Who are the "groomers"?

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Jose Fly
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Who are the "groomers"?

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Post by Jose Fly »

On Sunday, a report summarizing an independent investigation into sexual abuse in US Southern Baptist churches was released. The investigation uncovered some very disturbing details:
1. Top leaders repeatedly tried to bury sex abuse claims and lied about what they could do

The report describes how key Southern Baptist leaders engaged in a pattern of ignoring, stonewalling and even “vilifying” sex abuse survivors. The report details multiple instances when Southern Baptist leaders shot down requests by survivors and other concerned members to maintain a database of abusers. Publicly, the leaders said they couldn’t because of “church polity,” or the denomination’s decentralized structure. But the report found that their attorneys had advised them that they could keep such a list and that the leaders did so in secret.

2. A former SBC president was considered “credibly accused” of sexual assault

3. Unheeded warnings went on for decades

The report also described a series of instances when leaders ignored warnings by sex abuse survivors and advocates. In 2016, a person called to report a pastor’s involvement in abuse of her mother. According to the report, a staff member for the Executive Committee asked Boto, “Do I call this lady back? I suspect no.” No documents indicate a follow-up response, the report said.

4. Leaders seemed to put concern over potential litigation over people’s safety

Southern Baptist leaders appeared to value avoiding lawsuits over preventing sexual abuse, according to the report, which stated, “it is striking that many reform efforts were met with resistance, typically due to concerns over incurring legal liability.” For example, based on outside counsel, leaders recommended removing the word “crisis” when referring to sex abuse.
When we put this together with similar problems in the Catholic Church, Jehovah's Witnesses, and the Mormon Church, it's quite apparent that US Christianity has a widespread and long-running problem with sexual abuse and covering it up.

As horrific as all that is, it's particularly galling given recent efforts by Christians across the US to paint LGBTQs as either abusers themselves or "groomers" (people who manipulate and prepare victims for abuse). From they way they tell it, transgender people are constantly lurking in bathrooms, ready to assault unsuspecting children and women, and LGBTQ teachers and school officials are "grooming" students to become future victims. From that hateful and bigoted position they seek to use the force of government to relegate LGBTQs to second-class status.

Yet in reality, children are at far greater risk from being abused in Christian settings! And when that becomes apparent, Christians take deliberate steps to not only cover it up, but demonize the victims and protect the abusers!

So what's going on here? Is this sick and hateful people projecting their own faults onto others? Is it a case of "every accusation is really a confession"? Something else? All of the above?
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Re: Who are the "groomers"?

Post #61

Post by Jose Fly »

oldbadger wrote: Sat Dec 03, 2022 2:09 am
Jose Fly wrote: Fri Dec 02, 2022 12:05 pm I'm not talking about what goes on in internet forums. I'm talking about organized and well-funded hate campaigns by Christian groups, demonization of LGBTQs by right-wing media outlets, and how the Republican Party has embraced it all.

Again, I'm guessing you may not be fully aware of just how bad it's gotten here in the US. We have Republican governors signing laws that make it illegal to even teach school kids that LGBTQ people exist, with their spokespeople specifically citing concerns about "grooming" as the reason. We have librarians and teachers resigning en masse after being harassed and subjected to death threats merely for having books written by LGBTQs available and/or being supportive of LGBTQ students. We have right-wing Christians showing up at pride events with the express intent of starting riots.

I could go on and on, but the point remains.....the Christian right in the US has been, and continues to engage in a widespread violent hate campaign against the queer community, with their primary justification being that LGBTQs are pedophiles who "groom" kids for abuse. The intent of this thread is to make the point that if those folks really were concerned about protecting kids from sexual abuse, they'd focus on the documented abuse and grooming that's been going on in Christian settings for decades. But of course, it isn't really about protecting kids...it's simply about hate.
Yes...... That's right, so many right wingers who claim to be Christians highlight every possible case of pedophilia caused by LGBT folks in order to pump truth pills in to their horrific propaganda campaign.

And so it looks as if you, wherever you happen to be on the US political spectrum, would like to highlight every possible case of pedophilia caused by religious folks in order to chuck stuff in the other direction, as if that's going to actually make a huge difference to the situation.

They believe in and hold a few selected OT laws (enforced by Paul... quite a joke imo) and want to pump their bigotry in to their babies about gays, lesbians, trans-sexuals, transvestites etc ........and you believe (like I do) in gender freedom and love/sexual freedom for all and want school lesson plans to send that message to pupils.

I've got it. But all that fails miserably because there are hundreds of different churches, creeds, followings and any case you find can probably be pushed under the bed because 'That one wasn't one of us, not a true Christian, like us'.......

I think you need to take some different route. In the meantime I like to seek out sex crime convictions in airline pilots, or quantity surveyors, whatever!........ because that's actually more fun, just as useless, and I hope that both religious bigotry might die as Christianity seems to be dying, slowly but all on it's own.
You've misunderstood my point. I'm not trying to paint all religious people, or all Christians as groomers/pedophiles. I'm exposing the hypocrisy behind the right-wing Christian effort to demonize the queer community as well as demonstrate how it's about hate rather than protecting kids.
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Re: Who are the "groomers"?

Post #62

Post by oldbadger »

Jose Fly wrote: Sat Dec 03, 2022 1:38 pm You've misunderstood my point. I'm not trying to paint all religious people, or all Christians as groomers/pedophiles. I'm exposing the hypocrisy behind the right-wing Christian effort to demonize the queer community as well as demonstrate how it's about hate rather than protecting kids.
No, I haven't misunderstood anything, I'm simply saying that it doesn't work. I dislike the whole extreme right-wing bigotry and hypocrisy very much, I just don't think that anybody is listening to 'bishop touched a boy' stuff and as I have already told you most of those extreme right wing nuts will dismiss such a bishop as 'not a true Christian'.

I know it's different where I live, when I was a kiddie my Mummy and Daddy took me and my sister with all the other kids and Mums and Dads to watch shows where men dress up as women and sing and dance...all the kids taking part, that was in the early 50's. Young women dressed up a men to be the shows' heroes. And when I see posts from Extreme righters ranting about transvestites visiting schools I just ain't shocked at all.

It may not happen in our lifetimes but I think Christianity is losing its hold on Western and US communities and as it does so the ultra nuts will run short of votes.....it's going to be a waiting game.

You need lots of folks like Trump on the news every day, showing the country and World what it will be like if they ever grasp power again. The bad guys may actually save the US !! So shocking! :)

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Re: Who are the "groomers"?

Post #63

Post by Jose Fly »

oldbadger wrote: Sun Dec 04, 2022 4:44 am No, I haven't misunderstood anything, I'm simply saying that it doesn't work. I dislike the whole extreme right-wing bigotry and hypocrisy very much, I just don't think that anybody is listening to 'bishop touched a boy' stuff and as I have already told you most of those extreme right wing nuts will dismiss such a bishop as 'not a true Christian'.
Except the target here isn't the right-wing nuts.
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Re: Who are the "groomers"?

Post #64

Post by Purple Knight »

oldbadger wrote: Wed Nov 30, 2022 2:00 am
Jose Fly wrote: Tue Nov 29, 2022 4:52 pm Former Texas student minister gets five years in guilty sex abuse plea

HOUSTON (BP) — A former Southern Baptist student minister has been sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to four charges related to online sexual abuse of a minor, Harris County Criminal Court records show.

Timothy Jason Jeltema, 31, pleaded guilty Nov. 17 to two counts of online solicitation of a minor, one charge of indecency with a child and one charge of sexual performance by a child.
....deserves to be in prison, where he might, just might get help to change his life around.

Now that was a really interesting case and I'll tell you why.
It got me thinking about your choice of detainees and sexual offence convicts.
So I thought to myself, 'Nearly every walk of life must have it's % of sexual offenders....child sexual offenders.'
And so I decided to select a group of people at random to see if it contained such folks.
'Postman'!! I thought. So I googled 'Child sex offender convicted...postman' and sent it off to search.
A page of recent cases jumped on to my screen and so I copy/pasted the first one on to this post.
This one was caught in Manchester, England, so maybe you might think that Manchester is a bed of wickedness or something?

You gotta watch them posties, you know. Wicked bunch, that lot.
NOT!!! :D


Depraved postman jailed for five years for repeatedly sexually ...https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk › ... › Stockport
27 Nov 2017 — A postman who repeatedly sexually assaulted a child has been jailed for five years. Alec Heaps, 53, from Stockport, was found guilty by a ...
Some research suggests that priests are no more likely to engage in paedophilia than any other profession that involves a position of authority.

And we do have to ask which piece is the cart and which piece is the horse. For example, are people who aren't even Christians going out and obtaining theology degrees because they know that here, it is easy to get access to children?

It wouldn't be a religious problem, then. And there would not rightly be the same sort of blame assigned to the organisation as a whole, no more than to organisations of teachers or professions of any other sort that also grant access to children by virtue of being a member.

...Unless of course the organisation itself engages in sheltering of these fiends. Which they do. It's the sheltering that's the problem. If the post office was found to be sheltering diddling postmen I actually would start to think they were rotten.

This is what I tell all the religiosos. It's not the religion to blame, unless it is sheltering. When there is sheltering there is a real institutional problem. It may be so bad that you can't speak up because too many people are on the side of the offenders. But in that case, holy carp, leave. Starve the offenders. Stop giving them money. This may be hard to hear but every bum that stays in those seats, and every penny that falls into those collection plates, if it is known what the offenders are doing, is supporting it.

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Re: Who are the "groomers"?

Post #65

Post by oldbadger »

Purple Knight wrote: Fri Dec 16, 2022 6:08 pm
Some research suggests that priests are no more likely to engage in paedophilia than any other profession that involves a position of authority.

And we do have to ask which piece is the cart and which piece is the horse. For example, are people who aren't even Christians going out and obtaining theology degrees because they know that here, it is easy to get access to children?

It wouldn't be a religious problem, then. And there would not rightly be the same sort of blame assigned to the organisation as a whole, no more than to organisations of teachers or professions of any other sort that also grant access to children by virtue of being a member.

...Unless of course the organisation itself engages in sheltering of these fiends. Which they do. It's the sheltering that's the problem. If the post office was found to be sheltering diddling postmen I actually would start to think they were rotten.

This is what I tell all the religiosos. It's not the religion to blame, unless it is sheltering. When there is sheltering there is a real institutional problem. It may be so bad that you can't speak up because too many people are on the side of the offenders. But in that case, holy carp, leave. Starve the offenders. Stop giving them money. This may be hard to hear but every bum that stays in those seats, and every penny that falls into those collection plates, if it is known what the offenders are doing, is supporting it.
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Re: Who are the "groomers"?

Post #66

Post by Jose Fly »

This lawmaker gets it....

Lawmaker sees anti-drag bill, raises with ‘religious indoctrination’ ban

Conservatives in the Nebraska legislature recently proposed a bill, LB 371, that would make it a crime for children to attend a drag show. So progressive senator Megan Hunt is fighting back by amending the anti-drag bill to ban children from attending vacation Bible study or any similar “religious indoctrination” camps...

...She’s already filed a motion to kill the entire bill, but that’s not the only way she’s trying to stop this frivolous proposal. Late last week, she filed an amendment that essentially rewrites the anti-drag bill to protect children from actual threats to their well-being: religious indoctrination camps.

The amendment says “there is a well-documented history of indoctrination and sexual abuse perpetrated by religious leaders and clergy people upon children.” Where does it happen? Church camps. Religious retreats. Vacation Bible study. Church lock-ins. Christian youth conventions.

Therefore, she says, we ought to ban children from attending any of those.

No individual under nineteen years of age shall be present at a religious indoctrination camp. Any person nineteen years of age or older who knowingly brings an individual under nineteen years of age to a religious indoctrination camp shall be guilty of a Class I misdemeanor.

The $10,000 fine would also apply to any group hosting those “religious indoctrination camps.”

Obviously, Hunt is doing this to make a point. If right-wing lawmakers actually wanted to protect children, they could go after the people who are actual threats to children. Instead, they’re going after drag queens. They’re waging a culture war battle instead of doing anything useful.
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Re: Who are the "groomers"?

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I don't know if there is more sexual abuse in religious institutions because of religion. Rather it seems to be more about power hierarchies in various institutions. At least that is what some studies indicate.
Conclusion
The results suggest that child sexual abuse in institutions is attributable to the nature of institutional structures and to societal assumptions about the rights of children more than to the attitudes towards sexuality of a specific religion. The exploratory data arising from this study may serve as a starting point for building hypotheses, and may point the way toward improvements in prevention and intervention strategies.
....
A common scheme seems to be that sexual abuse in institutions is characterized by exploitation of the hierarchic structures of power and dependence that typically define the relationship between youth and their caregivers.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3995507/

Another thing that is going on is that institutions that are supposedly interested in promoting the value of high moral standards, but whose members [no pun intended] engage in sexual abuse of children, is more glaring because of the hypocrisy involved.

Perhaps related to this is the high number of right wing news commentators using vehicles like Fox News who seem to wear their claims of Christianity on their sleeves while persistently engaging in the in the nastiest, meanest sarcastic sneering and angry bombast is also striking because the attitude of the delivery is in such contrast to the spirit of Christ. Examples of this angry moralizing are (or were) seen on a daily basis from people like Laura Ingraham, *ucker Carlsen, and formerly from Bill O'Reilly.

We saw it here from the recently banned 'Runner.'
viewtopic.php?t=40393

I personally know many older 'pillars' of the church who LOVE Carlsen because of his angry moralizing. What's really a laugh is when the hypocrite in chief, the obviously phony Christian, Donald Trump angrily moralizes. There is much to see in these PUBLIC "Christians" that is the antithesis to the Jesus of Nazareth I learned about in my youth.
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Re: Who are the "groomers"?

Post #68

Post by Jose Fly »

Diogenes wrote: Mon Feb 06, 2023 5:05 pm
I don't know if there is more sexual abuse in religious institutions because of religion. Rather it seems to be more about power hierarchies in various institutions. At least that is what some studies indicate.
Conclusion
The results suggest that child sexual abuse in institutions is attributable to the nature of institutional structures and to societal assumptions about the rights of children more than to the attitudes towards sexuality of a specific religion. The exploratory data arising from this study may serve as a starting point for building hypotheses, and may point the way toward improvements in prevention and intervention strategies.
....
A common scheme seems to be that sexual abuse in institutions is characterized by exploitation of the hierarchic structures of power and dependence that typically define the relationship between youth and their caregivers.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3995507/

Another thing that is going on is that institutions that are supposedly interested in promoting the value of high moral standards, but whose members [no pun intended] engage in sexual abuse of children, is more glaring because of the hypocrisy involved.

Perhaps related to this is the high number of right wing news commentators using vehicles like Fox News who seem to wear their claims of Christianity on their sleeves while persistently engaging in the in the nastiest, meanest sarcastic sneering and angry bombast is also striking because the attitude of the delivery is in such contrast to the spirit of Christ. Examples of this angry moralizing are (or were) seen on a daily basis from people like Laura Ingraham, *ucker Carlsen, and formerly from Bill O'Reilly.

We saw it here from the recently banned 'Runner.'
viewtopic.php?t=40393

I personally know many older 'pillars' of the church who LOVE Carlsen because of his angry moralizing. What's really a laugh is when the hypocrite in chief, the obviously phony Christian, Donald Trump angrily moralizes. There is much to see in these PUBLIC "Christians" that is the antithesis to the Jesus of Nazareth I learned about in my youth.
I certainly agree that the hierarchal and authoritative nature of religious institutions are a significant factor. Having grown up in a religious/church environment, I also think their tendencies toward trust and tribalism play a role. Abusers know that if they can work their way into a position of trust, they can likely use the church to get unsupervised access to their victims. "A born again Christian who loves working with youth" will be put in charge of a youth group for example. Then, when the abuse is uncovered the tribalism produces a "circle the wagons" reaction, as in the video I linked to in Post #3. Once the congregation is made aware of the abuse, most of them rally around the abuser while effectively shunning the victim. And in that specific case, I wouldn't be surprised if sexism played a role as well.

It's one thing when there's a long-running rash of abuse in religious institutions, but it's a whole different level when the people within those institutions go out of their way to shield, hide, and move the abusers while simultaneously subjecting the victims to further mistreatment (e.g., refusing acknowledgement, compensation, and/or assistance; or in some cases attacking the victims). It's like if you thought the churches couldn't make it any worse, they replied...."watch us".
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Re: Who are the "groomers"?

Post #69

Post by Diogenes »

Jose Fly wrote: Mon Feb 06, 2023 7:06 pm
Diogenes wrote: Mon Feb 06, 2023 5:05 pm
I don't know if there is more sexual abuse in religious institutions because of religion. Rather it seems to be more about power hierarchies in various institutions. At least that is what some studies indicate.
Conclusion
The results suggest that child sexual abuse in institutions is attributable to the nature of institutional structures and to societal assumptions about the rights of children more than to the attitudes towards sexuality of a specific religion. The exploratory data arising from this study may serve as a starting point for building hypotheses, and may point the way toward improvements in prevention and intervention strategies.
....
A common scheme seems to be that sexual abuse in institutions is characterized by exploitation of the hierarchic structures of power and dependence that typically define the relationship between youth and their caregivers.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3995507/
I certainly agree that the hierarchal and authoritative nature of religious institutions are a significant factor. Having grown up in a religious/church environment, I also think their tendencies toward trust and tribalism play a role. Abusers know that if they can work their way into a position of trust, they can likely use the church to get unsupervised access to their victims. "A born again Christian who loves working with youth" will be put in charge of a youth group for example. Then, when the abuse is uncovered the tribalism produces a "circle the wagons" reaction, as in the video I linked to in Post #3. Once the congregation is made aware of the abuse, most of them rally around the abuser while effectively shunning the victim. And in that specific case, I wouldn't be surprised if sexism played a role as well.

It's one thing when there's a long-running rash of abuse in religious institutions, but it's a whole different level when the people within those institutions go out of their way to shield, hide, and move the abusers while simultaneously subjecting the victims to further mistreatment (e.g., refusing acknowledgement, compensation, and/or assistance; or in some cases attacking the victims). It's like if you thought the churches couldn't make it any worse, they replied...."watch us".

I saw a lot of this in the court system, churches rallying to support their pastors accused of sexual predator felonies. One case was particularly obnoxious. Each time the defendant appeared on the felony docket, his congregants would fill the courtroom, then tromp out en masse after his case was called. In my nearly 40 years observing, I never saw a ruder, pushier, noisier entourage clogging the courtroom. They were horrible "witnesses" for their faith.
I've seen much better behavior from other groups, both secular and religious. This congregation acted 'entitled.' This is something I've seen all too often in certain church groups - the sense of arrogance that they were the only ones with 'the truth' and the system should bend to their entitled will. They were very different from the respectful humility and good humor I saw in the church of my youth.
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Re: Who are the "groomers"?

Post #70

Post by Jose Fly »

Diogenes wrote: Mon Feb 06, 2023 7:28 pm I saw a lot of this in the court system, churches rallying to support their pastors accused of sexual predator felonies. One case was particularly obnoxious. Each time the defendant appeared on the felony docket, his congregants would fill the courtroom, then tromp out en masse after his case was called. In my nearly 40 years observing, I never saw a ruder, pushier, noisier entourage clogging the courtroom. They were horrible "witnesses" for their faith.
I've seen much better behavior from other groups, both secular and religious. This congregation acted 'entitled.' This is something I've seen all too often in certain church groups - the sense of arrogance that they were the only ones with 'the truth' and the system should bend to their entitled will. They were very different from the respectful humility and good humor I saw in the church of my youth.
Wow, that's a crazy story! Sadly, it's not surprising though. We actually had a pedophile in my (extended) family. Thankfully the age difference between us meant he never tried anything with me, but all of us who were kids at the time knew he was creepy and weird, and stayed away from him. Eventually he was arrested and it turned out he had been using the church as a means to gain access to his victims. But even though his victims testified against him and he was caught with a ton of child porn in his possession, a lot of my Christian family members to this day refuse to believe any of it. They still see him as "a good Christian man who loves the Lord", and they figure God just wanted him in prison so he could minister to inmates.

It's truly bizarre to watch.
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