Rape/Sexual Assault Culture - Part 2

Paywall

 

No, I know nothing about that, sorry

 

So, I can’t remember exactly where we were putting all the “church leader is a sexual abuser” posts, but here we go again..,

A “Youth Pastor”, male age 56, in a town a bit South of Provo, UT is accused of sexually abusing a 14yr-old boy. He paid the kid for his silence, and then felt that he could continue abusing the kid as he was paying him anyway…..

My “favorite” part of this story, if you click on the link, is that it does not reference which church this “youth pastor” belongs to. The article linked goes to KSL.com, which has a “special relationship” with the LDS church. Of course the guy is LDS and this happened in one of its congregations. It is completely disingenuous to refer to the man as a “youth pastor,” as the LDS church has a lay clergy, and so he was just a rando in the congregation who got the “call” to be a youth leader for a few years. There’s no training and no professionalism involved to confer the title of “pastor” on this man. He’s just a dude who is essentially babysitting your kids unpaid a few hours a week.

The news org knows this, the LDS church knows this, its congregants know this, and it is an intentional obfuscation to avoid bad PR. Decades ago, this abuse wouldn’t have even been brought to law enforcement, and would have just been shushed. So I guess that’s some progress? However, this kind of reporting by the media branch of the LDS church doesn’t make me feel like they are doing all they can to protect kids and tackle the issue of child abuse within their ranks and institutions.

 

Great idea! That worked so well for Catholics.

And regarding the rest of your post: it looks like the LDS Church is forgetting thst the abused kids and their families ARE the church. Inother words, in spite of what they say, they're not trying to protect the church. They're trying to protect the heirarchy.

 

When you go around telling everyone yours is the only “TRUE” church and that the Priesthood authority was divinely restored to the earth through Joseph Smith,
- which means that the “youth pastor” was somehow divinely inspired to be called to that position,
- then it kinda throws the whole “TRUE”thfullness and trust in “the Church” into crisis.

 

It is still not over.

You can see how this cult stuff develops when you keep pushing the TRUTH. Gets people to push aside a bunch of evidence contrary to the belief, until brushing off contraindicators is a badge of faith and status.

 

This isn't the clever post you probably think it is. That church and many others put pedos in positions of authority and then try to protect the leadership and/or defend the structure that creates the issue.

 

We just had a multi-episode series on historical child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in Flanders and Belgium.

The interesting thing was the media appearances by our Cardinal.

After the first episode, he complained about going over "old" stories that the Church had moved on from ages ago and not understand the need to dredge this up again.

By the time the last one had aired, he was aware of the anger bordering on rage in the public opinion and his tone was far more humble and conciliatory.

One of the major problems is that even within those institutions these problems are not taken seriously (or seriously enough).

e.g. the Priest who helped make the documentary series had collected testimonies from victims for decades but each time he had tried to broach the subject at the archdiocese, he had been met with a brick wall.

 

I think I saw a "Pray for our Lay Clergy" bumpersticker.

 

Said he was laaaaaaaay clergy
Sunday driver, yeh
It took 'em soooooooo long
To find out
But they found out

 

you have a rich fantasy life

 

This is textbook abuser behavior and I wish people would have enough knowledge of it by know to recognize it as such and not as an expression of real remorse.

https://www.thecut.com/2023/12/nobody-won-the-jonathan-majors-trial.html

The framing of this entire article is incredibly harmful.

 

Huh. I actually think the author was pointing out that the victim blaming themselves is classic abuser manipulation. Maybe she wasn't explicit enough?

 

Epstein files dropped last nite. Dershowitz & so many other perverts in there. This is surprising

🚨Just in: Steven Hawking was mentioned in the Jeffery Epstein documents. It’s alleged that Hawking participated in an underage orgy. pic.twitter.com/BY5JzePhhn

— The Calvin Coolidge Project (@TheCalvinCooli1) January 4, 2024

 

yes, Dershowitz is the one we should be focusing on

meanwhile….


Q. Let me back up. Do you know if Bill Clinton was a friend of Jeffrey Epstein?
A. I knew he had dealings with Bill Clinton. I did not know they were friends until I read the Vanity Fair article about them going to Africa
together.
Q.Did Jeffrey ever talk to you about Bill
Clinton?
A. He said one time that Clinton likes them
young, referring to girls.

 

Well Dersh was perhaps the loudest to pre-emptively protest the mere suggestion he would be on the list. So much of the attention is of his own making.

 

Also writing "pedophile shouldn't be criminal, right" op-eds