Oh mah goodness! Did you see that report from CNN yesterday about the renewed Republican obsession with the gays? Elect them to legislatures and they have nothing better to do than pass anti-LGBTQ laws. Just in the last 3 and a half months, these GOP psychos have introduced “at least 417 anti-LGBTQ bills… Education and health care-related bills, in particular,” reported Annette Choi, “are flooding in at unprecedented levels. Along with a renewed push to ban access to gender-affirming health care for transgender youth, there has been a heavy focus on regulating curriculum in public schools, including discussions around gender identity and sexuality… New bills are filed nearly every day and the landscape is changing quickly.”
This flies right in the face of what most American voters want. Look at this poll Data for Progress did last month. 64% of likely voters— including 65% of independents and even 55% of Republicans— agree that”politicians are playing political theater and using these bill as a wedge issue.” They agree that legislators are spending too much time trying to limit the rights of LGBTQ people.
“We have seen the scope and scale of these attacks increase over the last few years, starting around 2020-2021,” said Gillian Branstetter, communications strategist for the ACLU. “This year, it’s not just the total number that has gotten worse, but the extremity of the bills.”
…So far this year, 24 bills that restrict LGBTQ rights in the United States have passed in 11 states.”
The states that have adopted homophobic legislation so far all have Republican controlled legislature and, except fro Kentucky, Republican governors: Arkansas, Mississippi, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, Iowa, South Dakota, Wyoming Utah and Idaho. “Kentucky lawmakers overrode the governor’s veto to pass a sweeping bill that would ban gender-affirming care for trans children. This new wave of anti-LGBTQ legislation — many directly targeting the nearly 2 million transgender people living in the United States — comes at a time when 1 in 4 transgender adults say they have been physically attacked, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation/Washington Post survey conducted at the end of 2022. The rate is higher for trans people of color.”
But none of these hundreds of bill have been passed to protect children from being raped and abused by religionists with whom the Republican legislators are allied. In their world, priests, pastors and rabbis can do no wrong— even as they are taking advantage of children to such an immense extent that you may be forgiven for thinking that some men join the priesthood to get access to young children for sex.
Wednesday the Maryland Attorney General’s Office released a horrifying report detailing how 199 Catholic priests and others associated with the Archdiocese of Baltimore sexually abused over 600 children and often escaped accountability between the 1940s and 2002. The report noted that “The staggering pervasiveness of the abuse itself underscores the culpability of the Church hierarchy. The sheer number of abusers and victims, the depravity of the abusers’ conduct, and the frequency with which known abusers were given the opportunity to continue preying upon children are astonishing.”
Why are the Republican legislators in Arkansas, Mississippi, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, Iowa, South Dakota, Wyoming Utah and Idaho dealing with that instead because believe me, children per being raped by religionist leaders in each of those states as well. St. Mark Parish in Catonsville alone had 11 sexual abusers! “One deacon admitted to molesting over 100 children,” reported the Associated Press. “Another priest was allowed to feign hepatitis treatment and make other excuses to avoid facing abuse allegations.” At least the Maryland state legislature— controlled by the Democrats, passed a bill to end a statute of limitations on abuse-related civil lawsuits, legislation denounced by the Maryland Catholic Conference as “unconstitutional” and “unfair.”
The NY Post reported that “One offender, the Rev. Laurence Brett, admitted to sexually abusing a teenager at a Catholic university in Connecticut in 1964. Under the guise of hepatitis treatment, Brett was sent to New Mexico, then Sacramento, where he reportedly abused another teen boy. He was later assigned to Baltimore, where he served as chaplain at a Catholic high school for boys. He was allowed to resign in 1973 after several students accused him of abuse. Dozens of other victims came forward in the following decades, but school officials never reported the abuse and he died in 2010 without ever facing charges.
Only one person has been indicted through the investigation: former Catholic high school wrestling coach Neil Adleberg, 74, who was arrested last year and charged with rape and other counts. The case remains ongoing. [One has to wonder if he has a relationship with Ohio Republican Gym Jordan, who allowed wrestling coach staff to rape young men at Ohio State University and now leads the fully deranged House judiciary Committee.]
CNN reported that “The report lists descriptions of graphic sexual and physical abuse allegations: It includes stories of how some alleged abusers provided victims with alcohol and drugs and describes in vivid detail how they coerced and forced victims to perform sexual acts. The report’s list of abusers includes clergy members, seminarians, deacons, teachers and other employees of the Archdiocese. Forty-three priests who ‘served in some capacity or resided within the Archdiocese of Baltimore’ committed sexual abuse in locations outside Maryland, the report alleged. Of these 43 priests, 40 of them allegedly committed sexual abuse in only one other location, while the other three allegedly committed sexual abuse in two other locations outside Maryland, the report says.”
The report contains “a full accounting” of abuse in the Archdiocese and “details of repeated tortuous, terrorizing, depraved abuse.” It lists and details 156 abusers “determined to have been the subject of credible allegations of abuse.”
More than 600 children are known to have been abused by those 156 people, the report reads, but “the number is likely far higher.”
The report reveals the names of all but 10 of the 156 alleged abusers listed in the report.
Brown said those 10 names were obtained through the grand jury process and could not be disclosed without permission or a court order.
“I should emphasize that because they’re redacted today doesn’t mean they will always be redacted,” Brown said.
Some of these priests told children they raped that if they ever told anyone about the sex, they and their entire families would be consigned to Hell for eternity. Obviously, this isn’t only a problem of the Catholic Church. Just yesterday, a perverted Louisiana Pentecostal pastor, Milton Otto Martin III (the fella in the striped outfit below) was arrested again for having sex with a juvenile, charged— for a second time in a month for having carnal knowledge of a child. “Martin was accused of having ‘sexual relations with a juvenile on multiple occasions’ from 2010 to 2013, with a victim of unspecified gender who was between the ages of 14 and 17 at the time. On Thursday, troopers say that since his initial arrest, investigators were made aware of another victim. State police say Martin had sex with a 14-year-old victim in 1991. He preys on young parishioners at the First Pentecostal Church of Chalmette and has been rapping children for over a dozen years. He goes by the name Otto and he isn’t a drag queen, just a garden variety right wing Republican child abuser.
And of course, it isn’t just “followers of Jesus.” Child sex abuse in just as rampant among the MAGAts in the Orthodox Jewish community. Rabbi Avrohom Mondrowitz, who was accused of sexually abusing dozens of boys while he was working as a therapist in New York in the 1980s. Mondrowitz fled to Israel before he could be arrested, and has been fighting extradition to the United States for decades. Rabbi Menachem Mendel Taub was convicted in 2019 of sexually abusing a 14 year old boy in Kiryas Joel, a village in upstate New York. Taub had been a respected leader in the Satmar Hasidic community. Rabbi Yehuda Kolko, who was accused of sexually abusing multiple boys while he was a teacher at a yeshiva in Brooklyn. Kolko was convicted in 2012 of endangering the welfare of a child, but he was acquitted of more serious charges. There have also been reports of sexual abuse within Orthodox Jewish summer camps. In 2013, The Forward published an investigation into sexual abuse at Camp HASC, a summer camp for Orthodox Jewish children with disabilities. The investigation found that several staff members had been accused of sexual abuse over the years, but that the camp had failed to properly respond to these reports.
Obviously, there’s no single cause or characteristic that explains why some religious figures, engage in sexual abuse or exploitation of children. However, research has identified some potential risk factors that may contribute to the likelihood of such behavior, like a marked power imbalance since by virtue of their position and authority within their communities, religious figured may be seen as trustworthy and respected authority figures. This power dynamic can make it easier for abusers to groom and exploit children. The whole ethos around secrecy and shame is another factor. Religious institutions prioritize maintaining a positive public image and are always less likely to report allegations of sexual abuse or to take swift action to address the problem. This can create an environment in which abusers can operate with impunity, and survivors may feel too ashamed or afraid to come forward with their experiences.
There have been several studies and reports that have examined sexual abuse committed by members of the clergy across different religions. For example, a 2004 report commissioned by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops found that between 1950 and 2002, there were 10,667 credible allegations of sexual abuse by priests in the United States, with 81% of the victims being male. A later report in 2018 found that there were 1,218 substantiated allegations of sexual abuse by priests in Germany between 1946 and 2014, with 80% of the victims being male.
A 2014 report by the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse found that the Catholic Church had received allegations of sexual abuse involving at least 4,444 priests and religious brothers in Australia between 1980 and 2015, with the majority of the victims being boys.
There have also been reports of sexual abuse by members of the clergy in other religions. For example, a 2011 report by the Jewish Daily Forward found that at least 117 cases of sexual abuse involving Orthodox Jewish communities had been reported in the United States since the 1980s, with many of the victims being boys.
While the specifics may differ from one religion to another, the problem of sexual abuse by members of the clergy is a pervasive one that affects many different religious communities. The motivations and psychological factors that drive individuals to sexually abuse children are complex and multifaceted, and can vary widely from case to case. Another common theory is that individuals who engage in sexual abuse of children may have experienced abuse or other forms of trauma themselves in their own childhood. Some research has suggested that individuals who have experienced such trauma may be more likely to struggle with issues such as depression, anxiety, and substance abuse, which in turn can increase the risk of perpetrating sexual abuse.
Other factors that may contribute to the development of sexually abusive behaviors include difficulties with emotional regulation, a distorted view of relationships and sexuality, and a lack of empathy for others. Additionally, some research has suggested that individuals who engage in sexual abuse may have cognitive distortions or beliefs that allow them to justify or rationalize their behavior— minimization or denial of harm caused by their actions. For example, they may tell themselves that the child was not actually harmed, or that the child wanted or enjoyed the sexual activity. This type of thinking allows the abuser to avoid confronting the harm that they have caused and to avoid feelings of guilt or shame. Another common cognitive distortion is the belief that the child was a willing participant in the sexual activity. This belief may be based on a distorted understanding of the child's behavior or on the abuser's own desire to justify their actions. In reality, however, children are not capable of consenting to sexual activity with an adult, and any sexual activity between an adult and a child is abusive.
Some individuals who engage in sexual abuse may also hold beliefs that perpetuate or justify their behavior. For example, they may believe that they are entitled to sexual activity with children, or that their status as a religious or community leader exempts them from normal rules of behavior. These beliefs may be reinforced by societal messages that place a high value on the authority and power of individuals in positions of leadership.
I have heard that not every single one of these people is a Republican but I’m awaiting an example of one who isn’t. It's something to do with the conservative, authoritarian mindset.