Shine a Spotlight on child sexual abuse

Spotlight

On Monday, I returned to my local cinema to watch Spotlight which was about how the Boston Globe researched and published the scandal of clerical child sexual abuse and how the Catholic Church hierarchy shovelled suspect and accused paedophiles out of parishes where they had become lightning rods to other parishes where they continued the abuse of children.

Blog - Clerical child sex abuse was by human beings not the devil

The problem with exposing this atrocious abuse was that the establishment, the church, politicians, the courts, public officials and influential people stood in the way of getting this truth revealed.

The tenacity of the Spotlight investigative journalism team was not only laudable and commendable, after they published their findings and that included hundreds of articles, they were awarded The 2003 Pulitzer Prize Winner in Public Service. The winning work appears on the page linked.

Protecting the church from the abused

There many facets to the story, from the fact that the longest established human organisation of political and religious influence was more concerned about its reputation at the expense of kids who were corrupted, abused, robbed of their innocence, defiled and worse.

The idea that at least 6% of priests could be involved in child sexual abuse was not only shocking and alarming, it was blindingly unconscionable that the church was ready to save the perpetrators and pay for the silence of the victims. Anyone who tried to expose this criminality faced the onslaught of condemnation, ostracism and every kind of reputational assassination by direct or indirect agents of the church.

A 7-year old’s experience

I needed to watch this film because of my own experience of abuse, I was hardly 7 when I was called into the toilet by a relation and asked to do things I did not understand, and the lifelong effect of that experience on me is lasting even if I am not defined by the experience.

Blog - My Sex Post (2007)

What is more saddening is that some people who were trusted by my parents to care for us took sexual favours off us and there did not seem to be anywhere for us to find redress or healing, we were bruised, hurt and damaged by a loss of innocence and childhood.

Maybe, if I had the opportunity to talk to my 7-year old self again, I would have immediately run to my parents to report these violations despite the terror I felt from my abusers, the need to be heard, sympathised with and protected by my parents.

Blog - Thought Picnic: The Barrier to Confiding in our Guardians

What the abused are up against

Then, back to Spotlight, the abused children faced even more insurmountable challenges, groomed by respected and respectable stalwarts of religion in their communities, where especially from deprived circumstances mothers were either naïve or conniving in allowing these men to access their children and abuse them, the children were caught in a vortex of wrongs stacked against them in all aspects of life.

Blog - Nigeria: How We Sacrifice Our Children to Paedophiles

Despite near and far relations, servants not a few, getting their way with me, I sometimes feel I was spared the vicissitudes of fortune that other abused children experienced from the clergy, in orphanages, in borstal and prisons, in the hands of evil paedophiles who stopped at nothing until they had murdered their quarry.

As the film ended, and the postscripts came on screen about the many places where clerical child sexual abuse had been confirmed, screen after screen revealed a city and somewhere amongst those names was Akure, Nigeria.

I wept for the many like me

I have always been of the opinion that despite the exhaustive exposé of these abuses in the West, we have not begun to unearth with any seriousness this clerical criminality in Africa, South America or Asia.

This along with many unreported defilements and rapes of minors, the atrocity of child marriages – girls given to the enterprise of sexual predators who have found the veneer of religion and customs to support their propensity to incurable paedophilia in the institution of marriage are things we still fail to address with the singlemindedness of saving the child from all harm.

I watched the credits of Spotlight sobbing almost uncontrollably because I knew from the depictions that many children never got to tell their stories, some committed suicide, most lives were irretrievably damaged, very few found the platform to relentlessly go after the people who abused them against all odds.

The damage is hardly understood

Nothing can ever restore the innocence of a child so abused, no restitution can fully recompense for the way society has acquiesced to allowing abuse to go on unchecked and no punishment can fully atone for the sexual abuse of minors, yet we must acknowledge these sexual predators exist amongst us, no matter how highly placed and that they must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Blog - Thought Picnic: We Never Knew What a Healthy Sexual Relationship Was Because ...

Blog - Thought Picnic: Fucked-up, but coping well

We all owe the children a duty to be ready to protect, ready to listen and ready to understand what they face when approached, groomed and abused. It must not be mentioned amongst us again that children are sexual fodder for people who will be protected from any sanction and essentially granted the immunity for the impunity to lasciviously prey on helpless kids.

Shine the Spotlight on all abuse and refuse for it to continue a minute longer.

The UK: Can we trust the establishment to establish the truth about child sex abuse?

Money and sex

Someone once said for most criminal activity in the world, you should either follow the money or follow the sex. I would say that it applies to everything that defines human weakness and the basest expressions of our humanity.

Following the money is quite easy once you have the knowhow and the tools.

Where the confluence of sex and money meets, the activity could range from prostitution to human trafficking.

Following the sex

Following the sex can however be an inscrutable conundrum, because it is usually secretive and for all our scruples, sanctimony and sententiousness it can be obtained by means too shameful and embarrassing for words.

The given is that we are all sexual beings and most of us have need of sexual expression which can easily be selfish, uncaring, dis-compassionate and primal.

The worst acquisition of sex is when it is exploitative, the rich prey on the poor, the powerful on the less so and heinously, the adult taking sexual pleasures off the child without restraint.

Too shocking for words

We have reached a nadir of the latter in the UK as what started over a decade ago as accusations of clerical child sex abuse has now roped in the establishment which appears to include household name celebrities, national treasures, politicians, businessmen, entertainers that you wonder who is left out of the number.

Hands and members violating the young, the powerless, the vulnerable, the star-struck and most especially those in the care of the state; used and abused at will and with pleasure by those whose status in society appeared to grant them immunity for impunity to commit vile and unmentionable acts.

The culpable establishment

The establishment – the aristocracy, the politicians, the police, the prosecutors, the judiciary, the famous and honoured, and their powerful friends – all closed ranks covering the sexual abuse; paedophile criminality being chief amongst the shameful and heinous deeds they stopped from seeing the light of day as the establishment sacrificed the abused to maintain its veneer of respectability and protect itself from deserved scrutiny and excoriation.

This has been going on for decades and many of the actors are long dead and buried, yet some grace exists for some granted the longevity of life to see out their days in shame for crimes too odious to mention in even louche conversation.

An inquiry is more than necessary as to who suffered and how this went on for so long. The establishment must now unravel itself and expunge itself of this odious history, but one wonder if the interest of the establishment is too vested for us to elicit the slightest truth of what really happened.

Some justice

It is all well and good that we have nabbed many of the dead establishment figures as Sir Jimmy Saville and Sir Cyril Smith, then Max Clifford and Rolf Harris have gone to jail, many others who were accused have been acquitted, with certain other names making the rounds online, this whole sordid saga might well be the tip of the iceberg.

The lesson to all must be, regardless of what status in society you might have as a child or young person, there is no given licence for you to be sexually abused just because you have no one to speak up for you, and now, those who did would have to face justice and if they don’t the mere taint of association with paedophilia and sexual abuse is enough the ruin of any reputation as any.

Worse still is we have not even lifted the lid on these sorts of abuses beyond the West, I hate to think of what people got away with in Africa, Asia and South America where some acts might even have been subsumed in cultural acceptance as not to at all of concern.

Opinion: Davids, Jezebels, Nathans and the need for accountable men

Bigger issues at stake

The events of the last week that exploded into a scandal about sexual impropriety by a mega church leader in Nigeria has churned out commentary from all viewpoints that one is almost suffocated with analysis.

One recurring refrain has been the way the lady has been excoriated, abused, vilified, condemned, called names and much else.

Again, regardless of the truth of what happened between these consenting adults as some would put it, consent is the least of the issues at play in this matter.

Where are the Nathans?

It is without the doubt that many Nigerian Christians hold their leaders in trawl, they are dumbstruck, star struck, mesmerised, stupefied, hypnotised into a false sense of humility played out as respect, we would literally do anything to be in their good books than incur their wrath.

This in my view lays the foundation for what happened afterwards like in the biblical story of David and Bathsheba where King David laid eyes from his balcony on the lady having a bath, consumed with lust he acquired the woman, killed her husband and feigning empathy, took her into his harem to become his wife.

A sense of accountability was only met when Prophet Nathan visited the king, and by way of a story that called the king to order and in the process, the king repented and found redemption, and though the first child of that tryst died, Bathsheba was the mother of Solomon.

Again, if indeed the lady’s story finds true, the church is desperately in need of a Nathan because if one were to paraphrase something about interactions amongst men and between men and God, one must ask how anyone can suggest they are accountable to an invisible God if they are first not accountable to visible humankind up their chain of authority or sphere of influence.

A Jezebel for every Ahab

What I find even more irksome is the “Daughters of Jezebel” moniker that trails ladies who have been caught in these trysts leading to the apparent downfall of religious leaders as if these leaders bear no responsibility for their lapses.

For every Jezebel there is an Ahab, and though the biblical story suggests Jezebel a Phoenician princess led her husband, the king of the northern Kingdom of Israel astray, Ahab had the choice of who he chose or agreed to marry, he cannot be exculpated from his decisions, and he is documented as being one of the most debauched kings of Israel. As king he was a slave to what he allowed except if he was a dunce and an idiot.

Who men are

I have the following statements to make regarding this perspective.

Men have to own up to the responsibility of being able to control their urges and responses without placing the onus on women. This pertains to the many ways we attempt to regulate women in terms of views, dress, means, independence and opportunity to make up for our shortcomings.

Every time you use the phrase "Daughters of Jezebel" you are suggesting men lack self-control and are no better than animals. There are many examples of men who probably should have known better who have allowed themselves to be ruled by their basest instincts and then blame others for their failings.

We must stop subscribing to the idea that men are weaklings, lily-livered and devoid of character, principle or virtue. Men are more than capable of standing sure, it is a choice they can make if they will to do so or it is one they decide not to do if they believe they will not be found out.

Like the old Genesis story, Adam was not tempted, he freely went along where he could have been more discerning; he was irresponsible. Responsible for protecting his wife from influences if he stood up for what he was called to do, there is a mutual coexistence reinforced in marriage for the good or for the bad – choices abound.

Why let them lead?

If our religious leaders are so easily led astray, why on earth should we allow such unprincipled lascivious to men lead us? That is a big question, not so much that these men are infallible but if they exercise authority as if they are infallible without embracing their humanity, then we must demand a higher standard of moral rectitude of them, and they should be expected to act as such, failing which they must recuse themselves from leadership.

Character is the external expression of an internal virtue, if you don't have it, external stimuli would dictate what you are. What we end up doing is what we innately have in us as a makeup of our personality and character, we cannot be persuaded to do what we are not predisposed to doing from nature, nurture, experience and influence – that applies to religious leaders too.

Know your limits

Returning to that Indian protest placard, "It's a dress, not a Yes." If you don't know the difference, you have issues. This is succinct in defining how men react to external stimuli, the dress holds no message to anyone apart from those who have allowed animal instinct to rule over better judgement, there are no two ways about regardless of what you believe.

Fundamentally, if anyone must be so concerned about the apparel of women, it is best to restrict control and representation to those within their immediate sphere of influence of close relations, every woman on the street is not everyman’s wife to be curtailed, coerced, scolded and domineered – know who is really responsible to you and who you are responsible for.

It goes without saying that the pastor has a case to answer, either by denying the allegations with vehemence or accepting that he has erred in contrition, step down from the pulpit and make peace with his family and the flock. Silence whilst this scandal swirls with even more revelations by others is untenable, and it is intolerably hubristic to expect that this would just blow away like an ordinary storm.

Nigeria: No Country for Vulnerable Children

The regularity is inuring

Pastor accused of raping 12-year-old girl, I have read too many headlines like this in Nigerian newspapers that I have no more bothered to read the story, as if it is so commonplace, I am almost dangerously inured to it.

Something about this story was striking, in fact, too many things in this story meant a good 12 hours after reading it, I had this nagging feeling that I had to comment on the issue.

A vulnerable young girl had been brought over from the village, vulnerable in the sense that she was only two weeks in the city, she could speak neither the local language nor English and she was staying with her aunt besides the fact that she was just 12.

That a 12-year old could not speak a word of English in Nigeria in 2012 is the subject of another day, but it calls for serious discussion.

Groomed and raped

This was an Igbo girl in Yorubaland and besides her aunt, there was this neighbour, a Pastor who apparently is Yoruba who could also speak Igbo and so the conversation started where the Pastor began grooming the girl, lured her into the detached communal toilet, covered her mouth and raped her; by first sodomising her and then taking away her virginity.

Her aunt almost caught them in the act and upon inquiring of the girl, she learnt of what had happened and apparently immediately rushed the girl to hospital where she was examined and it was found that she had bruises to both her anal and virginal regions with sperm residue found in the vagina.

A victim to exculpate the criminal

The Pastor had however fled and in the process commenced an unconscionable damage limitation exercise that included stigmatising a vulnerable 6-year old girl who was labelled a witch by his church members; she was brutalised and paraded in public having been accused of bewitching the Pastor leading to his helplessly falling prey to being a rapist. This is no sarcasm; this is what the people really did believe.

This poor 6-year old girl was then left under the exorcist ministry of this rotten paedophile to be delivered of her witchcraft powers – the tale reads like a Steven King horror novel, only that there are real victims involved.

Interminable days

Meanwhile, it took two days after the rape of that child for her aunt to report the crime to the police and it took another two days for the Pastor to be apprehended. A couple of days later, the Pastor was released without charge into the community as if absolved because the courts were not in session to charge the man with any offence.

In fact, the charges were dropped by the police as they are wont to in cases like this, the most the perpetrator suffers is the demand that he defrays the hospital costs of the victim and the rotten paedophile is granted bail to return to the scene of the crime amongst other vulnerable persons where he can intimidate the witnesses and pervert the course of justice.

Now, the police are taking the heat for their lackadaisical attitude to this heinous paedophile criminality that they have suggested when the courts are back in session the paedophile pastor will be charged.

The dread of Syncretism

The spokesperson for the state police command is Ngozi Braide, a lady and I cannot say if she is a mother too, who was filled with as much indignation and rage as to acknowledge that the girl was raped and concluded with - “The pastor is in charge of a white garment church in the area. He will be charged with sodomy. He was released on bail because courts are not sitting but once courts resume, he will be charged.” Really? Just sodomy?

Herein is the big problem, African-initiated white garment churches have a brand of Syncretism that melds elements of animist and Shamanist belief systems with Christianity and it derives most of its doctrinal teachings from the Pentateuch, reciting the Psalms with the fieriness of people under altered states of consciousness, given to mass hysteria whilst believing in demonic possession, witchcraft and voodoo relieving people of their free moral agency.

The unpalatable sway the leaders of these sects hold over the community literally gives them criminal impunity and even in the face of compelling evidence, they are able to operate outside the ambit of the law for the fact that people fear them and whatever powers they might abuse to extricate themselves from criminal sanction.

We are embarrassed

The society at large is scandalised and embarrassed by incidents of paedophile criminality that they will rather sweep the matter under the carpet than agitate to have it prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

The victims however receive no psychological help beyond medical examination to prove that the child has been violated and medical establishments do not take on the social responsibility burden of addressing the long term consequences of the sexual violation of minorities, we generally assume time eventually heals the pain and wipes out the memories of such events from the mind of the child.

Witchcraft stigmatisation

The poor child who was stigmatised as a witch might probably have had learning difficulties which the illiterate and ignorant may not understand, these helpless children especially if orphaned are ready brutalisation fodder for unscrupulously rotten religious leaders to mesmerise their flock into believing incredibly atrocious tales.

Injustice is compounded by evil under the guise of religion leaving child victims in their wake as if this is no country for children.

A grave injustice lingers

We need to re-school ourselves and begin to give the vulnerable a voice, the cause for justice for the victim must be paramount and above all allegiances no matter how deep – when a child is raped or stigmatised, it must become a compelling priority to see to it that all perpetrators, conspirators and accessories to that criminality are corralled and charged accordingly to ensure no other children suffer at the hands of these purveyors of reprehensible evil.

We can no more pretend that child sexual abuse does not occur amongst us and we should not be embarrassed to expose all those who tolerate it amongst us.

At the same time, we should be discerning of the fact that when a child is stigmatised as a witch, it is usually a distraction from other unspeakable evils and a smokescreen for contemptible deeds.

No child should ever be sacrificed on the altar of any belief system, no good can come out of brutalising the child either to save it or the community within which it lives, our dread for the supernatural must stop long before a hand is lifted against the child and reason prevail always.

It is time for children to feel safer in Nigeria.

Thought Picnic: Me and Mr Long

Did he do it?

It could almost be mischievous if it was not true or it had the semblance of truth just as we are made to understand that there is no smoke without fire.

The countless children that had fun at Neverland Ranch which turned out to be either a lifetime experience of glee for some and a ruinous assault on the person of others left us reeling with incredulity.

The power of means to attract the young into the enclave of mentoring or support and then use that influence to procure sexual gratification still shocks beyond words.

In those cases, settlements were reached but nothing proven beyond reasonable doubt that the events our imaginations had carried well beyond the incredible really happened.

The accusations could die out but the truth might never materialise because beyond having confused the sexuality of the “victims”, their characters will be assailed to the point that they might become suicidal if they are not already so from their supposed ordeal.

Me and Mr Long

Me and Mr Long seems to be the chorus from four young men who were groomed, feted, lavished and kept by the pastor of a mega-church whose pulpit and activism against homosexuality is publicly strident, fundamentalist, intolerant and persuasive.

There might well be enough resources to make this all go away but it would not go away easy, if what they have stated did not happen it must make one wonder what act so despicable Bishop Eddie Long might have committed or abetted for these men to concoct these long tales.

On the balance of probability one might be swayed to point fingers but let us put that aside and deal with a more pertinent issue, the merciless, heartless and dispassionate assault on homosexuality from the pulpit.

In black churches there seems to be this idea that homosexuality is a white man’s thing, where black men appear to exhibit this “trait” it is viewed as an affront to masculinity which is most expressed with machismo and a lascivious heterosexual sexual appetite with overflowing testosterone apparently curtailed by religious instruction.

Accommodation and intolerance

Adultery and fornication even though abominations by fundamentalist appropriation find better expression and tolerance in the church than homosexuality could ever dare to dream of.

The mantra of loving the sinner and hating the sin usually gets conflated into hating the person and closing the doors to the church to them except where they subscribe to gruelling psychological-reorientation called counselling which is a kind of aversion therapy to make albeit homosexuals apparently heterosexual.

It creates another more complex person, a secret homosexual and a public heterosexual, someone on the down-low whose appetite for homosexual copulation is sated whilst pretending to be a devoted and committed husband with loving wife and kids.

One expression with another lifestyle

It is well for some to have nothing against homosexuals but to rail against their lifestyle when no one asks about a heterosexual having to live a heterosexual lifestyle – maybe Bishop Eddie Long knows seeing that the documents entered in court show he was about to use scripture to sow his wild oats in strange fields.

At the end, the advocacy against gay marriage is interesting because it is not gay marriage that affects the institution of marriage but the infidelity and untruthfulness of people in the traditional institution of marriage that undermines its foundations, principles and sacramental values – all that gay marriage is seeking is just the right for partners in those relationships to find significance in the face of the law.

The words of Bishop Long’s predecessor Reverend Kenneth L. Samuel are foreboding as they are insightful on this matter as he said, “Whether it’s true or not, the church has an issue of duplicity, hypocrisy and denial in terms of human sexuality that the church has to deal with. Unfortunately, I think Bishop Long is emblematic of a culture ... that causes pastors and parishioners to preach and testify one thing and practice something else.”

Me and Mr Long – the refrain

Bishop Eddie Long would no doubt fight this to the bitter end but I cannot help but hear the song ringing incessantly in my head.

Me and Mr Long
We got a thing going on
We both know it is wrong [At least Mr Long should if the boys don’t]
But it’s much too strong to let it go now.

References and other reading

Men allege sexual coercion by prominent Atlanta pastor - CNN.com (Includes PDFs of lawsuits filed)

Fourth lawsuit filed against Georgia pastor - CNN.com

Bishop Eddie Long | Powerful pastor’s ministry put to test | ajc.com

Why black church culture rejects homosexuality - CNN.com

Me and Mrs. Jones: Lyrics from Answers.com

Celibacy, sexual urges and the Vatican still in denial

The cardinal is wrong

I cannot believe that after calling a friend to order on the conflation of paedophilia and homosexuality a senior cardinal went ahead to reaffirm this rotten assertion [1].

Again, to protect the tenets and principles of this 1700 year old institution they would rather blame human frailty on some issue on which people would willingly take a moral stance without objectivity than one on which people might question seemingly inhuman religious diktat that restricts the full expression of our humanity.

In fact, I could contend that celibacy probably has more to do with clerical sexual abuse than homosexuality.

As I was chatting to a friend yesterday whose observance of these deplorable activities of the Vatican were leading her to question her beliefs she gave me an insight on this matter I never before considered.

Boys available for sexual necessities

Apparently, most of those abused by priests served in the church as altar boys or even maybe choir boys meaning an availability of boys as an outlet for the sexually frustrated and repressed.

It goes without saying that girls were also abused but in the circumstances any living thing might well have been an outlet for sexual urges of those who decided to exploit the circumstances and commit the crimes of child sexual abuse.

As she said in words I am forced to use to convey the severity of the matter, “They would have fucked anything.” That anything would have been anything available and that would have unfortunately been mainly boys who in their innocence, trust and service to God would have been groomed to serve the priests.

Sex does define not sexuality

The stricture of religious vows the priests existed under meant they would have been secretive as well as menacing to prevent their activities being exposed to a laity that would not have taken kindly to the abuse of privilege and authority.

There is a possibility that some of the clergy abusers might really have been homosexual but their abuse was one of opportunity and necessity.

As a parallel, there is no doubt that in single sex prisons the inmates would find sexual outlets amongst themselves; to then brand everyone who finds that sexual satisfaction as homosexual is just absurd – the situation is just one of necessity.

Being able to quote studies and statistics of linkages between homosexuality, paedophilia and even celibacy is convenient for the Vatican that fails to see that they do have a problem they are not ready to address.

The Vatican left behind

If the Vatican cannot begin to face up to the fact that they have been caught out by the evolutions of society in the 21^st Century and begin to address the matters with a sense of humanity, humility, moral integrity and contriteness, they are with their absurd pronouncements on the verge of irrelevance.

Eventually, the firm adherents of Catholicism would begin to doubt, question, criticise and vacate the authority of the church for other denominations that offer a better sense of adaptation to humanity expected of any institution in any societal setting.

In the end, the opprobrium homosexuals receive of the churches is atrocious as if the man Jesus Christ did not also die on the cross for homosexuals as much as all of mankind according to Christian teachings – you begin to wonder who is anyone in the church to stand as sentinel what Jesus Christ apparently came to do for everyone.

Sources

[1] BBC News - Vatican 'clarifies' cardinal's homosexuality abuse link

Brother, I am calling you out on this one

My writings and thoughts

I have a number of blogs that I read regularly for views, opinions and angles on all sorts of matters.

In general, I write about all matters I find concerning but I am most passionate about justice, fairness and rights. Usually, this would be pertaining to the under-privileged, the unfairly treated, the minority or just a case of plain commonsense being lost to some absurd situation.

In these areas, the abuse of children and women attract my most activist stance, then the intolerance of minorities which would be on races, sexuality, ability and any other seemingly wronged perspective.

Surely not you

Before I went to bed last night I read a piece on one of the blogs I frequent when updated and I was left askance in bewilderment at first then that turned to anger but I decided not to respond in the heat of that moment.

Some 20 hours on, I find myself no less indignant of the myopic, intolerant and ignorant views offered by this seeming intelligent person who I generally respect for his strong views but in this case, I would be remiss if I do not call him out for the reprehensible views cloaked under the concern for clerical child sex abuse.

Indeed, for an institution that has been around for 1700 years or more, the Catholic Church appears to be making a botched job of the matter of child sexual abuse, where they should have been more empathetic to victims and very intolerant of perpetrators their concern for the integrity of the great institution above all else leaves the Vatican on the verge of the serious embarrassment of losing moral authority.

Paedophilia is not homosexuality

That said, one has to appreciate the frailty of humanity where vows of celibacy are taken but the urges for sexual expression along with the pressures of calling lead certain of the clergy to abuse the vulnerable and trusting in the off chance they would not be found out – the resulting paedophilia is abhorrent at best.

The sexual abuse however was not just limited to boys, girls were also abused just as one can say about oneself that the abuse started with a female and then it moved on to males.

Child sexual abuse is definitely paedophilia but a paedophile does not necessarily have to be homosexual, heterosexual or bisexual – maybe there is a preponderance of homosexual behaviour in these abuses but to conflate paedophilia with homosexuality and present them as the same is stark ignorance.

Sex is an expression beyond procreation

Whilst again the act of sex between heterosexuals is in the majority, its primary purpose cannot just be for procreation even though it does result in children. To contend that sex has no other function between people apart from procreation is absurd and probably suggests people with kids have only had sex a finite number of times not too greater than the children they have produced or something to that effect.

Reading that even reads as very silly, but it was one of the expressed opinions, furthermore, there is the tendency to allow religious fundamentalism to blind one to the existence of minorities amongst us.

Surviving as a minority

Homosexuals are probably in a minority in many societies, but that does not mean they should not have a right to the pursuit of happiness in whatever way they might see fit within the law, privately, consensually and maybe liberally too.

The idea my blogger friend put forward was the equivalent of expecting everyone to be heterosexual or nothing – extrapolating that oblique line of thought, it would be like expecting the minority of the black race in Scandinavia to conform to the type and forms of that region which by inference would be that they should be white, probably blonde and maybe blue-eyed.

Crass is what comes to mind, a jumble of ill-thought through opinions of bigoted slant expounded under the cloak of indignation about clerical child sex abuse does not help justify the atrocious views expressed.

Shame on you

To say I am disappointed in the writings of this blogger does not begin to show my disdain especially in a world where minorities of different kinds need emancipated voices to speak out on their troubles and afflictions, seeking fairness, justice and the protection of rights.

It is saddening that having lived for so long in the West; the West has not found any expression of civility, tolerance, the appreciation of diversity or the protection of the rights of the minority in his opinions.

Worse still is to express those views it so brashly, ignobly and ignorantly – I am sorry to say – My brother, I am calling you out on this one – shame on you.