WP: Sex Abuse (by youths) Alleged at Va. (Baptist) Camp

[DeepModem Mom]

Sex Abuse Alleged at Va. Camp
Four Youths Charged In Prince William

By Ian Shapira
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 17, 2004; Page B01


Two counselors and two campers, ages 12 to 17, have been charged with sexually and physically abusing three boys at a Baptist overnight camp last month in Gainesville, Prince William County police said yesterday.

The accusers and suspects, all boys, were attending an overnight summer camp at the Northern Virginia Baptist Center, a 22-acre facility on Glenkirk Road, the week of July 18-23, police said.

The four suspects were charged with a total of 19 counts, including object sexual penetration, a felony. Three of the four suspects were charged with assault and battery, a misdemeanor. The accusers are 10, 11 and 12 years old.

"It's very unusual for a crime to be committed at a church camp, particularly crimes of this nature," said Commonwealth's Attorney Paul B. Ebert. "You'd think it would be a very safe environment and there would be more of a quality type of atmosphere."....

***

A man who identified himself over the telephone only as a minister "in charge" of the Northern Virginia Baptist Center declined to comment....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6472-2004Aug16.html

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Citizen Daryl]

2. Obviously they haven't been following the news in the past decade or so.

[lil-petunia]

3. if this wasn't such a pathtic story,

the irony would be marvy.

I have ALWAYS felt chills down my spine when i see a bus filled with kids heading to a baptist brain-washing camp.

don't know what it is, but it really bothers me to think that they are taught that evolution and independent thinking are bad.
"Be like sheep. Bleat and bend over."

damn.

[NashVegas]

4. I Wish I Could Say Something Snarky About This

But thinking about the victims is just too heartbreaking.

[Eloriel]

12. Bear in mind, please

that the "victims" in this situation include the perpetrators (or "alleged" perpetrators) -- Sexual Predators are made, not born. The perps themselves have been similarly victiminzed somewhere in their past. Doesn't give them any right to continue the cycle of sexual victimization, of course, but esp. for the perps who are still children themselves, this "acting out" is as much a cry for help as anything else.

My heart goes out to all of them.

[NashVegas]

19. I Do, I Do

Except for the eldest, who ought to know better. 17 & 15 have learned a lot more about power than 12. I feel little sympathy there.

[Nimrod]

5. My one true bigotry

I do think that Southern Baptists are pure evil.

True story: I'm in my kitchen fixing myself up some dinner, when my door is pounded on. Not knocked, pounded as in "BANG BANG BANG". My hands are messy, so I grab a towel to wipe them off and head for the front door. I'm about halfway there (total elapsed time from first "BANG" is about 4 seconds) when my door is pounded on even louder and longer. I'm wondering at this point if there's a fire next door or something.

I open the door to this fat POS in a suit and his teenage son (who incidentally looks like he's praying for a drive by shooting). They want me to come to their church.

I'm irritated by the pounding on the door, because frankly they scared the hell out of me. I seriously thought it was an emergency. Pulling in my temper, I say as nicely as possible "Sorry, wrong house. Have a good evening though."

The motherf^cker YELLS at me! Seriously. "What's the matter, are you afraid to talk to me?" Exact same tone of voice you would use on a small child you're tyring to bully and shame into behaving. At this point I shut the door in his face, and he throws his pamphlet through the crack in the door as it's closing. Then he bellows "God's going to have something to say to YOU!" So now not only is this asshole trying to bully me, he's graduated into threatening me, AND he's littering if you want to get technical about it.

I called the number on the pamphlet, which was the local Southern Baptist church. I was hot over this. I told the person who picked up (in a very polite tone) that whoever it was going door to door handing out pamphlets was rude and abus...

They hung up on me.

Boy, they convinced ME. I can't WAIT to go hang with all THOSE lovely people in the kingdom of heaven. That single encounter was all the proof I ever needed that their target audience is the weak-willed and easily intimidated.

Kids fill this niche nicely.

[Dhalgren]

6. I was raised in a "devout" SB home.

It is the most putrid of belief systems. There is no spirituallity about the cult, at all. They are ignorant, violent, anf lacking in any "Christian" virtues. I won't even talk to one if I can get any prior warning. I usually try to fuck with them if I get cornered. Your average SB preacher knows little about much of anything, but especially logic and comparative religion. I once said to a SB preacher, that once humans sacreficed meat and blood to the gods for the gods to eat, then Jesus came and sacreficed meat and blood for us to eat. What's that about? He just gave me a dirty look and walked away. (Granted, we had already had a neat little exchange).

[ilovenicepeople]

21. Does SB mean Satins Brainwashed?

IF they could only stop praying(judging)long enough to ask:Which God am I praying to? :headbang:

[smirkymonkey]

10. What pigs!

I hope they all burn in HELL!! Bwaahahahhahahhaha......:evilgrin:

[noonwitch]

18. Their hell will begin when they realize heaven isn't

quite what they thought it would be. There'll be people there they don't like! People they hoped would go to hell! Of course, we all are enlightened after we die, so it won't be bad for them after all.

[havocmom]

13. Many who were abused as kids probably grow up to be controlling

bullies like the ones who trained them, don't ya think? If that charming emissary from the church shows up at your door again, I wish you the presence of mind to ask him "So just how many times were you sexually attacked as a child?" My guess is you would never be troubled by their zealous evangelical visits again :evilgrin:

Being abused as kids would explain a lot about the anger/control/sexual obsessions of many people. Good mental health care would go a long way to make this a better nation. Too bad we just can't seem to recognize that as a culture.

[colonel odis]

7. not too surprising, from a denomination founded to justify slavery.

just $0.02 from another person raised southern baptist.

[markses]

8. Because organized religion and sexual abuse are so unconnected?

I mean, puuuhhhh-leeeez.

[patcox2]

9. Wow! Anecdotal evidence that confirms my opinions! This proves it!

Thats the scientific method, you take a single incident, you generalize from it without any real data, and you make broad statements attacking large and diverse groups of people, tarring them all with the same brush based on the acts of a few. Thats what the enlightenment was all about, thats what the scientific method was all about, thats what progressivism is all about. Yeehaw, this thread so far is just so everything that is great about DU.

You know, I read the article, and I got a little schadenfruede from it, because I like to see the "holier than thou" taken down a peg. I like to see evidence that smug christian fundamentalists are no better than anyone else.

But where you people run off the rails is taking this as evidence that they are worse than everyone else. You are committing the same "sin" you despise them for, their obnoxious, smug superiority. And when you say "but its justified for me to be superior, because I am right and they are wrong," you confirm it again. You're as "holier than thou" as them. And your science is about on the same level.

Adolescents are cruel and they are interested in sex, all kinds of sex, and they do these kinds of things, it happens everywhere among every kind of people, without regard to religion.

[Ripley]

14. Rape happens everywhere amongst adolescents?

If that is true, this country is severely whacked.

I get your point that people should not generalize about a large group of people based on one example. However, I'm tired of hearing how "good, wholesome and safe" it is for children to be in church groups and hang out with religious men whether it be Catholic Priests, or Protestant camps. Clearly there is a large body of evidence that thousands of children have been sexually abused in church settings or by church people. Of course that is still a small percentage of all relgious people, but it knocks down the notion that it is always safe for children to be with these Godly men, because they are much safer than any other group of men.

And my experience is that all kinds of religious people can be in your face, but the SB do tend to be highly aggressive from my experience.

[patcox2]

16. I can't stand fundamentalists.

And for purposes of my rant against the overboard comments here, I didn't bother to mention that there is real evidence that fundamentalist families do tend to have some repression-related dysfunctions that occur at higher rates, so there actually is some possibility of a connection here.

But as to adolescents doing this sort of thing, it doesn't happen all the time, they don't all do it, but it does happen, and its not confined to any one race religion or other group.

[Zero Gravitas]

11. It really pisses me off

when it assumed that people involved in organized religion are somehow better people than who do not. For instance a few years back there was an awful tragedy where a van load of teens were in accident and some were killed. The fact that they were going on some church outing somehow made it more tragic. Why? Are the lives of Church members somehow more valuable than if these kids were involved in some secular group? What a disgusting notion.

The same applies here, this incident is supposedly more shocking because it was a church camp. Sorry to break it Mr. Ebert, but just because these kids parents are involved in a church doesn't make them or their kids better people than the rest of us.

[GregW]

15. Now I'm all confused ...

I thought only the Catholics and Muslims were into boy-buggering ... at least that's what Swift Boat Liar Jerome Corsi said. Now I find out that the Baptists are in on it too? What's next, the Branch Dividians?

[KurtNYC]

17. Shades of Abu Gharib

Sexual abuse used as "punishment." Totally disgusting.

[yellowcanine]

20. To be fair - do we know that this is a Southern Baptist camp? Also this

kind of crap happens anywhere kids and adults happen to be - including public schools, 4-H camps, YMCAs, boys and girls'club sports. I am not sure it is really fair to paint with such a broad brush. No I am not Southern Baptist nor other kind of Baptist. The point is that if one is in charge of a program where youth and adults are together, you better make damn sure the rules are followed as to background checks, training, etc. American Camping Association certification is a good place to start.

[bobbieinok]

22. I'm not sure church camps try to get Am Camping Assn certification

The fact that it's a 'church camp' is supposed to 'prove' it's safe for kids.