John Picard, 40, of Springboro, was charged with 10 counts of sexual battery, all third-degree felonies. He is accused of having sexual relations with a girl starting in 1992 when she was 13 and continuing until she reached adulthood. Picard was a youth pastor at Grace Brethren Church on Marion Avenue at the time.

Police said they think there are other victims.

“He’s probably one of the most despicable pedophiles that there can be,” Mansfield police Lt. Allen Vandayburg said. “It’s a sad, sad state of affairs when somebody of trust can’t be trusted.”

Jury selection begins Monday morning the trial of a youth minister charged with beating a teenager to death. Joshua Rosa is accused of murdering 13-year-old Stephen Tomlinson more than two years ago. Tomlinson’s body was found at Logan Gate Park, just a few blocks away from his home.

Rosa, 22, worked as a youth minister at the Zion Pentecostal Church. Tomlinson’s father, Ron Tomlinson, has filed a civil lawsuit against the church claiming it failed to properly supervise Rosa with his son.

Oklahoma:

An Oklahoma baptist church has insisted it will proceed with its controversial plan to give away an AR-15 semiautomatic assault rifle during a youth conference—a move described as "a way of trying to encourage young people to attend the event," according to local Koko 5 news.

Windsor Hills Baptist apparently has a history of worshipping God through firepower, and last year ran a shooting competition as part of its annual shindig. This year, it reportedly shelled out $800 for said trophy semi, but the church’s youth pastor, Bob Ross, claimed the main thrust of the conference wasn't about guns but rather "teens finding faith."

Florida:

A former youth pastor accused of secretly taping Bible study students changing clothes in his Ellenton home has pleaded no contest to nine counts of voyeurism. Matthew C. Porter, 31, of Ellenton, is scheduled be sentenced on the misdemeanor charges at the Manatee County Judicial Center on Aug. 21.

More details on Matthew C. Porter's case can be found in this earlier report:

One hidden camera in the pastor's bathroom was disguised as an air freshener, authorities say. Another camera in a bedroom was concealed by a radio.

Matthew C. Porter, a former youth pastor at Bethel Baptist Church in Bradenton, reportedly told Manatee County sheriff's detectives he secretly taped Bible study students in his home in Ellenton. The victims range in age from 12 to 16.

New York:

Ryan Drumsta, then 16, spent nearly two months recovering from the stomach wound caused by a deer slug his brother fired from a shotgun after they wrestled in the family’s kitchen Nov. 24.

Meanwhile, Nick, 19, was locked away in the Erie County Holding Center on an attempted murder charge....[Ryan] is slowly regaining his health, though he faces “at least one more surgery,” said his mother, Linda. Ryan felt well enough to go for a dirt-bike ride with his youth pastor over the weekend, his mother said.

They know it doesn't seem very Christian, but they don't know why.

So when British evangelicals (of Christian Action Research and Education) try to make hay out of Max Mosley's "sadomasochism party" and say they condemn BDSM because it creates "unconstructive" relationships based on "the dominion of one person over another"—well, that's just comedy.

Because Christians, with all their Biblical injunctions about wives being submissive to husbands—I'm looking at you, Mars Hill—can't stand the idea of a relationship based on domination.

Nor can they stomach people fetishizing protracted scenes of suffering and humiliation.

Nope. They don't like that stuff one bit.

(See the full story—in which the BBC tries to explain BDSM to the grannies of Great Britain—here).

This is going to be the best Olympics ever!

This is from a wonderful blogger's summary of the case:

What is at issue is the meaning of the words μαλακοι and αρσενοκοιται The usual view is that they refer to men who engage in homosexual acts. μαλακοι are those taken to play the "feminine" role, αρσενοκοιται those taken to play the "masculine" role. That these refer to homosexuals of some sort is clear from the Latin translation, produced in the 5th century, which uses molles "soft ones" for μαλακοι and masculorum concubitores "those who sleep with men" for αρσενοκοιται.

...

As I understand Fowler's complaints, he is not arguing that the New Testament, when translated correctly, discriminates against him as a gay man. Rather, he thinks that the publishers were negligent in publishing Bibles containing what in his view is an erroneous translation, one that, he thinks, falsely condemns homsexuality.

Of course, the right wing blogs, which I'm not going to link to, are having a field day with this, along the lines of : "Liberals are suing Jesus! Next, they'll sue all of us for praying in the comfort of our own homes!" But, really, this is a pretty fascinating lawsuit about the nuances of translation, which is just the kind of nerdery that makes me tingle.

Via Maud.

But here's what really set my blood boiling. Check out this pathetic attempt to harness Thomas Jefferson as an intelligent design proponent:

Next time someone tells you intelligent design is “based on religion,” you might point him to American Founder Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence. As I explain in a special July 4th edition of ID the Future, Jefferson not only believed in intelligent design, he insisted it was based on the plain evidence of nature, not religion.

Ironically, the critics of intelligent design often think they are defending the principles of Jefferson. The National Council for the Social Studies, for example, claims that intelligent design is religion and then cites Jefferson’s famous Letter to the Danbury Baptists calling for a “wall of separation” between church and state. The clear implication is that Thomas Jefferson would agree with them that intelligent design is religion. A writer for Irregular Times goes even further, insisting that “the case of Thomas Jefferson makes it quite clear that there was not a consensus of support among the authors of the Constitution to allow for the mixing of religion and government to support theological doctrines such as intelligent design.”

In reality, Jefferson did not believe that intelligent design was a religious doctrine. In a letter to John Adams on April 11, 1823, he declared:

I hold (without appeal to revelation) that when we take a view of the Universe, in its parts general or particular, it is impossible for the human mind not to perceive and feel a conviction of design, consummate skill, and indefinite power in every atom of its composition.

(emphasis added)

By insisting that his defense of intelligent design was made “without appeal to revelation,” Jefferson clearly was arguing that the idea had a basis other than religion. What was that basis? He went on to explain:

The movements of the heavenly bodies, so exactly held in their course by the balance of centrifugal and centripetal forces, the structure of our earth itself, with its distribution of lands, waters and atmosphere, animal and vegetable bodies, examined in all their minutest particles, insects mere atoms of life, yet as perfectly organised as man or mammoth, the mineral substances, their generation and uses, it is impossible, I say, for the human mind not to believe that there is, in all this, design, cause and effect, up to an ultimate cause, a fabricator of all things from matter and motion, their preserver and regulator while permitted to exist in their present forms, and their regenerator into new and other forms.

In sum, Jefferson believed that empirical data from nature itself proved intelligent design by showing the natural world’s intricate organization from the level of plants and insects all the way up to the revolution of the planets.

Wow. As a graduate of the University of Virginia (so frequently referred to as Thomas Jefferson's University that the radio station call letters are WTJU), I am well acquainted with the deployment of quotations from Mr. Jefferson to support nearly any point of view. However, this goes too far. Jefferson died in 1826, 33 years before Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species. Intelligent design borrows heavily from dusty old natural theologian William Paley, but it is in essence a repudiation of Darwin's theory of natural selection. Jefferson was not a critic of evolution because he had no knowledge of evolution.

In fact, he thought extinction did not exist and that there were likely still mastodons roaming the Pacific Northwest. But he shouldn't be blamed for not knowing or discovering a scientific theory on his own. After all, he also said this, as he petitioned Congress for the repeal of a duty on imported books:

That the value of science to a republican people; the security it gives to liberty, by enlightening the minds of its citizens; the protection it affords against foreign power; the virtues it inculcates; the just emulation of the distinction it confers on nations foremost in it; in short, its identification with power, morals, order, and happiness, (which merits to it premiums of encouragement rather than repressive taxes,) are topics, which your petitioners do not permit themselves to urge on the wisdom of Congress, before whose minds these considerations are always present, and bearing with their just weight.

"I've always wanted to take my dad to my senior prom ever since I was a little girl," Ashley Nicely said. "I really look up to him. He sets a great example, and there's no one I'd rather take than him."

And she admitted that she had options. She said she turned down a handful of guys from school so she could fulfill her childhood wish.

Troy Nicely, a youth pastor, said he was surprised but honored to take his daughter [to prom].

A priest accused of abusing an altar boy in 2001 has been charged with child abuse after turning himself in to police Tuesday.

The Rev. Aaron Joseph Cote, 56, who was an associate pastor in 2001 and 2002 at Mother Seton parish in Germantown, had been accused of sexual abuse by the former altar boy, Brandon Rains, who filed a lawsuit against him in 2005....

According to Montgomery County police, Cote had been counseling the boy while serving part time as youth minister at Mother Seton.

Oregon:

A 20-year-old woman who broke her neck while playing on a trampoline with a youth pastor is suing the pastor, claiming he should have known that his weight would have caused her to catapult into the air.

Pastor Matt Lambrecht is named along with the Archdiocese of Portland, the trampoline manufacturer, Legacy Emmanuel Hospital & Health Care Center and several other defendants in the $33.5 million suit filed in Multnomah County Circuit Court Tuesday....

Freitag suffers from quadriplegia and will need a wheelchair for the rest of her life, the suit states.

A divided Texas Supreme Court ruled in favor of a former Colleyville church Friday, saying church members who were involved in a traumatic exorcism that ultimately injured a young woman are protected by the First Amendment.

...

Schubert’s account of what happened over several days at the Pleasant Glade church in June 1996 is harrowing.

Schubert and her brother were involved with church activities while their parents were out of town. On Friday evening, during preparations for a youth group garage sale, the atmosphere became "spiritually charged" when another youth said he saw a demon.

Under direction of the youth minister, the youth frantically anointed everything in the church with holy oil until, at 4:30 a.m. Saturday, the minister told the exhausted youth that they had finally been successful.

At the Sunday evening worship services, Schubert collapsed. Church members "laid hands" on her and forcibly held her arms crossed over her chest, despite her demands to be set free.

She reportedly cried, yelled, kicked, sweated and hallucinated while also making guttural noises. She was released after she calmed down and replied with requests to say the name Jesus.

Tennessee:

Leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention have condemned sexual predators and are urging churches to flush out molesters using federal background checks. But a simple search on the convention's Web site shows they have yet to purge their own house of predators.

Listed on the site is Steven Haney, the former pastor of Walnut Grove Baptist Church, now Gracepoint Baptist. Haney is accused of having a long-term sexual affair with a teenage boy in his Cordova congregation.... Haney's case is still pending, along with that of Tim Byars, who also turns up on the site.

A former youth minister at Springhill Baptist Church in Dyersburg, he was charged with raping a 14-year-old girl during a field trip nearly two years ago. Byars is also charged in another case for sexual battery in Davidson County....

Brown says keeping predators and alleged predators on the convention's Web site gives the impression these are safe ministers. "We've got to do more to protect our children," he said.

Georgia:

Questionnaire: State Representative District 3 candidate Brad Scott • Full name: Brad Scott

• Place of birth: East Ridge Hospital, Chattanooga, Tenn.

* Age: 23

• How can voters contact you? (423) 779-2459, Email: BradScottgop@comcast.net

• Do you have a Web site? ElectBradScott.com

• Do you have a philosophy or words to live by? Philippians 4:13- ”I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me”

• Hobbies: Church; spending time with family; spending time in the outdoors fishing, hunting, and running

• Current/ past professional / business experience: paraprofessional at Ringgold Primary for 3 years; Fellowship Baptist Church assistant youth director at for 3 years; currently Fairview Baptist Church youth minister; currently a Substitute Teacher in Catoosa County Schools.

And a headline from Florida:

Teens flock to PCB to renew faith

Have you been craving that Mormon Fundamentalist Polygamist look for yourself and/or your pet? Then you simply must check out FLDSDress.com, where all the fashions that marched across our TV screens during the recent FLDS flare-up in Texas are available for sale to any and all.

As Slog tipper Tom wrote, "The Teen Princess Dress is every pedophile's dream!"

Personally, I think the site works best as an adolescent rebellion deterrent: "If you're not home by 11:30, young lady, your entire back-to-school wardrobe comes from here!"

(Via Deadspin.)

Bill Keller is a publicity-savvy televangelist with a penchant for politics who works out of the back room of a used-car lot.

But on to the point: During the Republican primary, Keller's narrow view of scripture led him to make a comment about Mitt Romney's Mormon faith leading the former Massachusetts governor down the path to Satan. In fact, the direct quote left little to be parsed:

"A vote for Romney is a vote for Satan."

Is implying that a presidential hopeful shares a ticket with Satan grounds for losing your tax exempt status? The New York Times reports that Keller is under investigation by the IRS for bringing his church into the realm of politics, a battle which Keller is welcoming. In fact, Keller and a conservative evangelical legal organization, the Alliance Defense Fund, are actually trying to goad the government into legal action against them:

The Alliance Defense Fund is recruiting 50 pastors to endorse candidates from the pulpit on September 28, hoping to provoke a legal challenge to the I.R.S. code.

“We’re asking pastors to make specific recommendations based on scripture as to how their congregations should vote,” said Erik Stanley, senior legal counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund.

Mr. Stanley said the organization planned to send tapes of the sermons to the IRS, and then sue the agency for inhibiting free speech and the free exercise of religion when an investigation is opened.

Should the court challenge succeed, churches would be all but free to make the endorsements openly that they now crouch in subtext and loopholes. Feel free to draw your own real life parallels to the plot-line of the bestselling Left Behind series.

A former youth pastor was sentenced on Friday to six years—three years in prison and three years suspended—for his sexual involvement with a 14-year old girl. Keith Daniel Kiger, 31, of Winslow entered a negotiated plea of guilty to reduced charges of sexual indecency with a child before 4 th Judicial Circuit Judge William Storey. He was initially charged with second-degree sexual assault.... Kiger admitted to engaging in sexual contact with the victim as many as six times, according to the arrest report. Most of the contact reportedly occurred in the back of his van during the day in public parking lots across Fayetteville.

More than 90 percent of Americans -- including one in five people who say they are atheists -- believe in God or a universal power, and more than half pray at least once a day, according to results of a poll released today that takes an in-depth look at Americans' religious beliefs.

Bolded for what-the-fuckedness. 20% of all atheists are rat fink liars? And do those one in five unatheistic atheists actually count toward the less than one in ten people who don't believe in God?

I thought we atheists were making some ground. Oh, well. Maybe next generation.