Lawrence v. Texas involved consenting adults. An adult having sex with a child will not have the same substantive due process rights as an adult having sex with another consenting adult. I haven't seen the state statute at issue, but as applied to an adult having sex with a child, Lawrence v. Texas is not controlling.

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Maybe they should dip 'em in fish guts before sending them to church.

Dan! Is it not time to compile all these youth pastor updates and release them as a book??? Maybe with some new writing in between and some follow-up on some of these and some statistics?

oregon's sodomy statute only covers situations where the victim did not give valid consent. it's basically the rape statute, but for "deviate sexual intercourse" instead of just plain old "sexual intercourse."
http://www.leg.state.or.us/ors/163.html

Laws are not automatically taken off the books even if they are unconstitutional, Washington has a statute that criminalizes flag burning even though that law is unconstitutional.

RCW 9.86.030

sodomy is always listed separately, as in a list of rape offenses when you read news stories, i.e.: one count of sodomy, two counts of forced oral copulation, one count of battery, etc. consensually not illegal, but as an act of rape they are all counted individually as criminal actions, to add up to an appropriate sentence, supposedly.

I am not sure what the point of these posts are, and what the analogy to shark attacks is supposed to show. I thought you were parodying the media's coverage of shark attacks, e.g., lots of hysteria, lots of gory details, lots of anecdotal stories, but no actual data nor level-headed risk assesment. However, this "pastor watch" seems to have assumed a life of its own and become identical to what you were parodying in the first place. If anecdotal evidence of shark attacks does not convince you that shark attacks are a serious problem, then anecdotal evidence of "pastor attacks" should not convince you that "pastor attacks" are a problem.

Yes, it is horrifying that a Youth Pastor was also a child molestor.

But he molested a student...who he met at a school. That seems a far cry from saying the church was that dangerous. If he was successfully grooming victims at church, he wouldn't need to teach, right?

The thing about Christian Schools (and youth pastors, of course) is that they, unlike public schools, don't have unions. Teachers Unions establish protocol and means for teacher investigation of allegations and thus there are more limits to what ends up in the news.

though the site is having trouble at present, schools wouldn't seem to be much safer:
http://www.badbadteacher.com/

jon c. was right: only consensual sodomy was decriminalized. The rest was left in the statute books.

Dan, I agree with @5 please list these as a book or at least something I can copy and paste all at once to show my youth pastor.

Dan, it's the 69th YPW!!! Congrats :)

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stats @ 9 - unless I'm wrong, the primary aim of YPW was never meant to be a parody of media hysteria (over shark attacks??). It is really about pointing out the hypocrisy of the Christian claims to some higher morality.

And it's a point well made. Bring out the book, Dan!

At crux in Lawrence v. Texas was that the anti-sodomy laws targeted homosexuals only. That was found to be in violation of equal protection. What went unanswered was whether the state could have anti-sodomy laws on the books that applied to everyone.