Hillsnog: How the scandals at Hillsong took root

Songs to snog heaven

Hillsong gave us many inspired songs of praise and worship over the decades that we felt we sang our way into the throne room of a gracious and merciful God that had heaven full of blessings to shower on his children with majesty and no expense spared.

However, lately, some scandals have hit the church first founded in Australia and in almost 30 countries that cannot be ignored, for the genesis is in something quite sad, unfortunate, and allegedly criminal from over 50 years ago. There has been some snogging of the illicit and criminally liable type that was swept under the carpet, and it has returned to claim the seat of its leader temporarily or permanently.

Caught in a father’s sexual snog

Brian Houston, 67, the charismatic founder of the Hillsong Church was the National President of the Australian Christian Churches, the Australian branch of the Assemblies of God, from 1997 to 2009 and in 1999, sexual abuse allegations were made against his father, Frank Houston, also a minister in the church establishment about sexually abusing a boy of 7 some 30 years before.

Mr Houston confronted his father about it, who confessed his proclivities to pederasty and the church handled the matter by having Frank Houston immediately retire from the ministry whilst the boy abused, then in his 30s was paid off for his silence with $10,000. Matter sorted, not exactly.

In a Royal Commission into clerical child abuse in Australia, the boy, now man testified to the face-saving activities of the church and how Brian Houston appeared to look the other way to protect his father, probably the broader church and having assumed the fat cheque was enough recompense for the child’s loss of sexual innocence at the instigation of his father in an unholy snog with a child and quite possibly many more. [Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse]

The snog required the law

Now, Brian Houston is essentially guilty of nothing as at yet, but he was complicit in thinking a payment was judicious and just amelioration for the acts of a paedophile that was quite, unfortunately, his own father. Whether he would have given any other person to the law one cannot say, as much as one cannot say if other clergy had been given the quiet exit into obscurity rather than face criminal justice for child sexual abuse.

As much as he pleads his innocence and transparency, no violation of a child is excusable regardless of if you address it with the child or when the child becomes an adult and has immediate needs palmed off with a cheque.

Hillsnog sprung from license

In the past year, there has been a litany of snogs, a high-profile pastor was doing it with another woman who was not his wife, another was sending pictures of his member not entirely snug in his underwear in the quest for probably an illicit snog, to the extent that Hillsong is becoming some scandal-hit Hillsnog.

There might not be any more scandals, but Brian Houston is being charged with concealing the sexual offences of his father, the father who died in 2004 at 82 and all this because there was a cover-up rather than the necessary report to the authorities of criminality. Then again, until recently, the church closed ranks on clerical child abuse than open themselves to the scrutiny of the law, a stance that is now totally unacceptable.

Child sexual abuse in a religious establishment is criminal and must be notified to the authorities for action, never swept under the carpet in the hope that it completely disappears into eternal memory lapse and forgetfulness, sparing the perpetrator whilst mollifying victims with money and materials as if their childhood innocence will therein be restored to undamaged, virgin, and a well-rounded personality.

Justice will come for the snog

I attended the Hillsong Church in London for a few months in 2013 and had many a spiritual uplifting in fellowship with others, but as one who has also survived child sexual abuse at the hands of those trusted by my parents to care for us, I take a completely dim view of people, establishments, institutions, traditions, cultures, and systems that shield paedophiles for reputational or other purposes and it is in this mind that I excoriate Brian Houston.

The chickens came home to roost in the other snogging scandals that enveloped the Hillsong Church in the last year, what was excused in 1999 gave the scope for the new embarrassing scandals to take root and fester.

If Frank Houston had been given up to the authorities to face embarrassment, disgrace, and criminal indictment, it is unlikely Carl Lentz and Darnell Barnett of recent snogs would have contemplated straying from the path of righteousness. I do not condemn them, but where there is allowance and apparent permissiveness, there is proclivity and every possibility of avoidable scandal.

As a consequence, it would take a while to restore Hillsnog to Hillsong, you cover your sin, and it will find you out.

Nigeria: Close this marketplace of institutionalised paedophilia called child marriage

These were not sweethearts

The headline read, “Man, 70, marries 15-year-old sweetheart in Niger”, and this was accompanied by a photograph on Twitter, the news story has a few more photographs. [Daily Nigerian]

My first reaction to the story as opprobrium, abuse and obloquy was heaped on the man was the feeling why in these times we did not have a system to extricate girls from such inappropriate pairings and end this atrocity.

Everything is inappropriate with this match and to suggest they were sweethearts is contemptible in the extreme. A sweetheart is someone with whom one is in a romantic relationship. You would normally see sweetheart qualified with childhood, people of comparative ages in love. Where this is deployed elsewhere the expectation is both parties in that affair are both adults and have free agency.

Excused to afflict

Mr Yakubu Chanji apparently has a reputation of keeping a tally of four wives in his harem and has allegedly acquisition of close to 20 wives, the attrition rate being subjects of him being predeceased or his divorcing wives who have lost their novelty.

However, Mr Chanji, it appears can do no wrong as the report says, “He is a philanthropist in Kwangila area of Minna. He has contributed immensely to the community, especially the building of the community mosque.” For that, he appears to be excused to celebrate his proclivities and his propensities without sanction.

A girl of 15 has a life of her own, marriage is hardly one of the life decisions she should be involved in, she is a child, should still be in school, amongst her peers, daydreaming and imagining a life that is not limited to providing sexual satisfaction to a man old enough to be her grandfather.

Where is the girl’s identity?

Our world of humanity has been humanised and civilised over centuries, not to live beliefs in the times of their origins of a primordial world, but to have been adapted to the changes towards better respect and protection of rights and agency, and it makes this arrangement one of the worst expressions of our thriving humanity.

If the girl had any say in this matter, it would have been imposed upon her, all the pictures in which she appears with the man do not show a maiden with her lover on her happiest day, it appears she would rather be elsewhere. If indeed ‘family and friends were in attendance’, where are her friends? Where are her bridesmaids, her peers, the other girls she played with before she decided this is what she wanted for her life?

I see lots of old men and some women who are probably making up the numbers. There are no two words for celebrating a paedophile given the licence to violate a minor with the law seemingly incapacitated to act in the interest of the girl.

This picture is wrong, this practice is wrong and there is nothing to celebrate here than the shame and disgrace that this can be condoned, allowed, publicised and given the free rein to impunity it must never have in the 21^st Century.

Divorce is just too cheap

How is it that in reporting about sweethearts, the man has all his names and sobriquets on show, but the girl is nameless, voiceless and soon to be invisible when she ends up in the paedophile’s lair until he either predeceases her or she is found to have outlived her usefulness and divorced?

Divorce itself is too easy, the man can extricate himself with literally no responsibility or liability, the woman he took off their trajectory of life and achievement left destitute and depending on alms. If only we had better divorce laws, ones that required divorce payments and alimony with the possibility of bankrupting the man if he found a penchant for divorce.

A woman who through a marriage has been dependent on her husband through marriage keeping the family home should by rights when divorced have the husband legally liable and enforced by law to make the provision to give the woman a sense of independence in means and ability. What has been truncated by marriage in the possibility of a career and some semblance of a fulfilling life must by restitution become a responsibility of her ex-husband until she can find her own two feet or becomes contracted into another marriage.

We have a long way to go in terms of the abuse of child marriage in the name of any persuasion, we must strive to end this market of institutionalised paedophilia pretending to a holy matrimony, which it is absolutely not.

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.

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.

Nigeria: Divorce mentions adulterous incest

The son of a gun

Far be it from me to profess I have the gift for prescience, but did I not write about the brood of African leaders and their antics a few days ago?

In that blog, I talked about an unguarded interview given a few years ago by Olugbenga Obasanjo the first son of the erstwhile President of Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo and that had its fireworks.

That seems to have been the tip of the iceberg of a saga that is almost too unscriptable for words or unspeakable to the hearing.

Mr. Gbenga Obasanjo has been involved in a lengthy divorce from his wife of seven years and had filed a 50-paragraph affidavit stating a number of salacious, embarrassing, reprehensible and corrupt allegations – they are explosive to say the least.

Adultery and Adulterous Incest

Obviously, if a divorce petition includes other parties, the moral implications of adultery are somewhat muted, but for an affidavit to cite the petitioner’s father for adultery with his wife and his father-in-law for adulterous incest with his daughter leaves other mentioned affairs lying in the dust.

This affidavit would most likely be sworn to and presented as a valid legal document in this divorce; it makes it difficult to challenge the veracity of the claims – they must either be true or outrageous to the extreme.

If this were not fiery enough, the petitioner claims his marriage foundered because he tried to put a stop to the adulterous relationships. For these sexual favours, his wife was won numerous oil contracts and business deal for her chain of companies.

The petitioner exposes a network of enterprises that could only have existed through influence peddling, corrupt liaisons, patronage, nepotism and name recognition.

My grandfather is my father

There appears to be two children in the marriage and their supposed father casts doubt on their paternity by seeking a DNA test that brings in his father and father-in-law – how reprobate can this get?

Some matters need to handled with discretion especially where children are involved though this matter of a seemingly seriously wronged man by his wife, his father and his father-in-law is a powder-keg ready to shake Nigerian societal values to its core – this case cannot be an exception.

But this can almost be too reckless on the part of the petitioner, representing the very ugly face of acrimonious divorces – if the children were to find out that their father is either of their grandfathers rather than the husband of their mother – how damaging would that be for the children and to what end?

Worse still if both children were fathered by each of the grandfathers – my head hurts already – this is just as vindictive as anyone can get and it is a shame. It is however reminiscent of the acclaimed vindictiveness of the ex-President; that his son can be just as nasty is no surprise.

Sex abuse in Nigeria

Now, these are the issues I want to address that get no airing within Nigeria and in particular within Yorubaland; the rotten practice of paedophilia, child sexual abuse, incest and the patriarchal domination of women for use as objects of sexual gratification.

Literally a year ago, I was invited through blog-tagging to talk about my first sexual experience, it was interesting to read stories of people who only tasted the forbidden fruit in their late teens when they could decide, consent and willingly participate in the sexual activity that some religiously bound would call fornication.

Within that orgasmic excitement was another set of voiceless people damaged by experiences before they reached the age of 10 by trusted family members, relations, neighbours, teachers or servants – boys and girls abused for the sexual fulfilment of godless and evil adults – I was 7.

The lack of family support

The need to shed more light of these evils in Nigeria is pertinent because abused children never seem to get heard when they speak and never get justice when the abuse is exposed – too many families are too embarrassed to deal with what is essentially criminal in the extreme and usually psychologically damaging to the child that the scars may never heal into adulthood.

If, and I say, if Gbenga Obasanjo’s wife ever had an incestuous relationship with her father, one can only assume that she had been abused by the same man since she was a child. It is a difficult thing to contemplate let alone visualize – words fail me.

The other issue here is the family dynamic, we get brought up in homes where we not only respect our parents, and we fear them sometimes to the point of trembling such that very personal matters like this never get discussed.

The focus of the parents is so much on provision – food, shelter and education that other social aspects of development are left un-catered for, we are already in the School of Hard Knocks from what is supposed to be the safety of home – it probably makes us stronger but leaves scars deeper than can be healed over time for some.

Any boy or girl abused at home should be able to call on the protection of either of their parents or close family members and the hope that their ordeal is addressed with concern, sensitivity, empathy and fairness – for crying out loud – this is supposed to be your family.

Big-man sexual industry

The other matter is curtailing the untrammelled propensity for men to see every woman as an object of sexual gratification with the excuse that the woman was attracting the sexual violence meted out on her person.

It is unconscionable that there are men in authority who use their genitalia to acquire sexual favours so as to offer women positions they could and should be able to obtain by merit.

Unfortunately, for some women, they are left with no choice in the matters of survival because these “respected” patriarchs who have no scruples, self-respect or moral compass.

Society does have to take a stand against the sexual terrorisation of women from rape, through abuse to sexual favours to offer opportunity, it is unacceptable that this kind of behaviour be tolerated – and for all the respect and admiration I have for Bill Clinton, this topic does leave me particularly disappointed in his lapse in judgment with regards to Monica Lewinsky – it did little to free women from the sexual domination of men in power in both the West and everywhere else.

As for the paternity of children in a marriage, if that needs to be questioned – we have reached the epoch of depravity from which there is no redemption.

The whole matter is disgraceful for all concerned by commission, by omission or indifference.

References

Perspectives on the battered child syndrome in Nigeria – Citation

Catholic Church pays off paedophile accusers

Tithes and Offerings

I have not been the most ardent adherent of Malachi's Gospel, just before the offertory in Church many a preacher has re-enacted the Garden of Gethsemane as pleadings become mendicancy and entreaty betrays desperation that the honesty, purity and spirituality of the message is lost to the quest for filthy lucre.

It is almost an in-joke to Nigerians that when a person opens a church, it is like opening a business where worshippers can be persuaded beyond stupefaction to part with the rewards of the sweat of their brow to fund the lavish lifestyle of the founder who must live and exude the excesses of the prosperity gospel.

But the people have kept the faith because beyond filling the House of God with food there is a promise to be fulfilled, the blessing that floods your beyond a deluge as God opens the windows of heaven - think Noah's flood of blessings and you had better have an ark to ride in.

Now, many might have their views about the work to which tithes and offerings are put to in the Church, I have never been involved in Church government or management, but there is no doubt that standard practices of auditable control are necessary lest the organisation falls fouls of the law.

The settlement

We now hear that the Roman Catholic Church and the one true Church according to a document that receives the blessing of Pope Benedictvs XVI (Another story) is through its Los Angeles Diocese settling child abuse claims to the tune of $660 million, just 6 short of the mark of the beast that should be emblazoned with a hot brand on the priests who have seriously abused the office, the trust, their calling and children.

People in positions of religious responsibility who hold moral sway over their communities and in whom too many repose trust to the point that they believe their children are safe in the company of religious tutelage only to find out that the child's innocence is stolen in sexual duress by trusted Father String Himup.

It is fine that the Church is paying up, but this would not repair damaged lives, it allows the Church to wipe the slate clean whilst not fully exposing to the law the extent of seriously criminal activity and the culpability of the clergy in conniving, concealing, condoning these acts when they should have been challenged - they were comfortable with harbouring and shielding addicted sociopathic unrepentant paedophiles who just happened to be priests.

Paedophiles they are

Unfortunately, paedophile is one word that has never been used to address the matter of Catholic priests abusing children and just to properly set our minds on the revulsion of these acts the definition of paedophilia in the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary is sexual perversion in which children are the preferred sexual object.

And now, the tithes and offerings of the faithful Catholic laity would pay to make child abuse less synonymous to paedophilia, over $2 billion has been paid out, this is seriously big business and money - No wonder religion remains definitely the opium of the people.

My Sex Post

Enjoy first condemn after

When I first read about My Sex Post on African Shirts, I thought he was writing a Lady Chatterley’s Lover sequel, then Chxta exploded on the scene first to deal with the prude and the hypocrites who on reading the sexual exploits of Overwhelmed Naija Babe (ONB) could not resist the urge to vituperate after satisfying their voyeuristic propensity to ululate over the sexual proclivities of others and then pretend they are castrated eunuchs or blessed nuns.

I then commented in Chxta’s blog about how these selfsame holier-than-thou voyeurs would handle homosexual sex if they are all so square about heterosexual sex and the convictions that overcame them as they tried to ward that away by condemning ONB ever so strongly.

The unspoken misdeed

However, on reflection, I have a duty to address this matter because it belongs to the unspoken, where things untold have been done to the innocent, that those who should protect can never bring themselves to believe something so evil is happening.

Even tonight, there are some who fear the night with unmentionable terror, who pray for the day like their life depends on it, who scream for help till there is no voice in their throats, who are damaged by those from whom more is expected but the least that can be done to those villains is to have them hung, drawn and quartered.

Yes, some can speak about their first sexual experiences because they knew what was happening and enjoyed what was happening to them, there are many who cannot because we were being told what is happening is for our good and then we are threatened with menace, if word gets out about what is too despicable for words, polite society would swoon.

The betrayal

When it does get out, it is our word against the older person, especially in a culture where it is given that the word of the older person is more believable and truthful than that of us, the victims.

Now, there is a cover-up, word must not get out, it would heap shame on the family to find out that the worst kind of thing is being done to a child and no redress, justice or succour can be found to deal with the psychological damage, as we are branded liars and ostracised for being victims.

For some, our memories are lambasted as false memories and in despair others like us have brought their lives to an end because the pain is too much to bear and it is all about sex.

Too hard to recount

You say, I cannot be serious, no, you cannot be serious, and I am talking about the sexual abuse of children by people they know so well, thankfully, not by immediate family.

If there was any help, it came from the invisible, power that one can only be thankful for, to be spared from an evil worse than one can dare to recount.

Now, I start my sex post.

1.) How old were you, the first time? 7

I hope you do not want to know anymore about it.

If you can be of any help, support the NSPCC or some charity for the prevention of child cruelty in your locality.

Thanks!

PS: I am fine, I am one of the many who have survived and overcome, however, this is for those who as yet have no voice.

Unisex Pederasty seeking a Dutch constituency

To tolerate or not

The nuances and complexities of the Dutch society and the politics that exudes from seeking to represent views, opinions and issues never cease to baffle.

Within the melee that accompanied the election of the leader of the Liberal Party last week, another party was born.

There is nothing wrong in registering political interest to represent a constituency of opinion once you get 500 signatories in the Netherlands, but you need the publicity at first to garner the prospective signatories.

Besides, there is a healthy tolerance of all sorts of political views except probably one in particular and this party became the rallying ground for this.

The paedophile party

This new political party had as its underlying manifesto the reduction of the Age of Consent from 16 to 12 - Age of Consent generally refers to the age at which adults and persons of a younger age can engage in sexual activity without fear of persecution or prosecution.

Many, however would contend that moving the Age of Consent to any age lower than 16 is either statutory rape in some instances, the uncomfortable tolerance of paedophilia and the adherents of acts that promote that activity.

Of the acceptable pleading the unacceptable

There is a quality of tolerance in the Netherlands that allows for people to publicly declare their interest in this matter, and there is a body of vigilantes who would with no provocation seek to do serious harm to those peado-protagonists.

Besides, there are also others who would declare interest in a non-committal way, where, for instance, a company is suing for the use of initials similar to those of its business.

For all the publicity that ensued, it does not help to realise that the main promoter of this party is a 62-year-old man living in a caravan park (address provided in news stories for the mob), which he has had to vacate due to threats to his collaborators and himself.

The rules again

However, you must never forget - the rulebook - it comes in handy again, the caravan park is supposed to be used for recreational activities and launching a party from a caravan in this caravan park is contrary to the rules.

This unsavoury case of public opinion and paedophilia is played out in stressing other points like the neighbours in the caravan site saying the caravan was so large there were not people living close to the man.

Other parties indicate they would withdraw web-hosting services from this unwelcome organisation.

Outrage, derision, consternation, anger, violence and condemnation gather in unity against a situation where the lines of the responsible exercise of liberties and freedom of expression have been crossed by one side proclaiming the untenable and the others baying for blood in the hysteria that always accompanies child porn, paedophilia and sexual crimes.

Protect the innocent - ALWAYS!

Our children, do indeed, must and need be protected from people who take sexual advantage and favours on the premise of being friendly and caring.

Having suffered such abuse myself before, one is left utterly confused about the rights and wrongs of the acts that probably give pleasure for some but create lasting damage for many.

Whilst, I cannot find a mountain high enough to proclaim or the tolerance deep enough to accept - my defence of the rights of association are definitely taxed beyond remediation - Do not let dirty old men join up in assailing the innocence of the weak and defiling the sexuality of the young and gratifying the lasciviousness of their carnal and unconscionable lusts.

I cannot be this liberal

Beasts from the pit of pederasty, debauched beyond redemption and given to wanton depravity should not roam free to prey like hungry hyenas on our young regardless of our outspoken liberties - our civilisation is about civilising people and not acquiescing to whims of the degenerate.

No, I will not join the hysteria of the mob for a lynching, rather, this needs objectivity in resolution, if they have committed no crimes they cannot be arrested for anything, but their intentions indicate the need for surveillance of their activities just in case these proclamations are closer to reality than fantasy.

For those who have ever been violated, like I was, but mercifully spared longterm damage, I feel your pain, I only wish you can find real support in those who really do love you.

I can tolerate a lot, but this one goes well beyond what I can countenance. Do not give them one chance.