Louisiana Voice

There’s a meme floating around in cyberspace that says, “Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.”

It was meant to convey the idea that much of today’s political philosophy and the division that goes with it is driven by religious convictions but it could just as aptly apply to the myriad stories of sexual abuse within churches, both Catholic and Protestant.

There are those who would argue that the number of incidents of sexual abuse in churches is miniscule when compared to the number of churches and that may be true, but the counter argument is that any sexual abuse in the church is excessive, intolerable and unforgiveable, especially when that abuse involves children.

In May 2022, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) somewhat reluctantly released the names of more than 400 of its ministers, counselors and other church workers identified as alleged SEXUAL ABUSERS that had been kept a closely-guarded secret for years.

Texas easily topped the list with 76 accused, followed by Georgia in a distant second with 30.

Fifteen were identified from LOUISIANA.

Though the overall numbers paled in comparison to number of the Catholic priests accused of sexual abuse, the totals for the Baptists were no less significant in that the SBC had successfully covered up the scandal that had been bubbling beneath the façade of judgmental purity and righteousness for decades.

It should be pointed out that the SBC sexual abuse scandal involved adulterous trysts between adults as well as children, for the most part girls, the Catholic disgrace mainly involved sex between priests and underage boys.

It should also be emphasized that the SBC offenses did not include other Protestant denominations like Methodists, Pentecostals or Mormons, each of which had their own sexual demons to contend with.

The problem of sexual abuse among Protestant clergy has been termed by some as a “crisis,” but the prolonged history of sex abuse instead is indicative of a persistent pattern of ministers taking advantage of their positions of power, influence, authority and perceived righteousness to “groom” children and in many cases, adult, vulnerable women.

Some abuse starts early. A former Baptist missionary was found guilty in 2023 of sexually abusing a four-year-old family member who later tested positive for gonorrhea while another began grooming a girl when she was seven, at one time masturbating while she sat on his lap. And when still another admitted to an unspecific adulterous affair, a woman in the congregation stood and announced that the “affair” began with her not an adult but it was when she was twelve that he seduced her on his office floor. He was “forgiven” by his family, his congregation and by God and continued his ministry while she was ostracized as the temptress.

Especially loathsome are the stories of ministers who told their prepubescent victims that it was “God’s will” that they submit to the reverend’s sexual desires or that they would be condemned to eternal damnation if they refused or if they ever told anyone

As often as not, when discovered, ministers tearfully “confess” to an undisclosed moral weakness and the congregation not only forgives but often applauds the sinner. The sickest aspect of that scenario is that the woman – or in some cases, the underage female – victim is forced to stand before the congregation and plead for forgiveness for tempting the goodly spiritual leader, especially in an offshoot of the Baptist Church identified as the INDEPENDENT FUNDAMENTAL BAPTIST (IFB) Church.

This post in no way is intended as an indictment of all of Louisiana’s 65 IFB churches, but the practice of such widespread sexual abuse in it and SBC churches is alarming. In 2018, the FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM identified 412 allegations of abuse implicating 168 IFB church leaders at 187 IFB churches and institutions in 40 states and Canada.

Not all accusations of abuse involved sexual abuse. Some are simply too horrible to even believe possible. The IBF, for example, subscribes to a philosophy of child “discipline,” beginning at an early age. As barbaric as this may appear, it isn’t unusual for an IBF family, influenced by the church, to begin spanking infants as young as FOUR MONTHS. In one case, an IBF pastor encouraged parents to begin spanking two-week-old infants for “crying too much.”

ABC News, in its 20/20 program, in April 2011 told of a couple who literally BEAT THEIR SEVEN-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER TO DEATH while adhering to the teachings of Mihael and Debi Pearl in their book To Train Up a Child, a book pushed by an IBF-affiliated college. The couple spanked the child for seven hours, pausing only for bathroom breaks and prayer.

Paul Rytting is a Utah attorney who headed up the Risk Management Division of the CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS, aka the Mormons. For 15 years his job was to protect the church from legal claims, including sexual abuse litigation. Part of that job was to offer hundreds of thousands of dollars in exchange for confidentiality agreements – also known as hush money. One of those cases involved getting Chelsea Goodrich, by then 31 years old, to destroy recordings of the times that her father, a former bishop in the church, would slip into bed with her when she was a child and he was aroused.

In Arizona, that state’s Supreme Court in 2023 issued a RULING that the Mormon Church did not have to answer questions or turn over documents under a state law that exempted religious officials from having to report child sex abuse they learn about during confessional settings after two sisters filed a lawsuit claiming that the church had covered up its knowledge that their father had sexually abused them for seven years, beginning in 2010.

TWELVE TRIBES sect, described in some stories as a cult, believes in child labor and child discipline to the extreme. Matthew Klein said the church has child training manuals that provide detailed instructions on discipline of children, starting as young as six months old. “They would get spanked from morning and night,” Klein said, “20 to 30 times a day.”

All these Protestant denominations have one insidious thing in common with those pedophilic Catholic priests: child abuse. Whether that abuse is physical, psychological or sexual, and even when it’s carried out in the name of God, it’s still abuse and should never be tolerated – or forgiven. And a 12- or 13-year-old should certainly never be made to stand in front of a congregation and apologize for “tempting” a grown-ass man.

LouisianaVoice is in its October fund drive and your support is vital to our continuing to bring you stories like the one below about the LSU Board of Supervisors in particular and the threat to higher education in Louisiana in general.

With Gov. Jeff Landry and the Louisiana Legislature making public records ever more difficult to obtain, however, our work will become more challenging. But LouisianaVoice is determined to continue its fight to make government and public officials accountable.

Whether is profiteering from privatizing prisons and other government services, furtive efforts to feather the nest of state employees in retirement, using campaign funds for personal purposes, efforts to destroy the careers of honest men and women or it’s about sheriffs and police who bend the law to their wills, LouisianaVoice has been there for you for nearly 14 years.

This is what we do. We attempt to shine lights into the darkest recesses of state and local government to let you know what your elected officials are up to. They’re not too fond of us but you have a right to know what they’re doing.

If you like what LouisianaVoice does, we invite you to support us. There is no subscription fee for LouisianaVoice because I want our information to be available to everyone. We don’t accept advertising because I don’t want anyone to think they can buy us. So, the only financial support we receive is from your generous contributions – and we come with hat in hand only twice a year – in October and April.

For this month’s drive, the most generous donor will receive an original copy of Huey Long’s autobiography Every Man A King, published in 1933 by the now defunct National Book Co. of New Orleans. It’s a collector’s item valued at $100. Leo Honeycutt’s biography of Edwin Edwards will be awarded on a lottery basis with everyone who contributes $100 or more eligible for the drawing. The book is signed by both Honeycutt and Edwards.

Finally, a signed copy of my latest book, The Mission, will go to everyone who gives $50 or more. Because of the book’s ending, it should be explained in advance that it was originally written in 2018 as an e-book, long before recent events, but its ending reads like current news.

You may send a check to 107 North College Street West, Denham Springs, LA 70726 or you may contribute by credit card by clicking on the YELLOW BUTTON to the right of this post and following directions. Whichever method you choose, please know that I deeply appreciate your support. 

In the antebellum South (the “good ol’ days” to Republikkkans) if a slave displayed the proper amount of fealty to the “Massah,” he might be promoted from a field hand to the “big house.”

That’s what appears to have occurred on the LSU campus as university President William Tate quietly remained in his place as the historically political LSU Board of Supervisors bent to the will of Gov. Jeff Landry by voting to further erode student diversity.

With the exception of Jimmie Woods, all Black members of the board also took a powder and didn’t hang around for the vote on the resolution, which passed without objection – not even from Woods.

But wait. Woods is chairman so he kinda had to stick around until the meeting adjourned and he probably likes being chairman, so let’s not be to too generous in giving him a pass.

The board voted, sort of quasi-unanimously given the three conspicuous absences, to ABOLISH all diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs at the university, a move that, coupled with looming budget cuts across the higher education board, is likely to have the dual-effect of seeing yet another exodus of professors and instructors while making the dream of college even more elusive for marginalized students.

But then, hell, that’s what the Republikkkans have been striving for all along – ever since one Ronald Reagan while governor of California said the state could no longer afford “intellectual luxuries” and that taxpayers should not have to subsidize “intellectual curiosity.” Later, as president, he expressed doubt as to whether students should be permitted, or are even qualified, to choose what they study. One of Reagan’s reasons for increasing tuition to attend college was to “get rid of undesirables.” One of his advisors while governor and later as president, Stanford economics professor Roer Freeman, went even further when he said, “We have to be selective on who we allow to go through [higher education].”

It’s a concept that obviously resonated with Republikkkans who, increasingly, have been encroaching on academic freedom (and access) in higher education. Make no mistake, it’s an insidious campaign to turn education into something available only to elitists.

So, now LSU has awarded Tate with a $750,000 salary with the possibility of picking up an additional $650,000 in incentives. Apparently one of those incentives is keeping his mouth shut as academic freedoms at the university are further eroded.

And as for Collis Temple, James Williams and Valencia Sarpy Jones, the three Black members (other than Woods), the perks that go with board membership apparently are enough for them to leave the room when the vote on the resolution came up for what turned out to be a quick non-discussion vote.

So, bottom line is LSU is fast becoming the sequel to Uncle Tom’s Cabin. It’s that, or the three members were so ill-informed that they were the only ones not sufficiently versed on the content of the resolution before it was voted on. Either way, there’s no excuse for their failure to stand up for the principles of diversity and inclusion.

Just so you know it’s not just control of LSU, Landry, given authority to appoint the heads of all boards and commissions, promptly named Misti Cordell as chairperson of the Louisiana Board of Regents, the governing board of higher education that sets policy for the state’s four public higher education systems. Cordell was appointed despite her lack of qualifications in administering higher education. Her background is as a physician recruiter for Affinity Health Group. But that matters little for a governor determined to push through his agenda.

But back to LSU. By their silence, the Black board members in effect condone a return to the Jim Crow days of separate drinking fountains and back of the bus seating.

Except for football and basketball, of course. On the playing field and on the court, diversity and inclusion means equity (hopefully superiority) and glory for the Ole War Skule. The ability to compete in those areas is far more important that the ability to remain competitive in the classroom or in research.

But hey! Let’s wish William Tate well as he toils away in the “Big House.”

There have been countless pundits, including yours truly, who have compared Donald Trump to Hitler. Many of those comparisons, sadly, are accurate.

But one doesn’t have to go all the way back to 1934 when President Hindenburg died and Hitler combined the offices of president and chancellor into one.

Nor is it necessary to look to events in Germany to get an idea of how one charismatic person possessing fiery rhetoric can whip an entire country into a frenzy with lies and deceit.

A much shorter trip, both in terms of time and distance is all that is needed to understand that Trump is following a well-worn path to power that was blazed by despots before him.

Take a trip back to 1959 and just 90 miles from the southernmost point in the U.S. and you have Fidel Castro and his Cuban revolution that deposed Fulgencio Batista.

Under Batista, Cuba was corrupt to the core, to be sure. The American Mafia controlled the island’s casinos and hotels and native Cubans slaved their lives away on U.S. corporation-owned sugar plantations for scant pay.

Castro set out to change that with the backing of many powerful figures in Washington. President Eisenhower and his Vice President Richard were not among them, however. When Castro visited Washington, Ike conveniently went golfing in Georgia (sound familiar?), leaving Nixon to meet with the revolutionary leader. They agreed on precious little.

Still, Castro had at least the tacit support of much of the U.S., including the CIA which secretly gave financial support to Castro’s efforts early on. Ironically, it would be the CIA that later tried unsuccessfully (several times) to have him assassinated and even sponsored the fiasco that would become known as the Bay of Pigs invasion.

He even appeared on the ED SULLIVAN SHOW and the film clip was seen by 50 million people as Sullivan interviewed Castro only hours before his triumphant entrance into Havana to seize power. In that interview, Sullivan called Castro not a revolutionist, but an “agrarian reformer.”

Few knew at the time that Soviet troops were already training Castro’s men.

The first indication of Castro’s real intent was his signing into law in May 1959 the first law of the Cuban Revolution, the Agrarian Reform Law which

• Banned all foreign ownership of land;
• Confiscated land holdings of more than 1,000 acres;
• Created a state agricultural sector to control about a third of the country’s farmland.

Soon after ascending to full power, he announced to the world that he was a Marxist and in 1962 the world came to the brink of all-out war with the Soviet Union during the Cuban Missile Crisis

The second Agrarian Reform Law, enacted in October 1963, centralized state control of the country’s agricultural sector.

So, we can see that Castro literally charmed the U.S. into thinking his only goal was to kick out the corruption of the Mafia and U.S. corporations who were getting rich off destitute Cubans, his real agenda was to establish a Soviet satellite in the Western Hemisphere.

He used guile, deceit and outright lies to achieve his goals and only then did he show his true hand. By then, it was too late.

It’s a lesson we should consider carefully before November 5.

After all, we’ve already seen how cozy Trump is with Putin

LouisianaVoice is in its October fund drive and your support is vital to our continuing to bring you stories about political corruption, chicanery and miscreant behavior. LouisianaVoice has broken several exclusive stories in our nearly 14 years of existence, the oldest continuous political blog in Louisiana.

With the disturbing trend of the administration of Gov. Jeff Landry and the Louisiana Legislature to make public records ever more difficult to obtain, our work will become more difficult. But LouisianaVoice is determined to continue its fight to make government and public officials accountable.

LouisianaVoice was the only news source in the entire state of Louisiana that saw through the scheme of Bobby Jindal to discredit former head of the Louisiana Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control Murphy Painter. Every other medium simply assumed Painter was guilty of malfeasance; LouisianaVoice early on said he was being set up by Jindal. And we were right.

LouisianaVoice broke the story of the legislative attempt to illegally increase the retirement of former State Police Superintendent Mike Edmonson. Because of our story, the ruse was discovered in time to prevent it from happening.

LouisianaVoice told you how the Jindal administration was involved in the questionable purchase of a Monroe hotel building by political supporters. We were the only news source to reveal how a Jindal and Republican donor attempted to get local courts and probation officers to refer offenders to his residential training facility and how that same individual wound up on the LSU Board of Supervisors.

LouisianaVoice kept you abreast of developments in the controversial move to privatize prisons and state hospitals and LouisianaVoice was there to remind you of how teachers died in the Sandy Hook shooting soon after Jindal told the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry that the only justification for some teachers’ existence was their “ability to breathe.”

And LouisianaVoice published several stories about individual sheriffs’ offices in the state, including Terrebonne, St. Tammany, and Iberia, among others. None of those sheriffs have sent us Christmas cards.

LouisianaVoice told the tragic story of how certain DOTD employees attempted to extort money and materials from a subcontractor and then, when DOTD refused to pay him, he was forced to shut down his company.

This is what we do. We attempt to shine lights into the darkest recesses of state and local government to let you know what your elected officials are up to. They’re not too fond of us but you have a right to know what they’re doing.

If you like what LouisianaVoice does, we invite you to support us. There is no subscription fee for LouisianaVoice because I want our information to be available to everyone. We don’t accept advertising because I don’t want anyone to think they can buy us. So, the only financial support we receive is from your generous contributions – and we come with hat in hand only twice a year – in October and April.

For this month, we’re trying to make it a bit more appealing to support us. The most generous donor will receive an original copy of Huey Long’s autobiography Every Man A King, published in 1933 by the now defunct National Book Co. of New Orleans. Leo Honeycutt’s biography of Edwin Edwards will be awarded on a lottery basis with everyone who contributes $100 or more eligible for the drawing. The book is signed by both Honeycutt and Edwards. Finally, a signed copy of my latest book, The Mission, will go to everyone who gives $50 or more. Because of the book’s ending, it should be explained in advance that it was originally written in 2018 as an e-book, long before recent events, but its ending reads like current news.

You may send a check to Tom Aswell, 107 North College Street West, Denham Springs, LA 70726 or you may contribute by credit card by clicking on the YELLOW BUTTON to the right of this post and following directions. Whichever method you choose, please know that I deeply appreciate your support.