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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