Southern Baptist sexual predators (and other religious links)

Last week I sat down and read the Guidepost Solutions’ report on sexual abuse in the Southern Baptist Convention and how the SBC handled it. It’s quite damning, though as abuse survivor Rachel Denhollander says, getting a third-party independent body to investigate is more than the Catholic Church ever did.

To give the SBC credit, there were individuals who pushed to change the status quo. Although the SBC doesn’t control hiring in member churches it could have, for example, set up a database of credibly accused sexual assailants and child molesters so churches could find out if a pastor had a track record. Instead, the SBC’s executive committee squelched such attempts. Augie Boto, staff counsel and EC member, was one of the loudest opponents, insisting that pointing fingers could make them liable if things went to court. Better to do nothing and ignore abuse. Besides, what if churches dropped out of the SBC and stopped contributing funds (Boto was not the only one worried about this)?

Of course, the SBC has no problem cutting ties with churches that are too pro-gay but if it’s just a matter of a pastor who rapes kids? No big, apparently. Boto sneered that Denhollander and other abuse critics saw abuse everywhere not because it was everywhere (spoiler: it was everywhere) but because they were primed to imagine it. Dealing with abuse accusations would just distract from the church’s mission. Sounds like a prince of a guy, who was caught up in other scandals later.

Some of the problems were common to any large organization. Reluctance to change. A badly designed web page for Southern Baptists who wanted to report abusers. Others were more shocking. The Baptist Press, for example, bore false witness against one victim of sexual abuse: it quoted her as saying she’d been in, not an abusive relationship but a “morally inappropriate” one, which most people reading took as consensual. Shit rained down on her as a result. Other stories distorted other victims’ statements.

We might also mention Johnny Hunt, former president of the SBC, suing the conference and Guidepost Solutions for listing him as  a sexual assailant: all he did was “kissing and some awkward fondling.” That sounds like a description of innocent activity … not.

All of which makes it almost funny that hack historian and theocratic advocate David Barton claims that as Democrats aren’t “god-fearing” we have no moral resistance to cheating in elections. “Liberals/atheists have no morals” is an old argument from the holier-than-thou wing of the right; actor and conservative Jon Voight blames America’s problems on the spread of atheism for similar reasons. Somehow the cesspool of immorality that ignored multiple cases of sexual assault and child molestation doesn’t change that convenient fantasy.

Nor do cases like a church pastor allegedly stealing millions in supplies and equipment from Home Depot to sell on eBay alter that narrative. Nor does a creepy youth pastor who tried selling a virgin teenager online. Nor any of these creepy groomers.

(Side note: neo-Nazis are caught with a lot of child porn but not because they’re unusual in their er, tastes — they may simply have their phones and computer searched more often).

Joe Kennedy, the coach who took his suit over praying on the football field to the Supreme Court got his job back, then quit. Now he’s happy milking his new right-wing celebrity and still claiming he’s being persecuted. As Slate notes, it’s typical for his attorneys, the Alliance Defending Freedom, who have a history of fighting for clients with made-up cases. It’s a profitable line of work as they pocketed $1.7 million in fees from the coach’s school district.

Denver’s Catholic diocese wants to participate in the state’s universal pre-K program while discriminating against gays and children of gays.