http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2009/05/15/youth-pastor-watch Comments On: Youth Pastor Watch by Dan Savage en-us Copyright 2009 The Stranger. All rights reserved. This RSS file is offered to individuals, The Stranger readers, and non-commercial organizations only. Any commercial websites wishing to use this RSS file, please contact The Stranger. webmaster@thestranger.com (The Stranger Webmaster) Tue, 24 Nov 2009 00:00:01 -0800 Tue, 24 Nov 2009 11:45:00 -0800 Foundation http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss I really wish the hormones were more powerful than faith in all these cases.
Posted by sex toy]]> Sun, 30 Aug 2009 23:22:06 -0700 The Stranger
Here in Texas, the age of consent is 17, which I think is fine. The first guy is definitely a douche bag, but I have a hard time seeing him as a criminal.
Posted by Learned Hand]]> Sat, 16 May 2009 21:51:01 -0700 The Stranger
http://www.wftv.com/news/19471875/detail…
Posted by yucca flower]]> Fri, 15 May 2009 16:58:48 -0700 The Stranger
Christianity http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/05/15/bib…
Posted by Heather]]> Fri, 15 May 2009 13:27:16 -0700 The Stranger
Us: "Sex is okay! Torture is bad."

Them: "Torture is okay! Sex is bad."

Age of consent in California is 18, but there's some judicial leeway when the couple are of similar ages. (An eighteen year old will probably not be prosecuted for fucking a sixteen year old, for example.) But a youth pastor boning one of his own flock is definitely a situation with abuse of power implications. I can see how he ended up with the sentence he did.
Posted by Uriel-238]]> Fri, 15 May 2009 11:48:21 -0700 The Stranger
I have always understood it is 18 years of age. I was born and raised in CA, but they may lowered the age after I left.
Posted by kim in portland]]> Fri, 15 May 2009 11:47:43 -0700 The Stranger
Thanks Dan! asshole...
Posted by The Amazing Jim]]> Fri, 15 May 2009 11:29:47 -0700 The Stranger We'll have to see who history will judge to be the heros...
Posted by stay tuned]]> Fri, 15 May 2009 10:46:17 -0700 The Stranger
The information that he gathered was used by the Allies and was vital in their winning the war.

Prejean is (in more than a few ways) an example of the Nordic ideal of what the perfect citizen should be - not only physically, but also in being educationally empty and vapid.
Posted by Hyzenthlayk9]]> Fri, 15 May 2009 10:43:53 -0700 The Stranger Posted by SKEPTIK]]> Fri, 15 May 2009 10:43:10 -0700 The Stranger Posted by Dan Savage]]> Fri, 15 May 2009 10:34:35 -0700 The Stranger But you forget, Wiener lost and Goebbels won.
And Dan is fond of pointing out that He's Winning!
Decadence is always the easier sell.

Carrie Prejean is your Alfred Wiener, warning America of impending moral collapse. Vainly and to much derision.

Dan is your Goebbels with a seductive appealing message of teenage anal sex and mutual masterbation, anything goes "marriage', and don't worry about monogamy. Messages relentlessly pounded into the children of America by Hollywood, MTV, etc. A modern day Nazi Youth.
He IS winning.

And the outcome will be the same.
Destruction of the society that embraces the seductive decadence.
Allied bombs and armies devastated Germany.
America is rotting from the inside out with moral decay.
Posted by Wouldn't Dan Look Better With a Little Mustache?]]> Fri, 15 May 2009 10:30:01 -0700 The Stranger
No, no, he's got a point. It's an offensive, ridiculously phrased point, but it's still a point. The point isn't that I am now more aware of a large and growing threat (though there may be one), the point is that I feel that there is a threat REGARDLESS OF HOW SIGNIFICANT A DANGER IT REALLY IS.

The analogy I would have used would have been Hearst's yellow journalism crusade against marijuana. There you had a journalist (or a journalism magnate) taking legitimate news stories and giving them exaggerated coverage until people were convinced that marijuana was a much bigger threat to the country than it was. Is. Simply making sure that every single criminal case that involves (marijuana/a youth pastor) gets played in banner point across the medium makes it seem like this big stinking deal.

And I can see the parallels to anti-semitism. If you want to demonize a group of people, one nice and easy way to do it is to take any awful story that involves some member of the group and pound on it -- see for example Dan's worry about the gay Taco Bell employees who were contaminating food and how that might have been demonized. The implication from these stories starts to become "People are sexual predators BECAUSE they are youth pastors" not "People are youth pastors because they are sexual predators" or even "Some sexual predators are youth pastors."

That being said, I think the whole Nazi thing is in kind of poor taste. Yeah, the Nazis were hip to propaganda. So's the Slog. So's, oh, Coca-Cola. Therefore Slog IS Coke!

Which, as we all know, is life. So there you go. Slog = Life.
Posted by Andrew Cole]]> Fri, 15 May 2009 10:29:48 -0700 The Stranger Posted by Ugh]]> Fri, 15 May 2009 10:16:06 -0700 The Stranger Posted by Ugh]]> Fri, 15 May 2009 10:12:24 -0700 The Stranger Posted by michael strangeways]]> Fri, 15 May 2009 10:10:58 -0700 The Stranger
You can keep the 1935 Germany comparison, but you have to put Alfred Wiener* and not Goebbels for Dan.

And replace Youth Pastor with Nazi (or the dangers of right-wing extremism) rather than Jew.

Then you have an accurate analogy.

*"Alfred Wiener devoted himself to the task of enlightening the German people about the dangers of right-wing extremism and anti-Semitism. He directed most of his efforts towards combating the Nazi threat. As part of this work Wiener was involved in an initiative in 1928 to set up an office to collect all available information about the Nazi Party, its leaders and its activities." - from the Introduction and Essays page of Testaments to the Holocaust at the Wiener Library, London.
Posted by Hyzenthlayk9]]> Fri, 15 May 2009 10:07:06 -0700 The Stranger
He got 90 days in jail and five years' probation. That's severe? You're a dumbass.
Posted by keshmeshi]]> Fri, 15 May 2009 09:56:51 -0700 The Stranger thought experiment

Substitute
1935 Germany for Slog and
Goebbels for Dan and
Jew for Youth Pastor
and you see how it's done.
Posted by Did someone mention Hitler Youth?]]> Fri, 15 May 2009 09:46:21 -0700 The Stranger
That, of course, doesn't even take into account that, whether we like or not, in today's society 17-year-olds are grown-up. No, they may not be mature, but they are seriously savvy enough to decide whether or not to let something into their vaginas. Please.
Posted by Ugh]]> Fri, 15 May 2009 09:41:46 -0700 The Stranger
It's working. The Slog makes up a significant portion of my news intake, and I'm increasingly starting to expect sexual molestation out of youth group leaders. I grew up in a fairly church-going family: went to church every week, went to youth group every week, went on the retreats and to church camp, was confirmed and everything, and before YPW started I would have said my opinions on youth groups was very slightly more favorable than not, even though I'm an atheist now and haven't been to church in seven years. Now, though? Definitely negative. I have to stop and remember why I think youth groups are risky -- bubble chamber, bubble chamber.

So, uh, good job, I guess?
Posted by Andrew Cole]]> Fri, 15 May 2009 09:35:25 -0700 The Stranger Posted by Gloria]]> Fri, 15 May 2009 09:31:16 -0700 The Stranger Posted by Gloria]]> Fri, 15 May 2009 09:29:25 -0700 The Stranger Posted by just saying]]> Fri, 15 May 2009 09:14:28 -0700 The Stranger Youth Pastor Watch FAIL!
Posted by We Also Haven't Had Our Daily Carrie Picture]]> Fri, 15 May 2009 09:12:46 -0700 The Stranger