Science is Bad!

[Daveparts still]

Science is Bad!
By David Glenn Cox

I am involved in a controversy and I find it most frustrating. I am for the most part responsible for the controversy and yet I have no regrets. There is web site where I will no longer post that is a left-leaning, liberally minded site where editors make picks for which posts are to appear on the cover for the day. I say that I find it frustrating because no matter how much I try to explain my point there it becomes sidetracked in news hype and propaganda.

An author placed an original post that was a satire published on the Thursday before Good Friday. The post satirized the Pope as using the Final Four Basketball Tournament to distract Catholics from the sex abuse scandal. The editors thought it was so funny that they placed it on the front page as editors' pick. Now take your contemporary blinders off. Would it be acceptable to satirize a gay church? Would it be acceptable to satirize Jews on the eve of Passover?

It doesn’t matter that it is the Catholic Church; it is humor based on bigotry and stereotype. I was born on December 16 and on the 21st I was baptized into the Catholic Church. I can’t help it, I was born into the church. My grandfather once punched a Ku Klux Klansman in the nose, not because he said something about blacks or Jews but because he said something about Catholics. My grandfather wasn’t a Catholic, but his mother was.

My ex-wife was a Baptist and I once sat through an Easter sermon about how lucky I was to be an American. That God sure has been good to us and thank God we have all those soldiers protecting our freedom in Iraq. He gave that sermon from a pulpit with an American flag behind him. I thought that was reprehensible. In my belief God doesn’t care what country you’re from and he certainly doesn’t send out soldiers to protect me by killing others.

When the sermon was over they had the Eucharist served in medicine cups like at the doctor’s office with unleavened wafers. The crowd stormed to the front self-serve style to get their blood and body of Christ. It was done with such irreverence that it might as well have been Snickers bars and Diet Cokes. You know what I had to say about it? Nothing! I don’t have to like your religious beliefs but I respect them because I want mine respected.

I once had a neighbor that lived behind me who was a Nazi. A red flag on the wall, Hitler-saluting Nazi. You know what I did about it? Nothing! You know what I said about it? Nothing! This is America and you can be a Nazi if you want to. I don’t have to like it but I do need to tolerate it. I lived in Alabama as a far left-wing liberal and there were more than a few times when I was treated like a Nazi. It’s easy to defend the popular opinions but maybe someday your opinions won’t be so popular.

This website I mentioned had, during the week, put seven stories about Passover on the cover, and I wouldn’t mention that fact except the one story about my religious beliefs was a satire. I take offense at that! I take offense not just because it was my belief but because religious humor is a first cousin to racial humor. I would take offense no matter whose beliefs were being lampooned. There is not one organized religion, faith or deity worship that doesn’t have some weird, goofy aspect to it. We have religious tolerance in America and that’s why we’ve only had one civil war.

The answers to the post I wrote were hyperbolic about pedophile priests and the church covering the scandal up. There was also mention of how the church has a long history of being anti-Semitic and didn’t do enough to prevent the holocaust during WW II.

Type into your Google browser just two words, “Minister Arrested,” and then type in “Rabbi Arrested.” In one hour I found fifty cases of sexual abuse by ministers and rabbis of every faith and denomination across the religious spectrum in just the last three years. In many cases the churches and synagogues tried to cover it up. Does that mean the Catholics have clean hands? No, it means they have the worst excuse in the world, that they’re no worse than anyone else.

Throughout the nineteenth century anti-Catholic feelings ran high as illustrated in the film “Gangs of New York.” The Nativist Protestants didn’t want the Catholics to vote out of a fear that they would destroy democracy and give the country over to the Pope. At the time the state of New York gave public money to church schools to educate the public. The so-called Natives passed an amendment to block state money from going to Catholic schools and riots ensued. The Catholics countered offering an amendment that money be blocked from all secular schools and that a system of non-secular public schools be established. The Natives said it proved beyond all doubt that Catholics hated religion.

There is a theory that the Aids virus first jumped the barrier to humans through a clinic that belonged to a Belgian company. The company made polio vaccines in the cells of chimpanzee kidneys. It was a very important step in the process to make sure that the chimps were healthy and didn’t carry the Aids virus.

“It proposes that an experimental polio vaccine called CHAT, developed at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia, initiated the Aids pandemic by introducing simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) from the common chimpanzee into some of the million Africans who were given the vaccine between 1957 and 1960.

"Chimpanzee SIV is now widely recognized as the direct ancestor of the strain of HIV (HIV-1 Group M) that has caused approximately 99 per cent of infections to date. In Africa, CHAT vaccine was administered only in Belgian-ruled territories: the Belgian Congo (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) and the former UN trusteeship of Ruanda-Urundi (now Rwanda and Burundi). These are also the countries that represent the epicentre of Group M-related Aids. The Laboratoire Médical de Stanleyville (LMS), which tested CHAT vaccine for safety and co-ordinated the early African vaccinations, was situated just a few miles from a chimpanzee colony, Lindi camp, which operated between 1956 and 1960. During those years, more than five hundred chimps and pygmy chimps (bonobos) were sacrificed there, mostly in the course of the polio research.”
From: Aids and the Polio Vaccine by Edward Hooper

Churches are made up of people, some good, some not so good and some downright bad. A neighbor kid told me once that if you prayed to Jesus and asked for a ten-speed bike he’d get it for you! His parents didn’t let him or his brothers and sisters go trick or treating on Halloween because they thought it was sacrilegious. Personally, I love Halloween, neighbors giving away candy to little children that dress up in costumes. I think it’s a pretty neat social event, but if you think it’s all about promoting Satan, well then, I won’t argue with you. I don’t have to like your religious beliefs, but I respect them because I want mine respected.

Churches and religions have done good things and bad things and so has science. Scientists are just people, some good, some not so good and some downright bad. We have global warming, chemical weapons, hydrogen bombs, nuclear fallout, chemical spills, toxic waste sites, birth defects, disease and environmental degradation, all because of the work of scientists. Where are the crowds condemning science, or is it maybe that science does both good and bad?

Maybe religion does both good and bad as well. So then, is one belief superior to another? That depends on whose pulpit is being toppled and whether the crowd cheers or jeers. If you go to the Stormfront white power website they’ll make it pretty clear to you that all the problems in the world are the fault of immigrants, people of color, Jews, and Catholics. That is where this road inevitably leads, to a place where you either have tolerance or you have intolerance.

Religious wars are never won or lost, they are just passed on to the next generation. So if it is funny to satirize your religion before its highest holiday, why isn’t it funny to satirize your race or your culture? Why can’t I make fun of your sexual orientation or your disability?

If you do it at work you can be fired. If you do it at Stormfront you’ll get a big laugh and maybe even a personal note from David Duke! That’s why I find this so frustrating, that so many enlightened, so-called liberal people tolerate religious bigotry, and editors at a liberal website give it their seal of approval.

[Ozymanithrax]

1. There should be two basic rules in choosing people who speak for god...

(1) Don't have sex with children...
(2) Don't hide it when someone speaking for god has sex with children.

This is a problem that the church was made aware of as early as the 80's here in the U.S., over two decades ago. They have continued to hide the problem and protect the people that did it.

Now, the problem has been exposed in Europe, and Pope himself was involved in rule number 2.

Don't want people to satirize the Catholic church? Then encourage your hierarchy to to send the child rapists to jail and to remove any priest, yes even the Pope, who protected child rapists and send them to jail for accessory to a crime.

[Daveparts still]

6. Which one would you pick? They're all Just as guilty

January 10, 2007 Colorado - A youth minister who had worked at First Christian Church since 2000 and was arrested on allegations he sexually assaulted two girls, was found dead in his home Tuesday, authorities said.

John Graler, 53, was arrested Monday for investigation of felony charges of sexual assault, sexual assault on a child and sexual assault on a child by a person in a position of trust, Moffat County sheriff's investigator Sgt. K.C. Hume said.

May 22, 2007 New York- Rabbi Alan Horowitz was caught. He was in violation of his parole since June, 2006. He was captured in India and will be extradited back to the US. Rabbi Horowitz is a level three sex offender.

Rabbi Alan J. Horowitz, is a convicted sex offender, an ordained Orthodox rabbi and an adolescent psychiatrist. He is married with one child and seven step-children.

Allegations of child abuse have followed Horowitz for decades. In Maryland, he was convicted in 1983 of performing an unnatural sexual act on the 12-year-old boy who was his patient. Allegedly, Horwitz has assaulted a string of children from California to Israel to New York in the past twenty years. Alan J. Horowitz is a rabbi, magna cum laude, M.D., Ph.D., a graduate of Duke University, and a writer for NAMBLA (North American Man/Boy Love Association) publications.

In 1990 and 1991, Horowitz was charged with sexually abusing two boys under the age of 11, a boy less than 14 years old and a girl under the age of 17. On July 27, 1992, Horowitz pled guilty to sodomizing a nine-year-old psychiatric patient as part of a plea agreement. The charge was but one of the 41 pending sex-related charges involving multiple children that had been pending against him. Horowitz was sentenced to ten to twenty years in prison.

Rabbi Horowitz was released on conditional parole November 1, 2004 from Oneida Prison, NY.

June 7, 2007 Lynn Haven Florida - A 25-year-old middle school coach and youth minister has been arrested by Lynn Haven Police on sexual battery charges involving a 14-year-old girl. James Simmons of 408 East 5th Street in Lynn Haven was jailed on a charge of sexual battery on a person over the age of 12.

Police Chief David Messer says the incident occurred four days ago at Simmons’ home. He's employed at Merritt Brown Middle School as a softball and wrestling coach. He is also a youth minister at North Bay Baptist Church on Virginia Ave. in Lynn Haven.

June 7, 2007 Pompano Beach, Florida, Broward deputies say Thiago Fernandes, 24, confessed to sexually assaulting three young boys after an 11-year-old boy informed his parents that Fernandes grabbed his buttocks and threatened to rape him Sunday during evening worship services at the First Christian Church.

June 30, 2007 California - A former Camarillo church youth minister has been arrested on suspicion of child molestation and sexual assault of three teenage girls and possession of child pornography on his home computer, authorities said Friday.

Mark Holland McDowell, 46, was arrested at his Camarillo home Thursday in connection with the molestation and sexual assault of the girls when they were 13 and 14 between 1991 and 1999, authorities said.

October 7, 2007 North Carolina — The American Hebrew Academy's former director of campus life is facing charges that he had sex with a student, police said. Rabbi David Alan Stein, 35, is expected to turn himself in today, Greensboro police Sgt. A.T. McHenry said. Stein left the school in the spring, shortly after police began their investigation, police Capt. Gary Hastings said.

Since then, Stein has been in San Clemente, Calif., living with his parents and working at an insurance company, McHenry said. Stein is charged with eight counts of having sex with a student, McHenry said.

September 27, 2007 Florida- A youth minister at a Christian church in Largo has been arrested on charges that she performed sex acts on a 16-year-old boy in her youth group, authorities said Wednesday. Noel Marie Wood, 28, who also served as a missions director at the Real Life Christian Church of Pinellas, faces two counts of unlawful sexual activity with a minor.

November 5, 2007 - Marshal Seymour, a 40-year-old, married volunteer youth minister at the First Baptist Church at the Mall, turned himself in at the Polk County Jail late Friday night after a warrant was issued for his arrest on charges of sexually abusing several teenage boys he met through the church.

April 3, 2008 Arkansas- Jonathan Giles, 24, has been arrested on charges of statutory rape, solicitation of a minor and sexual battery by an authority figure.

He resigned from Spring Creek Baptist Church, where he was one of three pastors, the day the investigation began. His primary role at the church was interacting with more than 70 teens and preteens.

Apr 12, 2008 – A deaf youth minister in Louisiana has been arrested and taken into custody for indecent behavior with a student.

April 16, 2008 Illinois - Youth minister arrested on sex charges After investigation, Batavia church leaders asked for man's resignation

May 12, 2008 Delaware -- Newark Police arrested 53-year-old, Rabbi Jack Sparks at his home in Newark this morning on one charge of child endangerment.

Rabbi Sparks is the head of the Albert Einstein Academy, a private school located north of Wilmington at 101 Garden of Eden Road, in Talleyville. According to police, the charge stems from Sparks befriending a 15-year-old male and ultimately taking the teen to a store where he encouraged him to pick out a pornographic magazine. Police say Sparks told the teen he would buy the magazine for him so he could "have a good time."

May 21,2008 Florida - Detectives of the Sarasota Police Department have arrested a youth minister of a local church for Lewd and Lascivious act on a teen boy. 24-year-old Jesse Knowlin is the youth minister at Bethlehem Baptist Church on 18th Street in Sarasota.

July 19, 2008 Georgia - A youth minister and magician who claims he has performed at a long list of metro Atlanta schools was arrested Thursday and charged with child molestation. Jeffrey Alan Wasley, 37, is accused of molesting a 7-year-old boy Monday in the men’s restroom of the Target store at 740 Ernest Barrett Parkway in Kennesaw.

August 18, 2008 California- 25 year old Andrew Belant, a teacher’s aide at Jacoby Creek Elementary School as well as a Youth Minister at Eureka First Presbyterian Church in Humboldt County, California is facing 20 counts of child molestation, alleging he molested 4 boys, ranging in age between 9 and 13 years old. Belant has plead not guilty to the 20 charges. It is alleged that Belant molested the boys mostly at his home.

August 19, 2008 - First Baptist Church of Mabank youth minister Joshua Neal Ponder, 32, was arrested Aug. 13, for sexual assault of a teenager. Mabank Police Chief Kyle McAfee said Ponder confessed to charges related to a 16-year-old male victim.

October 2, 2008 New York - An upstate rabbi barricaded himself inside his home early yesterday after FBI agents came to arrest him for allegedly sexually abusing his daughter. The feds had to break down two doors to collar Israel Weingarten, 58, who was hiding in his bedroom. Weingarten molested his daughter in 1990 when she was 9 years old, and continued until she was 18.

October 9, 2008 Florida – Rabbi Baruch Lanner was released from prison back in January of this year. He is currently residing in Boca Raton, FL. Please warn your children to stay away from this man. Allegations surrounded Rabbi Baruch Lanner for years. The allegations include kissing and fondling scores of teenage girls in the 1970s and '80s, repeatedly kicking boys in the groin, and reports of taking a knife to a young man in 1987, and propositioning girls in 1997 at the yeshiva high school where he was principal for 15 years. He was convicted back in 2002.

Rabbi Raphael Butler, who was the executive vice president of the Orthodox Union who supervised Baruch Lanner for 19 years, was accused by many of covering up for Lanner. When questioned about the allegations Butler responded to the New York Jewish Week as saying: "he has never heard any specific allegations against Rabbi Lanner, though he has heard the rumors for many years. "It's like chasing shadows," he said with frustration.". . . "our method of dealing with the rumors has been to have a bet din, as an independent entity, evaluate the charges, and we abide by all its decisions."

Rabbi Pinchas Stolper, founding director of NCSY, was also aware of the allegations and did nothing. Rabbi Stolper acknowledges there were several complaints from young women many years ago about improper behavior by Rabbi Lanner. Rabbi Stolper says he sought to deal with the allegations but found no real substance to the charges. Stopler also said he heard reports of Rabbi Lanner's improper behavior with girls or, in at least one case, kicking a boy in the groin, Rabbi Lanner has remained in a leadership role and in regular contact with young people through NCSY. "He has had such a magnificent impact" on so many young people, Rabbi Stolper says in defense of Rabbi Lanner, "despite some obvious sickness that is not sexual but has to do with needing to be in control."



November 2008 -NEW YORK (AP) - It started as a radio program discussion about a taboo subject: child molestation among members of the insular world of
Orthodox Jews.

Since he broached the subject on his radio show this summer, says a
state assemblyman, dozens of people have come forward with stories
about children being molested in the Orthodox community, which
strictly follows Jewish law.

Dov Hikind says as many as four people a day have come to him over the
past three months with painful accounts of secrets often kept for
decades, accusing more than 60 individuals.

Hikind says he would eventually consider unmasking accused sexual
predators but wants to focus now on setting up a broader framework for
addressing the issue.

His campaign has set off a firestorm in the Orthodox community, where
people are reluctant to involve secular authorities. One rabbi said he
got death threats for speaking out.

"In our community, people don't talk about the things that they've
come to my office" and revealed, said Hikind, himself an Orthodox Jew.

Among other faiths, the subject has meant turmoil in recent years for
the Roman Catholic church. For decades, church leaders often
transferred predatory clergy among parishes without telling parents or
police. Victims have won millions in settlements from dioceses.

Hikind said he won't breach victims' trust by disclosing his private exchanges to prosecutors - or to a lawyer who subpoenaed him in a civil case against a school accused of concealing abuse.

However, he has been working on devising mechanisms within the Orthodox world for reporting sex abuse and sharing information on school staffers' previous positions. He aims to present a plan to rabbis this winter.

Studies have found Orthodox Jews account for as much as 10 percent of Jews nationwide, and a far greater share in parts of the New York metro area.Some 37 percent of the more than 516,000 Jews in Brooklyn are Orthodox, according to the UJA-Federation of New York, a Jewish social-service group.

Critics have said sex abuse claims are sometimes handled quietly in Orthodox rabbinical courts, rather than being reported to authorities.

However, some sexual abuse cases involving Orthodox Jewish schools have spilled into the secular legal system in Brooklyn.

In one case, Rabbi Yehuda Kolko was charged with sexually abusing boys at an Orthodox school. He admitted no sexual wrongdoing but pleaded guilty in April to a misdemeanor child endangerment charge. Kolko was sentenced to three years of probation and has been dismissed from the school, said his lawyer, Jeffrey Schwartz. The school's lawyer didn't
immediately return a telephone call seeking comment.

Six former students are suing the school, saying it covered up Kolko's misdeeds. Their lawyer subpoenaed Hikind this month, seeking to find out whether he learned anything relevant to the case during his impromptu fact-finding.

　

December 16, 2008 South Carolina - A Midlands man went to jail on charges he tried to have sex with a 13-year-old girl. When Greg Ethridge was arrested in Greenville, police there say he told them he was a youth minister at a church in Irmo, but the church is saying otherwise. The First Baptist Church of Irmo acknowledges Ethridge is a member. But, according to Detective Floyd, Ethridge represented himself as an employee of the church who worked with youth.

"At this time we do not have all the information regarding the circumstances of this story. For the sake all parties, we will not have any information to share at this time, while we continue to care for and minister to the families involved. We can state that the individual in question is not an employee of First Baptist Irmo."

January 29,2009 Oklahoma - An Owasso church youth minister has been arrested after being charged with sexual battery. Twenty-three-year-old Sean David Whisenhunt was arrested Thursday by Owasso police. He's accused of abusing a male teenager by inappropriately touching him.

March 27, 2009 Franklin Township New Jersey, Kevin Carlino -- who had been the paid youth minister for the Malaga Assembly of God -- was arrested at his residence Friday by agents for the FBI for knowingly downloading child porn.

April 7, 2009 Tennessee - Matthew M. Jernigan, 23, faces two counts of child rape, two counts of aggravated sexual battery and two counts of aggravated sexual battery by an authority figure following an investigation by Rutherford County Sheriff’s Detective Jim Tramel.

According to warrants taken out by the detective, Jernigan performed oral sex and other lewd acts on at least two boys who were less than 13 years old. He met the boys while performing his duties as a youth ministry volunteer at Heartland Baptist Church, located on East Jefferson Pike.

April 22,2009 Indiana - A youth minister was arrested Tuesday on several child sex-related charges involving three teen girls. Franklin police said Jonathan James Hartman, 29, of Indianapolis, a co-youth minister at the Salvation Army Church in Greenwood, repeatedly had sex with three girls over a period of three years beginning when they were 13. Last week, one of the girls, now 15, told police that she was pregnant with Hartman’s child.

June 19,2009 South Carolina - A former youth minister at a West Columbia church as been arrested and charged in a sex crimes case involving three victims.

William Ralph Wilson III, 30, of Irvin Jumper Road, Gaston, is the former youth minister at Chapel of Redemption Church, 5181 Platt Springs Road. He was arrested Thursday and charged with three counts of committing a lewd act on a minor under the age of 16, the Lexington County Sheriff's Department said.


June 9, 2009 Tennessee - A youth minister and former substitute teacher in Springfield, Robertson County faces allegations he sexually abused a 16-year-old female student. Lt. Jimmy Grogan with the Springfield Police Department confirms 43-year-old Timothy Felts was arrested and charged with five counts of sex abuse by an authority figure. Felts is a youth minister and North Springfield Baptist Church and was formerly employed with the Robertson County School System as a substitute teacher at Springfield High School.

June 21,2009 Tennessee - A youth minister in Clarksville has been arrested and is accused of taking advantage of three teenage girls. Jonathan Giles, 24, has been arrested on charges of statutory rape, solicitation of a minor and sexual battery by an authority figure.

He resigned from Spring Creek Baptist Church, where he was one of three pastors, the day the investigation began. His primary role at the church was interacting with more than 70 teens and preteens.

July 2, 2009 Tennessee - A youth volunteer at a church in Tennessee has been arrested for raping a child younger than 13. A search of Hollifield's residence has allegedly uncovered more than 3,000 images on a computer including at least 100 images involving an underage male engaged in sexual activities,

Police say, 45-year-old Randall Thomas Hollifield, of Powell, is accused of performing oral sex on the boy and then forcing him to perform oral sex on him as well.

July 2, 2009 Kentucky- A grand jury indicted 47-year old Gordon Lunceford on 13 sex related charges, including six counts of 3rd degree rape, one county of first degree sexual abuse, five counts of third degree sodomy and one county of second degree sexual abuse.

Kentucky State Police began investigating Lunceford last year after two victims came forward to say they were victimized in the early 1990s. Lunceford was a youth minister at a church in Anderson County at the time. A church employee at First Baptist Church in Lawrenceburg says Lunceford was employed by that church until December of 1992 but would not comment on the allegations of abuse.

Detectives say Lunceford has also been a youth minister at churches in Madison and Franklin counties. They have not been contacted by anybody as to possible misconduct during Lunceford's time at those other churches,

August 25, 2009 Kentucky - A Tri-State youth minister has been arrested on sexual abuse charges. Police say Jacob Conder, 22, is accused of sexually abusing a 15-year-old girl. Police say the suspected sexual abuse took place at Wing Avenue Baptist Church on August 7, 2009. Condor is listed on the church's website as the current youth director.

August 25, 2009 Virginia - A Southern Baptist youth pastor arrested Aug. 13 on sex charges involving a teenage girl now faces more than 30 additional charges involving a second teenager. Police originally charged Jack Duffer, 40, youth minister at Seaford Baptist Church near Hampton, Va., with one count of taking indecent liberties with a minor and one count of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. After his arrest, police say, a second victim came forward. On Friday, Aug. 21, police charged Duffer with 17 additional counts each of both charges. They stem from incidents authorities say occurred on several dates at two separate York County locations in 2008.

September 16, 2009 – Arizona Youth pastor Joshua O’Bannion of Gilbert, AZ, was arrested September 9 for alleged sexual contact with a 14-year old in the youth group at Christ Life Church. According to the linked article, Bannion subsequently admitted to three incidents of sexual contact with the girl.

October 7, 2009 Maryland - A youth minister and Sunday school teacher is under arrest for sexually abusing a 5-year-old girl. Now Baltimore County Police wonder if there are more victims.



October 21,2009- Colorado A former Longmont youth pastor convicted last year of sexually exploiting a teenage girl has been arrested on suspicion of violating the conditions of his probation, according to the Boulder County District Attorney’s Office.

November 12, 2009 Indiana - A youth minister who touts him as an "at-risk youth specialist" and "certified gang consultant" was arrested on felony sex charges earlier this week after two women accused him of offering jobs in exchange for sex.

November 22, 2009 Florida - A South Florida youth minister is behind bars, accused of having a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old girl from his church.

Russell Lewis, 28, is a minister of music at the Church by the Glades, located at 400 Lakeview Drive in Coral Springs.



December 10,2009 Ohio -Christopher Evans The Clermont County youth minister is charged with sexual battery for an incident involving a 15 year old girl.

January 20,2010 Kentucky - - A former youth pastor is facing some disturbing charges in Clarksville. 47-year-old Ronald Williams was arrested after police got an anonymous tip. He is accused of threatening two teen girls in order to get them to perform sex acts for him over the internet.

February 2, 2010 Colorado - Douglas County resident William "Bill" McLaughlin, 45, was arrested on Dec. 17, 2009 by the Douglas County Sheriff’s office on multiple felony counts, including sexual assault on a child by one in a position of trust.

In December 2009, the Douglas County Sheriff's Office began investigating McLaughlin, a former volunteer youth minister at the Denver Church of Christ. The sheriff’s office received information that McLaughlin had a sexual relationship with a child who was involved in the church.

February 25, 2010 Michigan - A Port Huron man who police said volunteered to chaperone several youth ministries for several at area churches has been arrested.

Nicholas Arthur Carnes, 37, was taken into custody on Feb. 16 after an ongoing a child pornography investigation led police to his home. Police did not specify which churches or what position Carnes may have held with the youth ministries. Local 4 has learned that he worked at two churches from 2000 to 2006.

March 23, 2010 New York – A rabbi was arrested outside his synagogue in Gilbert, Arizona, over his alleged involvement in a child rape that occurred ten years ago in New York, according to information released Tuesday by the U.S. Marshals Service.

Bryan Bramley, 45, was arrested in the parking lot of the Temple Beth Sholom Synagogue in Gilbert by members of the U.S. Marshals' Child Predator Apprehension Team and New York detectives. Rabbi Bramley is accused of raping a seven-year-old girl in March 2000 in New York City.

March 24, 2010 Texas- Jasper Police arrested a local youth minister Friday and charged him with possession of marijuana and one count of aggravated sexual assault of a child. Dwight L. Bullock was arrested Friday by Jasper police while conducting an investigation into multiple child molestation allegations. Bullock is a youth leader at Moore Chapel CME Church,

April 1, 2010 Texas A 25-year-old former youth ministry director has been charged with sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl he met at church.

Matthew Jonas Overstreet, who worked at several North Texas churches, was arrested a month ago after a Plano girl told detectives she had been sexually assaulted in December. Police said the incident followed years of Overstreet sending the girl sexual messages.　

This is a three-year sample gathered in an about an hour, The three hundred cases of sex abuse by Catholic Priests extend over twenty years. I’m not trying to defend them I’m trying to make the point that the sensationalism about the Catholic Church is either based on bigotry or ignorance. It’s your hat, you put what ever name on it you like!

[jotsy]

10. That list hurts Dave, I'm a mom.

All those young lives set on a different path to satisfy the dark whims of spiritual authorities who use their clout to abuse. That for me is the failure of us all and the discussion at hand doesn't appear to be making how to stop that an issue.

Strange as it sounds, I'm happy to be free of religion when I consider the shattering of innocence and the disregard for the shards which lay in wait to further cut. Precious are the new, for they are to be nurtured in the name of a better tomorrow, not tainted by the silence that follows such sinister infractions.

So say I, as captain at the church of nutty nomads.

Love many, trust few, harm none. Yao-Man Chan (Survivor contestant)

Debate on folks.

kicked.

[dmallind]

11. How many of those were protected from arrest and moved by their hierarchy?

The fact that child abusers seek positions of trust with access to children is not news. The idea that one church actively blocks criminal prosecutions of them, covers up the problem and moves around the perps to put them in different places with access to kids is the one that I'd NOT pick. But maybe that's just me.

[Ozymanithrax]

15. Both rules must apply and it doesn't matter what religion...

Catholic, Baptist, Episcopalian, Jewisn, Muslim, Shinto, Budhist or a fucking neo pagan dancing naked under the moon.

[skepticscott]

16. A very long-winded and pathetic version of

"Don't blame us, everyone else is doing it too" Not what I'd expect from an organization that has arrogantly promoted itself as the moral conscience of the entire world.

And despite your claim, I see no documentation of these ministers' churches moving them to other churches instead of turning them over to the authorities, and deliberately not telling anyone at the new church that their children were rubbing elbows with a rapist.

[dmallind]

2. What a whinge

Here's a big difference. People with brains choose thir religion. Even if it is only investigating and validating the one into which they were born. How much respect do people deserve if they don't do this? So criticism of religion is criticism of a choice. Race or culture of birth is not a choice. And by the way both my race and culture are satirized constantly - doesn't bother me a bit, because I actually understand all that verbose crap the writer puts out in his plainchant whine - that people make up the group, and that there is variety within all groups. Criticizing whites or anglos or whitebread suburbanites does not hurt me.

But to pretend there is no difference between the RCC and its decdades of organized coverups of child abuse and other religious malfeasance is an egregious and distasteful lie. Which other religious wrongdoings are sanctioned by their hierarchy? In which other faiths are perpetrators of vicious and heinous crimes simply moved around as a matter of policy? Are Rabbis who rape women simply moved to other temples without notifying authorities? Why are priests who rape children? It's especially galling taht somebody would seek "they do it too" examples by googling "arrests" when the RCC has done so much to avoid arrests of its own even for crimes acknowledged to be among the very worst.

Here's a hint: if you don't want criticism near you "holiest days", don't spend that time pretending that people getting upset about child rape are indulging in "petty gossip" that is equal to "anti-semitism".

[unpossibles]

3. "Where are the crowds condemning science"?

Sadly, they're all over the place these days.

Interesting read. I don't entirely agree with it, but I don't entirely disagree with his points either. When I say I don't entirely agree with it, I simply mean that while religious satire is akin to other bigotry forms, it's also satire based on someone's deliberate choices. While I generally respect someone's religious choices, they are a matter of choice unlike one's skin color, gender or sexual orientation. Yes, most people conveniently have the same one true God they were born with, but it's still ultimately a choice.

Making fun of a religion to me is closer to making fun of one's politics, their favorite brand of car/ketchup/computer is it not? Is religion above reproach? In other words, while there's a part of me that accepts a different religion's practices as being part of their culture, should I completely ignore it when they choose to kill a woman for doing something which goes against that culture?

I have to tolerate Stormfront's existence, but that does not mean I have to not argue against their points or put up with it when they commit crimes. I have the freedom and right to tell them they are full of crap. And someone else has the freedom and right to tell me the same for saying it. In short, there are and should be consequences for our actions and our words, but why are some sacrosanct and others not? Is it ok to make fun of the weirder aspects of Scientology but not Catholicism?

[Silent3]

4. At least once you're an adult, religion is a choice, like membership...

...in a political party or a club. Would we hesitate to satirize a Republican scandal on the eve of the RNC convention, on the basis of it being a special time for Republicans, and by the reasoning that of course not all Republicans are guilty of whatever wrongdoing some members of their party are involved in?

Race and sexual orientation are very different things from politics or religion. You don't chose those things, and they don't have agreed-upon platforms or stances like chosen associations do.

In case you're inclined to make comparisons to antisemitism, that's more of an ethnic prejudice than a religious one. There are many different branches of Judaism (which are not all above all reproach for their specific practices and teachings), and the prejudices against Jews rarely take the form of anything that could be considered valid criticism of common Jewish practices and teachings -- it's pretty much just senseless hate.

Satirizing the current scandal and hypocrisy in the Catholic church is based on real, justifiable criticism of the organization.

Is there a particular reason why we should worry more about hurting Catholic feelings through criticism of the Catholic church than we at DU general worry about hurting Republican feelings for criticism (often harsh and scathing, hardly ever carefully diplomatic policy critiques) of the Republican party?

[Daveparts still]

5. Politics

is not religion, I can hope to change your politics but your religion is none of my business.

[Silent3]

7. I'm not for putting religion on a special pedestal

Religion often overlaps with public conduct, the kinds of policies one will support in the public sphere and how one will treat others. Even where religion doesn't overlap in that kind of way, I don't see what's left as deserving any more or less special treatment than other areas of human philosophy and thought.

As an atheist, what good does it do me to afford religion some extra-special hands-off status that I can't and won't hide behind for anything I believe in?

[Daveparts still]

8. As an Atheist

you should have more respect, I was an Atheist for 30 years as was my father.
You have a right to your beliefs. You also deserve the respect not to have your beliefs ridiculed out of ignorance and bigotry because that is how tolerant societies operate. I'm not some Bible thumper trying to preach but if it is acceptable to ridicule one set of beliefs than it is acceptable to ridicule others beliefs.

Would it be acceptable to do a satire on Martin Luther King?

[Silent3]

13. I don't personally know of anything about Martin Luther King...

...that would make for a good subject for satire. I wouldn't totally categorically rule it out, and I can say that without in anyway diminishing his accomplishments.

What I often find amusing and/or worthy of scorn in religious has nothing to do with ignorance, it has to do with knowing the subject matter, sometimes better than the adherents do. If bigotry is defined as "stubborn and complete intolerance of any creed, belief, or opinion that differs from one's own", merely criticizing or ridiculing some aspect of a belief system is a long way from "complete intolerance".

As for myself, I don't expect any more respect than I give others, and for myself I don't need so very much "respect" (if mincing diplomacy and fear another's oh-so-delicate sensibilities is what you call "respect") that others have to treat me like they're walking on eggshells lest they offend me.

[uberllama42]

18. Are you saying conservatism is off-limits?

If it is acceptable to ridicule one set of beliefs than it is acceptable to ridicule others beliefs.

If religious beliefs are not to be ridiculed, then why should political beliefs have less protection? The teabaggers have a set of beliefs. Would you condemn a satire of the teabaggers?

Would it be acceptable to do a satire on Martin Luther King?

I don't see why not. King was a great man, but he wasn't a saint.

For that matter, I don't believe in saints. I don't think there's anyone who was so above reproach that they must never be the subject of a few jabs.

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. It wasn't your religion being satirised, it was the Vatican's attempts to deflect criticism

I presume this is the article you're objecting to: http://open.salon.com/blog/con_chapman/2010/03/31/facing_crisis_pope_urges_renewed_focus_on_basketball

Nothing about the Catholic religion there at all. It's a satire on the Vatican's attempts to say "there's nothing to see here, move along"; like the 'petty gossip' and the 'the criticism of the Pope is just like anti-semitism' claims (the latter having offended many Jews, of course).

The Catholic religion has, at the heart of its principles, care for the defenceless. Thus a systematic cover-up of child rape by those who head the religious hierarchy is a major story, because it exposes hypocrisy, and the Pope and his underlings are looking increasingly stupid by pretending it's not.

Your personal religious beliefs, however deeply and sincerely held, should not protect the men who head your church bureaucracy from justified criticism.

The Balloon Juice blog has linked in the past few days to a couple of pieces by right wing Catholics that have actually managed to see why this is a real problem for the Catholic hierarchy's credibility unless it mends its ways:

http://www.balloon-juice.com/2010/04/02/the-anchoress-and-the-child-molester/

The darkness within my church is real, and it has too often gone unaddressed. The light within my church is also real, and has too often gone unappreciated. A small minority has sinned, gravely, against too many. Another minority has assisted or saved the lives of millions.
...
That doesn't mean I do not suffer for the sins of my church; we people in the pews are roiling with feelings of betrayal, shame, revulsion.

Having survived sexual abuse in the family and the public schools, I identify deeply with the pain, the sense of powerlessness and abandonment that the victims of some of our priests and administers have endured. I grieve for them — and for my church, and for my pope, and for all of the countless good priests and religious who are tarnished by the actions of a depraved minority.
...
I want my church to shine. But I understand that everything, from our institutions to our innermost beings, are seen through a glass, darkly. Arms outstretched, listening for the Word, and its echoing liturgy, I make my way forward, in bright hope.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125493179

http://www.balloon-juice.com/2010/04/03/that-stained-glass-curtain-youre-hiding-behind-never-lets-in-the-sun/

And it happened in the Catholic Church, where hundreds of priests and bishops thought they could do anything, any amount of damage to the church, and it would be fine. "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." That is Mathew 16:18, of course, Christ's great promise to his church. Catholics in the pews have been repeating it a lot lately as they—we—absorb the latest round of scandal stories. "The old church will survive." But we see more clearly than church leaders the damage the scandals have done.

It is damage that will last at least a generation. It is an actual catastrophe, a rolling catastrophe that became public first in the United States, now in Europe. It has lowered the standing, reputation and authority of the church. This will have implications down the road.

In both the U.S. and Europe, the scandal was dug up and made famous by the press. This has aroused resentment among church leaders, who this week accused journalists of spreading "gossip," of going into "attack mode" and showing "bias."

But this is not true, or to the degree it is true, it is irrelevant. All sorts of people have all sorts of motives, but the fact is that the press—the journalistic establishment in the U.S. and Europe—has been the best friend of the Catholic Church on this issue. Let me repeat that: The press has been the best friend of the Catholic Church on the scandals because it exposed the story and made the church face it. The press forced the church to admit, confront and attempt to redress what had happened. The press forced them to confess. The press forced the church to change the old regime and begin to come to terms with the abusers. The church shouldn't be saying j'accuse but thank you.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052702303960604575158310656792820.html

I think you are being more knee-jerk defensive of your church's leaders than these conservative Catholics are. Is it time for you to step back and wonder whether you should link yourself so closely to the traditional authority, just because it's the established power?

[Daveparts still]

12. This is why it is Frustrating

It is not about me or my religion, it is about respect and decency.
If you look at my other response with a list of pedophile clergy there is a level 3 sex offender who is a Rabbi. He did this for 20 years there is another who actions were covered up by his employers would it then be acceptable to satirize Jewish beliefs because of the actions of a few?

The jokes are funny because they are at someone's expense. I could write half a dozen pieces before sundown disparaging others beliefs but the point is that I don't because I don't think that type of humor is acceptable outside of perhaps storm front.

[muriel_volestrangler]

14. You're contradicting yourself

You claim "It is not about me or my religion", and then you say the problem is "disparaging others beliefs" - so you are saying it is about religion. But it's not disparaging beliefs. You could write the same piece with Michael Steele instead of the Pope, trying to deflect the criticism of the RNC's expenses, and it would work just as well.

The attempts by Benedict to wriggle out of his past misdeeds need satirising. It's like Nixon trying to cover up Watergate.

Frankly, I could see many Catholics writing a piece just like the Open Salon one. It only takes a minimal sense of humour to find it funny, and a minimal sense of perspective to see that it contains a very good criticism of the Pope's hypocritical position.

[skepticscott]

17. Then why does the Catholic church

along with so many other right-wing religious groups, have their fingers in every aspect of politics and public policy? Someone else's religion damn well becomes my business when it leaves their church and tries to influence laws that apply to me, in grotesque and offensive ways.