinely dumped without investigation.
- via Boing Boing

Are they going after the officials that did not do their jobs?

Wait… 86% people of color. Oh geez what asshats.

Resist!

Mood.

A post shared by Jen Hatmaker (@jenhatmaker) on May 6, 2017 at 10:28am PDT

The Christian Machine

This is a fascinating article about evangelical author and speaker Jen Hatmaker’s fall from favor. Her sin… she did not support Trump. It’s worth a few minutes just to see how the Christian Machine works.

“This year I became painfully aware of the machine, the Christian Machine,” she wrote in April on her blog. It was Good Friday, a somber day for Christians to observe the crucifixion of Jesus. Hatmaker wrote that she understood now the machine’s “systems and alliances and coded language and brand protection,” not as the insider she had long been, but “from the outside where I was no longer welcome.” During the election season, she added, the “Christian Machine malfunctioned.” It laid bare the civil war within her Christian community.
- via POLITICO Magazine

Horrifying.

A church cover-up of sexual assault

The pastor of a church in Hamilton Montana allegedly urged the victim to not report sexual assaults to the police as the pastor was more interested in protecting the rapists because he was a sex addict.

“The pastor then asked for all the details of their sex life and specific instances where defendant forced himself on her. Female 1 reported that the pastor urged her not to make any reports to law enforcement, tell other members of the church, or defendant’s place of employment,” the affidavit continued.
- via www.rawstory.com

The pastor’s name and the church’s name are protected in the reports I’ve seen. Hamilton is a small city with a lot of churches, but I’m willing to bet it’s a baptist church. The alleged rapist is Seth Wirick, 30 of Hamilton Montana. 

if Jesus had a gun

I don't know who shot this, but you are my hero.

Jake Tapper fact checks Roy Moore spokesman

That look... omg.

A list of convicted Republican Pedophiles

I found this horrifying list via Reddit while reading this morning. I spent a few minutes reading up on cases I did not know about. Again… horrifying

1. Republican anti-abortion activist Howard Scott Heldreth is a convicted child rapist in Florida.
2. Republican County Commissioner David Swartz pleaded guilty to molesting two girls under the age of 11 and was sentenced to 8 years in prison.
3. Republican judge Mark Pazuhanich pleaded no contest to fondling a 10-year old girl and was sentenced to 10 years probation.

See 42 more here or in the original post from the Constantine Report.

I’m looking for a corresponding list of Democratic offenders. I’ll post that when I find it.

Atheists in action

This is one of the first things I read this morning. It made me smile.

The Atheist Alliance in Spartanburg collects items for the homeless throughout the month. 

They meet on the third Saturday of every month and donate what they have collected to about 100 homeless people.
- via The Independent

They have an Amazon wish list. Please donate if you can. I did.

Is Joe Barton a Christian?

Joe Barton, a Republican congressman representing Texas’s 6th district, was recently caught out in a dick-pick scandal. He apologized and claimed the relationship was consensual. Whenever I hear the words Congressman and Republican tied to a sexual controversy, I ask, is he a Christian? In this case, the answer is yes. Joe Barton is a Methodist. My next question is always the same, were Joe Barton’s behaviors consistent with the baseline standard for a Christian? In this case, the answer is obviously no. I don’t think premarital sex and dick-picks meet the standard.

Famous quotes:

• “I want you soo bad. Right now. Deep and hard.”
• “Wind is a finite resource and harnessing it would slow the winds down, which would cause the temperature to go up."

Endure or forgive

A horrifying account of women abused by their pastor/priest husbands and the lengths organized religion will to ignore the problem.

…women in Christian communities were being told to endure or forgive domestic violence, and stay in abusive relationships, often due to misappropriation of Bible verses on submission.
- via ABC News

Leigh Corfman speaks on Roy Moore

I had a weird chat about Leigh Corfman with another guy. He commented, "I wonder if she was hot when she was 14?" I did a facepalm, called him a pervert and walked away.

A sign of the pending apocalypse

I look for signs that we are, as a people and a nation, getting better despite Trumpism and rampant Evangelical hypocrisy. I look, but I find the opposite. I find the we choose ugliness and hate, like in Atlanta where the city closed a homeless shelter and then started ticketing people for feeding the newly dispossessed homeless. Or in Denver, were the police take blankets and tents from homeless people. Or in San Diego where the homeless must move each Monday or face arrest.

Last week at a party, I listed to a married couple I’ve know for 20 years describe the horror of homeless people invading their community. They live in Newport Beach on the beach. A privilege known by few in my circle. I described being hassled by the police for feeding an old lady near where I work. A friend described feeding the homeless of Santa Anna. My privileged friends described working to push the homeless from their community. They chided me for feeding an old lady, saying, “It encourages homelessness.” It made me shiver. I took it as a sign of the pending apocalypse.