Reason #108,651: Why I Hate Organized Religion ... And Some Lawyers

Last week, after pleading guilty to four counts of sexual battery, Brian Mitchell, a 31-year-old North Olmsted, Ohio youth pastor was sentenced to ten years in jail for raping a sixteen-year–old girl from his church.

Ten years? Wow; I guess if he was a white frat boy he might have gotten six months, but I digress …

In a letter to the court, Mitchell’s victim said she looked up to Mitchell and sought him out to learn how to live a more spiritual life through religion. And so they became friendly, and Mitchell decided to guide her spiritually by raping her; he began sending her hundreds of text messages until church officials heard about that and the texting stopped … for a while.But, as pedophiles are apt, Mitchell just couldn’t help himself and he started up again; he stopped being so lighthearted and friendly and began complaining about his wife and his marriage.

I guess he was hoping this child would offer him counsel?

No; she, instead, asked him to stop texting her, though she kept the messages a secret because he was a powerful figure in the church and her life. But then he came to see her, and told her to come out to his car where he kissed her and said he wanted to, I dunno, ‘date’ her.

He asked her to delete all their texts and never tell anyone he was texting her; he started picking her up from school on her lunch break and taking her home where he forcibly had sex with her; he sent her flowers for her birthday and then, the following Sunday, after church, asked her mother if she knew who sent them.

Soon, church officials at Columbia Baptist Church discovered the relationship and notified police of the rapes; the pastor was arrested and pleaded guilty and is set for ten years in an orange jumpsuit.

But then the church did, well, the same thing to the girl that Brian Mitchell had done; they raped her spirit by saying that the girl and her family were no longer welcome at church until … wait for it … she apologized to the pastor’s wife.

Yeah; they did, and in my world here’s how that would go down:

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Mitchell. I’m sorry your husband is a rapist and I’m sorry he raped me and I’m sorry you’re hurt because you’re married to a rapist and your children’s father is a rapist. I’m sorry you belong to a church that asks the victim to apologize to the wife of a man twice her age who raped her again and again. … Better?”

Even better is that the rapist, Brian Mitchell, and his attorneys say he started the relationship because he believed he had a future with a sixteen-year-old girl. And so they asked that Brian Mitchell, rapist, pedophile, be sentenced to house arrest so he could raise his children.

Yes, they asked the judge to let him stay at home and be with his family and raise his children in lieu of going to jail for raping a child.

Luckily, the judge wasn’t having it:

“Your delusional excuse — that there were emotions and love involved — is troubling. That’s extremely delusional.”

So, maybe over the course of the next ten years, Brian Mitchell will come to understand that … possibly while he’s getting raped in prison.

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Cleveland.com

Baptist Pastor Talks Trans Rights and Bathroom Bills ... And It's Not At All What You Expect

Last weekend Carlos and I were out and about and listening to NPR— as we do— while driving through the South Carolina countryside. The announcer mentioned an upcoming story:

“Dallas Baptist preacher Talks Trans Rights and Bathroom Bills.”

I muttered some choice expletives, aimed at Texas, Baptists and preachers and — as I do — went on for several minutes about how I wasn’t about to listen to a Baptist preach hate.

Luckily, mid-rant, the story began on the radio …

Mark Wingfield is an associate pastor at Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas and as these Bathroom bills, and the Target boycott by so-called Christian conservatives became a topic of conversation in his congregation, he opted to look into it. He ended up writing an op-ed for the local paper, Seven Things I’m Learning About Transgender Persons:

I don’t know much about transgender issues, but I’m trying to learn.How about you? How much do you really know about this subject beyond all the screaming headlines and concerns about who goes to the bathroom where?

The truth is that I don’t know any transgender persons — at least I don’t think I do. But with the help of a pediatrician friend and a geneticist friend, I’m listening and trying to learn. This is hard, though, because understanding the transgender experience seems so far outside what I have ever contemplated before. And the more I learn, the more theological questions I face as well. This is hard, even for a pastor.

Here’s some of what I’m learning from my friends who have experience as medical professionals dealing with real people and real families:

1. Even though LGBT gets lumped together in one tagline, the T is quite different than the LG and B. “Lesbian,” “gay” and “bisexual” describe sexual orientation. “Transgender” describes gender identity. These are not the same thing. Sexual orientation is about whom we feel an attraction to and want to mate with; gender identity is about whether we identify as male or female.

2. What you see is not always what you get. For the vast majority of humanity, the presence of male or female genitalia corresponds to whether a person is male or female. What you see is what you are. But for a small part of humanity (something less than 1 percent), the visible parts and the inner identity do not line up. For example, it is possible to be born with male genitalia but female chromosomes or vice versa. And now brain research has demonstrated that it also is possible to be born with female genitalia, female chromosomes but a male brain. Most of us hit the jackpot upon birth with all three factors lining up like cherries on a slot machine: Our anatomy, chromosomes and brain cells all correspond as either male or female. But some people are born with variations in one or two of these indicators.

3. Stuff happens at birth that most of us never know. It’s not an everyday occurrence but it’s also not infrequent that babies are born with ambiguous or incomplete sexual anatomy. In the past, surgeons often made the decision about whether this child would be a boy or a girl, based on what was the easiest surgical fix. Today, much more thought is given to these life-changing decisions.

4. Transgender persons are not “transvestites.” Far too many of us make this mix-up, in part because the words sound similar and we have no real knowledge of either. Cross-dressers, identified in slang as “transvestites,” are people (typically men) who are happy with their gender but derive pleasure from occasionally dressing like the opposite gender. Cross-dressing is about something other than gender identity.

5. Transgender persons are not pedophiles. The typical profile of a pedophile is an adult male who identifies as heterosexual and most likely even is married. There is zero statistical evidence to link transgender persons to pedophilia.

6. Transgender persons hate all the attention they’re getting. The typical transgender person wants desperately not to attract attention. All this publicity and talk of bathroom habits is highly disconcerting to people who have spent their lives trying not to stand out or become the center of attention.

7. Transgender persons are the product of nature much more than nurture. Debate the origins of homosexuality if you’d like and what role nature vs. nurture plays. But for those who are transgender, nature undeniably plays a primary role. According to medical science, chromosomal variances occur within moments of conception, and anatomical development happens within the nine months in the womb. There is no nature vs. nurture argument, except in cases of brain development, which is an emerging field of study.

This last point in particular raises the largest of theological questions. If Christians really believe every person is created in the image of God, how can we damn a baby who comes from the womb with gender dysphoria? My pediatrician friend puts it this way: “We must believe that even if some people got a lower dose of a chromosome, or an enzyme, or a hormonal effect, that does not mean that they got a lower dose of God’s image.”

I don’t know much about transgender issues, but I’m trying to learn — in part because I want to understand the way God has made us. For me, this is a theological quest as much as a biological inquiry or a political cause. How about you?

I’m glad he’s speaking out; I’m glad he’s educating people; I’m glad he’s of an open mind and not just falling into the trap of different = bad.

And one thing I loved was his openness. He said he’d always felt chosen to do the Lord’s work and so he became a pastor, but then he wondered what might be his next step and that if you’d told him it would be standing up for trans rights, educating people about transgender person, he’d have been shocked.

But he’s doing it and I hope his words reach even a part of his congregation and those people go out into the world and educate their friends and family … and so on and so forth.

Knowledge is power, and the more we know, and the more we talk, about trans rights and bathrooms, the more we can put an end to this bigotry and intolerance and ignorance.

Thanks to Mark Wingfield for starting this topic of conversation.

In Texas.

And in a Baptist church.

Baptist News

Patheos

Today In Alleged Christianity: The Pastor Is A Thief

Up there in Kingsport, Tennessee, Boyd Watson Holder Jr., the pastor at Victory Apostolic Church was charged with stealing some $60,000 from the church bank account for his own personal use …

It was earlier this year when members of the congregation began to suspect Holder—who has been their pastor since 2010—of embezzling from the bank account; they now say that between $70,000 and $100,000 is missing from the account, and that the disappearing cash occurred solely during Holder's tenure, while he was the only person with access to the funds.

When questioned about the money by church members, Holder responded, "It is none of your business."

Lyle Kincheloe, a former board member of the church, says he was "kicked out" of the church — along with several other congregational leaders — when they confronted Holder about missing funds:

"We went on a Wednesday night to hold a meeting to dismiss him. We even had two Kingsport detectives with us. He told us he had done no wrong, we couldn't do this and couldn't have no meeting — so forth and so on."

Oops. That didn’t sit well with the congregation, who notified local police, who launched an investigation into the bank records of both Holder and the church. The findings of that investigation were presented to the grand jury this week, and Holder was indicted for theft of more than $60,000 and money laundering; Kingsport police, citing the ongoing investigation, declined to specify the exact amount of money believed to have been stolen from the church, or what Holder did with the funds.

But, along with the claims of stolen money, Pastor Holder has had two other run-ins with law enforcement over the last six months, and both are linked to his church.

On February 15, 2015 a man told police that when he visited the church to worship, Pastor Holder ordered him to leave, saying the man "was not there for the right reasons." The man refused, saying he was there for the service, and then Holder allegedly "grabbed him by his belt and attempted to lift him out of the pew." Other members of the church stepped in and politely told the man to go, and he did, though he then called police to report the incident.

An earlier incident, back in December 2014, is even more telling: on the afternoon of December 15, an officer observed a large, white passenger van in the rear parking lot of a vacant building. Upon checking the vehicle, the officer found two men engaged in sex acts; one of the men was Pastor Holder., who apologized to the officers and told them the van belonged to the church. The officer told the men not to "have relations in public," then ordered that they leave the property and not return.

Oh, Pastor. Violence; sex in a van; embezzling. God would be so proud of you.

Sidenote: Lyle Kincheloe cautions the public from pointing to Holder's arrest, then using it to paint the religious community with a broad stroke:

"This is an isolated thing. Not all churches are like this. Not all pastors are like this."

Now, that’s true, but it does seem that a lot of men become pastors, and use their churches, and the funds of those churches, for their own personal business, and at all in the name of faith.

Times News

Thousands Show Up In Support Of The LGBT Community In Anti-Worley March

Last Sunday more than 2,000 protesters, armed with signs and slogans, lined ,Southwest Boulevard in Newton, North Carolina, to protest the May 13 sermon by Charles Worley, pastor of Providence Road Baptist Church, in which called for all gays and lesbians to be imprisoned behind an electric fence.

Hmmmm. Maybe an electric fence around North Carolina is in order?

The protesters carried signs in support of the LGBT community; some said things like, “Jesus had 2 dads and he turned out just fine,” and “I am a gay, moral, conservative Christian.”

The local sheriff department and Newton police officers kept the peace as the protesters stood by the side of the road and cheered every time a car drove past and honked in approval.

Of course, there was a counter-protest, as some folks supported Worley and his church, just like some folks in Nazi Germany supported Hitler and his regime. Still, the numbers were way off balance, with just about fifty people carrying signs that said things like, “Sodomites are vile, unnatural and worthy of death. Romans 1:21-32.” And “Gay pride is why Sodom got fried.”

Catawba Valley Citizens Against Hate member Laura Tipton, the protest’s organizer explained her goals for the event: “Hopefully our protest today will send a message that we, as a community, as a state and as a country, will not stand in the background in silent acceptance. This protest has grown beyond Pastor Worley. I hope his congregation sees that we are gathering in love. Their messages are wrong, and we will not accept them.”

Tipton contacted "Pastor"Worley after his sermon, and while he said he made a bad choice in his words, he did not apologize for what he said.

Hitler didn't apologize, either. Let's not ever forget that.....

source

ISBL Asshat of the Week: "Pastor" Charles Worley

Charles Worley calls himself a 'man of God' and preaches his special brand of religion at Providence Road Baptist Church in Maiden, North Carolina.
You know, North Carolina,m where discrimination against LGBT people has been codified into law.
See, last week, while, um, I guess some might call it preaching, while I'd call it hate speaking, "Pastor" Charles  Worley blasted President Obama for his same-sex marriage support.
But he didn't stop there, dontcha know. He went on to offer a "solution" to the Gay Problem: build an electric fence and let "lesbians, queers and homosexuals" starve to death.
Oh, but he did.
"Pastor" Charles Worley:
"I figured a way to get rid of all the lesbians and queers. Build a great, big, large fence — 150 or 100 mile long — put all the lesbians in there... Do the same thing for the queers and the homosexuals and have that fence electrified so they can't get out… And you know what, in a few years, they'll die." 
This sounds familiar. Where have I heard this....oh. Germany. Ovens. Jews.
Yeah, that kind of solution.
And, when asked whom he'll be voting for this November, "Pastor" Charles Fuckwad Worley said: "I'm not going to vote for a baby killer and a homosexual lover." 
And he concluded his message of hate by saying, fort no apparent reason, probably, except he must think a lot about man on man sex, "God have mercy. It makes me pukin' sick to think about — I don't even whether or not to say this in the pulpit — can you imagine kissing some man?" 
I can imagine that one day soon, we'll be hearing the story of Chuckie Worley and some man loving. I mean, what was that thing about the biggest homophobes being, secretly gay? Uh huh.

And, while this story offends me on so many levels, and I poke fun, and name-call, and, perhaps, out a seriously self-loathing closeted homosexual Baptist preacher, all I am really thinking about id a man standing in a church and saying Kill them.

How fucking Christ-like.

via Towleroad

Pastor Byrth Is On A Mission

Religion is a big deal in South Carolina. When i was a kid, i used to marvel at four-way stops on main roads, and how there were gas stations on all four corners. Well, here, it's churches. Everywhere you look, down every street. Churches.

But, one thing we have as much as we have churches, are new HIV/AIDS cases.

In 2007, the rate of diagnosed AIDS cases in the Southeastern United States was much higher than in other regions of the country: 9.2 per 100,000 people, versus 2.5 in the Midwest, 3.9 in the West and 5.6 in the Northeast.

And rural areas like Dorchester, South Carolina, have it particularly bad. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] reports that while HIV diagnoses have slowly decreased in metropolitan areas since 1985, rural areas are still showing an increase because of stigma, poor education and a lack of funding.

Which brings me to Brenda Byrth. She's the pastor at Bibleway Holiness Church in Dorchester, one of the smaller towns in a state filled with small towns. And she is on a mission.

You know, working to keep marriage equality off the books. No? Not that.

Well, then, she must be trying to keep discrimination laws against the LGBT community on the books. Not that either.

So, what's her mission?

At Byrth's church, with a congregation of about 25, she holds monthly HIV/AIDS awareness meetings. And she usually has about 10 or 12 people attend these meetings, which shows the impact that HIV/AIDS is having on the South.

Pastor Byrth and her husband, Carl

That's Pastor Byrth's mission.

And while it wasn't exactly her choice, it may be her calling. Brenda Byrth says herself that she really doesn't want to be where she is....in rural South Carolina. She's a big city gal, and can't even explain it herself how she ended up in a town of less than 3,000: "I'm pretty sure you can't get more rural than this."

But her mother is why she came, and why she's stayed. Byrth spent part of her childhood in Dorchester before leaving to go to college. She wasn't planning on coming back. She eventually moved to Europe with her husband, Carl, and their five girls. But when her father died of lung cancer and her mother, Marie, had a stroke, Byrth returned to South Carolina to take care of her.

At the time, Byrth's mother, Marie, was the pastor of Bibleway Holiness Church. And Marie wanted her daughter to take over, but Brenda Byrth said no. "I said, 'I'd give my life for you, but I can't do that,' " Brenda Byrth says. "I saw how my mom had run herself into the ground. I didn't want to do that. I wanted to go on a cruise, take a vacation. Mom just said, 'You'll do it.' Turns out, she was right."

And her mission to help Dorchester, and all 3,000 of its inhabitants began.

On a muddy clay road.

When Dorchester's Marion Road got rained on, it literally washed away, and that meant meant no school for the kids, no church services, no vehicles in or out. And folks there were used to it. But then, after a brutal thunderstorm that flooded the area, an elderly man died and the ambulance couldn't reach him for three days because a thunderstorm had flooded the area.

Brenda Byrth was enraged: "Some of the men in our community rolled up their pants legs, got the stretcher and went and got him, and brought him out to the end of the road."
Byrth attended county council meetings every month for two years before the council finally agreed to pay to put asphalt on the road. Then she started hearing about other parishioners who were too old or sick to leave their houses. She began delivering food and clothing to people in a 40-mile radius of the church.

On a mission.

"My mom always said: Just standing around and looking doesn't help the problem, you've got to get involved. Even when it's someone else's problem, it's your community, and you're a part of that community."

And it was during a visit to the "sick and shut-in" that Byrth had her first encounter with AIDS in Dorchester. A new couple had moved to town and Brenda Byrth heard that the husband was ill. She decided to pay the family a visit and see what she could do.

When she got to the house, she found the middle-aged man, scarcely able to breathe, lying on excrement-soiled sheets. His wife had gone away.

In a perfect world, Brenda Byrth would have reached the man in time, and fought to get him a doctor and medicines, and the man would have lived a far longer life. But, as far too often happens, the man died, and Brenda Byrth discovered HIV/AIDS in rural South Carolina.

"I said if things can't change, then I need to leave, because I can't live like this."
Byrth stayed in Dorchester. She is raising awareness for HIV/AIDS in her congregation of 25, where almost half show up to meetings. She is visiting those with HIV/AIDS and shwoing her town, and all the other small towns, that you needed be afraid, you needn't pack up and leave. You just lend a hand.

Yep, churches on every corner in these parts, but when even one houses someone like Pastor Brenda Byrth, it all seems to make sense.


source

NOM Goes To Iowa, And They Don't Want 'Em There

The Reverend Rich Hendricks, an openly gay Davenport, Iowa pastor is criticizing the National Organization for Marriage [NOM] in regards to a sign that showed up at one of its recent rallies displaying two nooses as the “solution to gay marriage.”

Hendricks, of the Metropolitan Community Church of the Quad-Cities, said his denomination has issued a call for the anti-gay marriage advocacy group, to denounce the sign, saying, at a Stand proud, Vote Proud rally, “Iowans, do you want to support an organization that refuses to denounce lynchings as a solution to a problem?”

NOM’s Failed Summer for Marriage tour, and the pro-gay marriage Stand Proud, Vote Proud tour recently crossed paths in Sioux City, Iowa, where Davenport Alderman Bill Boom called NOM activists “out-of-state antagonists” who are building discrimination and hate in Iowa over the issue.

Boom cited recent reports that the marriage equality ruling has contributed to the number of marriages spiking for the first time in four years in Iowa. He added that in the past year, Iowa posted the lowest number of divorces since 1970.

“We’re doing something right,” he said.

But ... Maggie Gallagher, NOM's Minister Of Hate, said her organization had asked the participant at the July 26 rally in Indianapolis to remove his sign and called the participant “disturbed.” She said gay marriage proponents have been jumping on the sign incident to “blame the majority of Americans who believe marriage is one man, one woman.”

Wow. We have a lot of nerve getting annoyed by a sign that says, in effect, Kill The Gays.

Sorry we bothered you Maggie.

But, um, would you be annoyed if I carried a sign with two nooses on it as a solution for ridding the world of lonely, ugly, spinster women with mustaches?

I mean, that'd hit close to home, wouldn't it MagPie?

Asshat.

Glass Houses and Such

T.D. Jakes is a pastor at one of those megachurches, this one in Dallas. And of course, being that he needs the cash to feed his ego, er, his lavish lifestyle, I mean, uh, church, Jakes sermonizes all kinds of anti-gay hate. He has said that he would never hire a sexually active gay person, is (obviously) against same-sex marriage, and has called homosexuality a "brokenness."

Brokenness.

Pot.

Kettle.

Black

See, 'cuz this minister of hate's son was arrested in a sex sting after approaching law enforcement officers in a park and exposed himself to them while masturbating. Yes, indeedy, young Jermaine Jakes pulled out his weenie in front of cops and gave it a little stroke-me-stoke-me to boot.

Daddy done raised a good boy. A good boy so obviously full of self-loathing that he takes to jerkin' off in parks for a good time.

According to the Dallas Voice: "Jermaine Donnell Jakes, 29, faces a charge of indecent exposure after allegedly exposing himself in front of two undercover vice detectives shortly after 10 p.m. on Jan. 3. Senior Cpl. Janice Crowther, a DPD spokeswoman, confirmed Thursday, Feb. 12 that the detectives were both male. According to an arrest affidavit, the detectives were conducting an investigation into citizen complaints of sexual activity when they observed Jakes and several other unknown males park their vehicles in the lot east of the park at 2106 W. Kiest Blvd. The detectives followed Jakes into a wooded area, where he approached them with his penis exposed through his unzipped pants, the affidavit states. Jakes masturbated for several seconds while making eye contact with one of the detectives. Jakes made no attempt to conceal his penis despite people walking and jogging on a trail nearby, the affidavit states. According to court records, Jermaine Jakes listed his place of employment as T.D. Jakes Ministries."

So, the masturbator works in Daddy's church?

The flock is gonna love that. Until Daddy T.D. calls his son a sickness, a brokenness, and offers to counsel the lad to put him back on the ' ahem,' straight and narrow. See, T.D. needs some damage control; his ministry, Potter House, has a membership of 30,000, and that's a whole bunch of money comin' in each week.

Seriously though, when are these supposed 'men of God' going to start checking themselves before they cast that first stone.

Jimmy Swaggart anyone?

Ted Haggard ring a bell?

All of these holier-than-thou-holy-rollers need to take a step back and realize that the world is made up of all kinds of folks, and they ought not be demonizing any one group lest they are secure in the fact that they aren't a member of said group.

Or the father of a member.