ABC News
6 Children in Ark. Custody After Raid on Compound

Six minors have been temporarily placed in state custody as part of a child porn investigation after a raid on a ministry run by a man who says "consent is puberty" when it comes to sex, officials said Sunday.

The children will be in the custody of the Arkansas Department of Human Services as investigators interview them, state police spokesman Bill Sadler said in a statement.

Well done Arkansas Child Protective Services.

I've stayed away from Daily Kos because y'all know why, but there's one poster there, DogEmperor, who is the go-to guy for all your Christianist/Dominionist research needs:

http://dogemperor.dailykos.com/

I started out with Palin, went to Assemblies of God and the cell-church movement (in which he might fail to account for Saddleback and their adaptation of that approach for more mainstream megachurches), and fell into Amway, Hobby Lobby and US Plastics -- the corporations that back the takeover (steeplejacking) of non-cult churches until they spill out with feral Russian murderous homophobes. It's like a horror show with Air Force access to nukes, and The Family having access to Senator Clinton.

Times:

In the long-running culture war between evolution and creationism, Philadelphia is firing the latest shot.

Nine academic, scientific and cultural institutions around the city are holding a Year of Evolution, a series of exhibitions, seminars and lectures to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin next February, and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his seminal work, “The Origin of Species.”

And if the Christianists are offended....

Now we've got the goods. Via the great Avedon, this from Christine Wicker:

A Southern Baptist by birth, and still a self-described evangelical, Wicker decided to investigate conventional wisdom about the numerical strength of America's moral majority. What she found should embarrass the secular media almost as much as it should evangelical leaders. The National Association of Evangelical's claim to represent 30 million souls? Wicker says the actual number is closer to 4.5 million. The Southern Baptist's Convention's estimate of 16 million members? Try a quarter of that number.

In her own words: "The idea that evangelicals are taking over America is one of the greatest publicity scams in history, a perfect coup accomplished by savvy politicos and religious leaders, who understand media weaknesses and exploit them brilliantly,"

Well, so much for the great and powerful Christ. One question:

[Read Vast Left first for more red meat. And now for the steak Tartare....]

OBAMA: "We do what we do because God is with us."

People, good news! Now Obama's whoring his religion to get elected just like Bush, Huckabee, and the Christianist right! Not that there's anything wrong with that. If Obama wants to bring low information voters, Hillary Haters, and Christianist theocrats into Unity with the rest of us as Democrats for a day in the primaries, then more charisma to him, say I. (Of course, if Obama really wants to get into bed with the Christianists, he should go in for fraud and misappropriation of assets, or possibly clergy sex abuse.*)

Give. Me. A. Fucking. Break.

Naturally, since Glenn called bullshit, the Oborg is out in full force explaining, yet again, what Obama "really means."

Orwell's definition can't be put forward too often, especially for those Conservatives who believe that "we create our own reality" (and are well-funded to do so):

The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them... To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies — all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth.

I thought of doublethink reading tristero on the tender sensibilities that Christianist loons like Huckabee display when the very word "evolution" is mentioned.

You can be sure that if a child unlucky enough to have a Christianist for a parent is in the hospital and gets an infection from a superbug, the parent will demand, and rightly so, the very latest antibiotic for treatment--even though the superbug evolved, in historical time, from an "arms race" by micro-organisms against anti-biotics, and even though anti-biotics were originally evolved by fungi or bacteria in an earlier arms race. [Apologies in advance to any scientists reading this!]

And yet that same Christianist parent who reaps the benefits of science will go home, go to the school board that night, and try to get a teaching scientist fired for espousing the very science that saved his child's life; will, in Orwell's prophetic words, "deny the existence of objective reality and all the while ... take account of the reality which one denies."

Sure, the Christianists and the latest head of their secular church, Mike Huckabee, can go Fuck themselves, right out in the public square, I hope, and with a great deal of fuss and noise, but what I want to know is this:

Is a cure for doublethink possible?

Scratch the surface of any anti-choice man, and you'll always find the same thing:

Aubert looks startled. "I never really thought about it for the woman," he says slowly.

But she's supposed to be thinking of your pathetic needs every hour of every fucking day?

Of course you didn't think of her, you sick fuck. What is it with these men? Oh, that's right- they believe there are only two heads that matter in the world, and both of them are attached to their bodies.

Grrr. Sorry, I'm too angry to post on this in detail. I think it's been around for a while and I just missed it, forgive the link-only post. Blah, Blah, women are chattel, men their Gawd-appointed owners, no man should be denied the right to his use of my womb.

/erasing rage-filled invective towards men who are so insecure they feel compelled to control women to compensate/

The former chaplain of the Miami Dolphins is accused of molesting a teenage boy over a five-year period in the 1970s.

[Rev. Donald] Walk worked as a priest at St. James Catholic Church during the same years as the Rev. Anthony Mercieca, who is now implicated in the sexual abuse of former Rep. Mark Foley when Foley was a teenage altar boy.

 Read more…

"I don't want to stop loving. I don't want to stop sharing."

So says former Monsignor Dale Fushek, who's defying the Diocese of Phoenix by continuing to conduct worship, for worshipful crowds, while up on "sex charges stemming from his relationship with five teenage boys between 1984 and 1993 at St. Timothy's. Fushek is accused of engaging in explicit conversations about sex with the boys, inviting one into his bed and his hot tub, 'kissing and snuggling' the boys and exposing himself to a boy."

The Church previously settled, for $100,000, "a civil suit [that] accused him of watching and performing a sex act on himself while another priest had sex with a boy."

Poor bastard (huge fair-used slabs of the story here, since the details of the abuse of power are so vivid. Now we know who really wired up the bomb, eh?

The suspect arrested for allegedly holding hostages at Sen. Hillary Clinton's New Hampshire presidential campaign headquarters claimed a history of abuse at the hands of a priest, who has since been defrocked amid allegations of sexually abusing young men.

Leeland E. Eisenberg, formerly known as Ralph Woodward, sued the Archdiocese of Boston and Cardinal Bernard Law in 2002 for negligence and infliction of emotional distress, alleging that at a young and vulnerable point in his life he was molested by the Rev. Richard Buntel.

Eisenberg claimed in his lawsuit that in or around 1982 or 1983, when he was about 21 years old, he was "homeless and living in abandoned cars in a local junk yard" in Ayer, Mass., at least in part as a result of the death of his mother and a traumatic childhood at the hands of his "violent, alcoholic father."

Eisenberg went to St. Catherine's Parish in Westford, Mass., where he asked for help. The Rev. Daniel Cronin, who was the senior priest, hired Eisenberg to paint the church in exchange for room and board. Eisenberg was given a cot in the boiler room.

On Cronin's days off, Buntel, also a priest at St. Catherine's, would take Eisenberg out for lunch and drinks. Back at the rectory, Cronin allegedly continued to offer Eisenberg "numerous drinks."

After that, Buntel -- who was later forced to resign as a priest -- "would bring out a box of pornographic material, sit beside the plaintiff" -- Eisenberg -- "on a couch, pull out pornographic pictures and magazines and insist the plaintiff look at the pornographic materials," the suit alleged. "Father Buntel would then sexually molest the plaintiff."

Eisenberg claimed that the incidents made him suicidal. The suit, filed by the law firm Greenburg Traurig, claimed that Eisenberg "felt that he needed to stay in the good graces of Father Buntel," since he relied upon him for food and shelter, and feared if he offended the priest his "only means of survival would be ripped away from him."

Concerns about Buntel's inappropriate behavior with alcohol and young men had been voiced as early as 1983, according to documents provided on the Web site BishopAccountability.org. A fellow priest, the Rev. John D'Arcy, wrote to the Archdiocese in 1983 (LINK) that "I think that these allegations are true."

Thanks, Bernie. Nice work. And to think you were running for Pope, back in the day.

Yet another reason the anti-sex Christianist enclaves in the Red States are so--forgive the expression--fucked up. A new identical twins study at the University of Virginia:

The researchers analyzed data on 534 same-sex twin pairs in the United States gathered at three time points over a seven-year period. By examining surveys of twins, the investigators were able to eliminate the genetic and socio-economic variables that otherwise might influence the behaviors of adolescents.

"We got a very surprising finding, particularly that early sex seems to forecast less antisocial behavior a few years later, rather than more," said Kathryn Paige Harden, the study's lead author and a Ph.D. candidate in clinical psychology at the University of Virginia.

Well, I always knew sex was good for something!

Dollar Cross: "A Christ-Centered Dollar Store."

They've even got a close-out section:

1. Jeff Gannon bobble-head dolls: Only $1.00! Putting the "bob" in "bobble"!

But read on for even better deals:

Ho, hum, the hits keep coming.

I'm all for the 50-state strategy, but it's very telling what kind of Democrat the Village gets excited about, and what kind it ignores (Donna Edwards). WaPo:

Evangelical Democrat Stirs the Pot in Miss.
A wealthy evangelical Christian, John Arthur Eaves Jr., is running a campaign for governor that is rife with what Jesus might do.

He talks about banishing "the money changers" from state politics and about a health-care proposal focusing on the "least among us" -- just as Jesus would -- and the cornerstone of his stump speech is familiar to anyone who knows the bit in Matthew 6:24 about "Ye cannot serve God and Mammon."

The 41-year-old plaintiff attorney is waging what might be the most overtly Christian-inspired statewide race in a long time.

Which is quite a statement, given that this is Mississippi.

Jeebus, what's wrong with these people? Do they think they're Catholic priests, or what? Just plain Republicans?

AP:

The amended complaint also included an internal ministry report, titled "Scandal Vulnerability Assessment," documenting allegations of misconduct by the university and the Roberts family. Only a partial report was included in the Oct. 2 lawsuit.

The more detailed account alleges Richard Roberts' wife, Lindsay, spent the night in the ORU guest house with an underage male "on nine separate occasions," and was photographed 29 times with an underage male in her sports car, among other allegations.

You know who this is reminding me of, right?

[Welcome, TPM readers. Welcome, Laodicea readers.] As we keep saying, authoritarian systems are extremely vulnerable to fraud, because authoritarian followers aren't capable of providing checks and balances for their leaders, and the leaders are always tempted by the usual suspects: Money, power, and sex. Latest example: Oral Roberts [cough] "University," which is about as much a university as Monica Goodling's Regent "University," or bad pizza billionaire and uber-Catholic loon Tom Monahan's Ave Maria. I'll skip right to the juiciest details:

An ORU student repairing [the laptop of Stephanie Cantese, Richard Roberts' sister-in-law] discovered the document and later provided a copy to one of the professors.

It details dozens of alleged instances of misconduct. Among them:

• A longtime maintenance employee was fired so that an underage male friend of Mrs. Roberts could have his position.
• Mrs. Roberts — who is a member of the board of regents and is referred to as ORU's "first lady" on the university's [sic] Web site — frequently had cell-phone bills of more than $800 per month, with hundreds of text messages sent between 1 a.m. to 3 a.m. to "underage males who had been provided phones at university expense."

Sounds like she's been taking lessons from Mark Foley (R-Neverland), although, granted, Foley ("Don't forget to measure for me") used IM, not text. Honestly, what is it about Christianist authority figures and child abuse? It's like being a sex predator is part of the job description, or something; at this point, these guys have a track record, and there's example after example after example.

More of the sadly familiar, yet still lurid, details:

We've really got to stop using the term "mercenaries" for Blackwater, and start using the term "Christianist mercenaries." Because it's true:

Erik Prince is 37 years old. He founded Blackwater in 1997 with money he inherited from his father, Edgar Prince, the head of Prince Automative. The elder Prince and his wife were major Republican and conservative activists and funders. And Prince himself co-founded The Family Research Council with Gary Bauer and apparently provided the key early funding for the group.

According to Bauer, "I can say without hesitation that, without Ed and Elsa and their wonderful children, there simply would not be a Family Research Council."

Prince's sister, Betsy DeVos, is married is the former Chair of the Michigan Republican Party and her husband is Dick DeVos, failed candidate for governor of Michigan and scion of the DeVos family, founders of Amway and major funders of Republican and conservative causes.

Amway is privately owned by the DeVos and van Andel families. And to give some sense of the scale of their political giving, according to a 2005 Center for Public Integrity study, Dick & Betsy DeVos were the fifth largest political givers in the country during the 2004 election cycle. Richard DeVos Sr. & his wife were ranked third. And Jay Van Andel was ranked second.

In addition to running Blackwater Prince also serves on the board of Christian Freedom International [Blackwater's marketing arm].

Well, great. The winger billionaires, the Christianists, and the Republican Party have a private army under their control. But don't worry! I'm sure they'll never use it here! (Not. And not.)

And what an army it is! So many lovely details, but this is one is my favorite:

It's like reality has turned into a bad joke! Ruth at CabDrollery, quoting the LA Times:

Last week, after an investigation spurred by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, the Pentagon abruptly announced that it would not be delivering "freedom packages" to our soldiers in Iraq, as it had originally intended.

What were the packages to contain? Not body armor or home-baked cookies. Rather, they held Bibles, proselytizing material in English and Arabic and the apocalyptic computer game "Left Behind: Eternal Forces" (derived from the series of post-Rapture novels), in which "soldiers for Christ" hunt down enemies who look suspiciously like U.N. peacekeepers.

Maybe this will be their plan for health care as well?

The Charlotte Observer:

Coy Privette, a retired Baptist pastor, conservative lawmaker and outspoken advocate for Christian groups, was charged Thursday with paying a prostitute for sex acts.

The 74-year-old Cabarrus County commissioner was arrested at his home in Kannapolis early Thursday. He appeared before a Rowan County magistrate on six misdemeanor charges and was released on a promise to appear in court Aug. 22. He did not return e-mails or calls to his cell and home phones, and no one answered the door at his Kannapolis home.

Privette, a prominent Republican with a 30-year career, is one of the state's most vocal opponents against alcohol sales and legal gambling. He also serves on the State Baptist Convention of North Carolina and as president of the Christian Action League of North Carolina.

When, oh when, are the Christianists going to start cleaning up their own house, stop trying to legislate for the rest of us, and give us all some peace and quiet? (see Haggard 6:9, and Matthew 7:5).

Since the Inerrantwordagawd says that consorting with harlots is an an "abomination" (Deuteronomy 23:18), shouldn't each and every Christianist be picking up a stone and hurling it at Diaper Davey just about now?

Instead, the Vitters dump this steaming load of self-serving and sanctimonious crap right into the middle of the public square they keep yammering about. The presser:

[WENDY VITTER:] To those of you who know me, are you surprised that I have something to say? You know, in most any other marriage, this would have been a private issue between a husband and a wife -- very private. Obviously, it is not here.

How far away those happy, innocent days seem when you guys spent $20 million dollars investigating a blowjob and concocting a perjury trap for two consenting adults who didn't break any laws (as your husband did).

And now I'm going to speak to you as a mother and I hope you will understand. It's been terribly hard to have the media parked on our front lawn and following us every day. And yesterday, the media was camped at our church -- at our home, and at our church every day.

Boo fucking hoo. I'm playing the world's smallest violin for you, Wendy. You guys are the ones who want the church in the public square, and then when the public wants to see who's going in and out the church door, you whine about how "terribly hard" [snicker] it all is. You're the ones who wanted the government in Terry Shiavo's bedroom, and played political football with a dying woman's body, and now you whine about your precious privacy?

[DAVID VITTER:] Wendy and I dealt with this personally several years ago. I confronted it in confession and marriage counseling. I believe I received forgiveness from God. I know I did from Wendy, and we put it behind us.

Apparently, for a Christianist going to confession and doing a little counselling trumps breaking the law, not just Deuteronomy 23:18, but state and Federal statutes, as well. Good to keep that in mind when we're dealing with the rest of the Christianists in Bush's criminal regime.

Since then, I've gotten up every morning [boo hoo], committed to trying to live up to the important values we believe in. If continuing to believe in and acknowledge those values causes some to attack me because of my past failings, well, so be it.

Didn't The Onlybegottensonagawd have something to say about this? (Luke 6:42) But what we get instead from these guys is this:

"Values for thee, but not for me."

And that's the crux of the matter, isn't it?

Josh Marshall has the no-longer astonishing scene where Christian [sic] right activists disrupt a Hindu chaplain's prayer in the Senate.

"This is an abomination," [the first MBF] continued. "We shall have no other gods before You."

Splendid. Always something to look forward to!

I imagine they'll turn to bombings and assassinations next; although this time it won't be clinics and doctors in service of forced pregnancy; it will be liberals and other traitors who don't believe this is a Christianist nation.

[Welcome, so-called Anglicans! And just so you know I haven't forgotten you....]

You remember the Scaife-funded gay hater Episcopalians? The ones who had to go to Nigeria to outsource Bishops who hated gays enough to satisfy them?

Well--and of course, it's never about the money--they don't get to break away from the Church and take the buildings with them, because the buildings (duh) belong to the Diocese. LA Times:

In a victory for the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, a state appeals panel has upheld the diocese's claim to the buildings and other property of three conservative parishes that had severed their ties with the diocese.

The unanimous decision by a panel of the appeals court in Santa Ana reversed lower court rulings in the case, which involves St. James Church in Newport Beach, All Saints Church in Long Beach and St. David's Church in North Hollywood.

The ruling was reached late Monday by a three-judge panel of the 4th District Court of Appeal.

In August 2004, the dissident parishes pulled out of the six-county Los Angeles Diocese and the 2.3-million-member Episcopal Church, citing differences over biblical interpretation, including what they described as the diocese's too-lenient views on homosexuality. Instead, they placed themselves under the jurisdiction of a conservative Anglican bishop in Uganda.

The Los Angeles Diocese sued, arguing that the parishes held their church buildings in trust for the diocese and the national Episcopal Church and thus were not entitled to the property. An Orange County trial judge, in separate decisions, had ruled in favor of the parishes.

Good. And anything that makes life harder for these assholes is good. These people should check their Bibles and look in their hearts, if any. Luke 7:36-47:

More like this, please:

"Somehow, somewhere along the way, faith stopped being used to bring us together and started being used to drive us apart. It got hijacked," the Democratic presidential candidate said in remarks prepared for delivery before the national meeting of the United Church of Christ.

"Part of it's because of the so-called leaders of the Christian Right, who've been all too eager to exploit what divides us," the Illinois senator said.

"At every opportunity, they've told evangelical Christians that Democrats disrespect their values and dislike their church, while suggesting to the rest of the country that religious Americans care only about issues like abortion and gay marriage, school prayer and intelligent design," according to an advance copy of his speech.

"There was even a time when the Christian Coalition determined that its number one legislative priority was tax cuts for the rich," Obama said. "I don't know what Bible they're reading, but it doesn't jibe with my version."

So, Obama, too, is going to start talking honestly about class? If so, it's a two-fer. Excellent!

However, I must disagree with one point Obama made:

At the end of a very long story about how the Bush administration has remade the Department of Justice, we get this extremely buried lead.

It looks like the loyal Bushes are giving Christianists bonuses just because they're Christianists. Hey, doing well by doing good, eh?

Several career lawyers said that some political appointees favored the religious-oriented employees, intervening to steer $1,000 to $4,000 annual merit bonuses to them.

Well, of course, that's only a few thousand, right?

Words fail me.

Via Bernstein's WaPo chat:

In the first month of the Clinton presidency she joined a women's prayer group whose members included Susan Baker, the wife of Reagan-Bush chief of staff/sec. of state James Baker, as well as the wife of the Washington Redskins chaplain who was also the minister of the McLean church where Kenneth Starr and other conservative Republican luminaries worship.

These women sent Hillary scripture readings, came to the White House to pray with and for her, and generally were a welcome source of strength and friendship for her throughout the White House years, and especially as the Lewinsky ugliness moved relentlessly through her life.

Kneel down with dogs, get up with fleas, eh?

No, but seriously. The "ugliness"? WTF? Did the "Lewinsky ugliness" drop like the gentle dew from Heaven? Like an act of God?