Religion Youth Pastor Watch
posted by on February 15 at 10:50 AM
When she was 14, [Debbie] Vasquez met [Dale “Dickie”] Amyx, who would eventually rise through Calvary ranks. In Amyx, Vasquez thought she’d finally found a confidante. “He told me he was a man of God, and I thought I could trust him,” she says. “I thought he could help me.”She says Amyx started taking her on long country drives to talk about her problems. It was then that Amyx began touching her inappropriately…. Vasquez hid it until the age of 18, when her pregnancy made three years of abuse hard to hide. When the church’s senior pastor called Vasquez into his office and asked who the father was, she told him. And Vasquez says he made her march to the front of the church during Sunday service and ask her fellow churchgoers for their forgiveness. She was forced to confess that she was a pregnant, unwed teenager. But she was forbidden from fingering Amyx as the father—a fact that was not only proven years later in a paternity test, but which Amyx also has admitted.
A former youth minister accused of having sexual contact with a boy was taken into custody Thursday when a judge revoked his bond, citing allegations that he listed an abandoned home as his address. Tyree Coleman’s new bond was set at $250,000….Coleman, a former youth minister at Temple of Refuge Church, is awaiting trial on allegations that he had sexual contact with a 15-year-old boy during a sleepover at the church. He was charged in August 2006 with two counts of sexual misconduct, sexual battery, criminal deviate conduct and child solicitation.
Haunted by his past, Tom Ferguson spoke publicly for the first time on Tuesday. “I am a victim and survivor of childhood sexual assault,” said Ferguson.The Ohio man says it was at the hands of a man he looked up to and trusted. Ferguson says it was his former Catholic youth minister, a deacon named Glen Shrimplin who is now 74-years-old.
“I was 14-years-old when he groomed me - 15 and 16 when he started abusing me,” said Ferguson.
Yeah, too bad we don't live in a civilized country. Like Saudi Arabia. They would have just cut their heads off. (The women's heads, of course.)
she was forbidden from fingering Amyx
I would think turnabout ouwld be fair play...
Seriously though, making her confess to the entire fucking congregation is incredibly evil. Can we outlaw religion already?!?!
turnabout WOULD be
Well, not in the last scenario, where the pastor rape a boy instead of a girl.
What I get from these posts is that child abusers go where children are--where they can use their authority as adults over the child to gratify themselves sexually.
It happens in schools and child care centers, too. (Yes, I get the hypocracy Dan is calling on anti-gay parent politicians/clergy.)
Here's the toughie: This could also happen at LGBT youth programs. Abusers go where kids are.
I want to see criminal background checks done by these groups on volunteers/staff as well as policy guidelines including emotional boundaries. How often is this done? What happens when a gay man arrested for contact with another (adult) gay man in public space stings wants to volunteer?
It's just that I've noticed that when adults show up to volunteer with vulnerable kids, they're often taken at face value. The professions of faith may be enough to get the youth pastors by. Does the profession of working for the future of gay youth give a similar pass?
@5,
I'd like to see these church officials, such as that fuckhead senior pastor in Tennessee and any number of Catholic officials, stop covering for abusers.
My point being, we should ban religion, school teachers, political parties, and relatives.
flaming: I was making a point about the jackoff senior pastor. And I agree with you about banningteachers, etc...
@6
Sorry--here's what I meant to express: Since the mentioned churches seem to except faith as a entre into youth programs (which is not working to protect youth), I just want to know if secular LGBT programs are protecting vulnerable youth by not using gay activism as the sole entr to their programs.
Thanks for letting me clear that up.
@2 - Making the "sinners" go up to the front and beg forgiveness from the congregation has always been the M.O. of the American Evangelical Church. Not the closet wife-beaters or the raging bigots, though, just the pregnant teens and the cigarette smokers.
Not "except," meant "accept."
Could us man-hatin' feminist types get maybe a tiny lil' bit of mention of the that evil, overused "m" word surrounding the public shaming of a pregnant woman in her church? Pretty please?
Comments Closed
In order to combat spam, we are no longer accepting comments on this post (or any post more than 14 days old).