Florida:

Detectives of the Sarasota Police Department have arrested a youth minister of a local church for Lewd and Lascivious act on a teen boy. The church, Bethlehem Baptist Church, is located at 1680 18th Street in Sarasota.

It is alleged that on May15, the victim spent the night at the home of 24-year-old James Marcellus Knowlin.

The victim stated that he was playing video games at Knowlin‘s house after he had bought him and other youths some pizza. The victim fell asleep on the floor and was later told by Knowlin to sleep in a bed. While the victim was asleep in the bed he was awakened by Knowlin several times and that the defendant had his hand inside the victim's shorts. The victim also stated that the Knowlin slept behind him and was grinding himself against the victim during the night.

Colorado:

Twenty years ago, the first of what would become several women and teenage girls said she was "groomed" and sexually assaulted by a youth pastor who served at various Colorado churches—including Longmont's Central Presbyterian Church.

Today—after years of court hearings on sex-assault charges, multiple arrests for bond violations and a Boulder County trial that ended in a hung jury—Peter Kim was sentenced to one year in prison and a lifetime of probation....

Although prosecutors asked Boulder County District Court Judge D.D. Mallard to impose a 20-year probation sentence for Kim after prison, Mallard said his extensive criminal history warrants a lifetime of probation.

Kansas:

G. Lamar Roth, Hesston College vice president of Student Life, has announced that Todd Lehman has been appointed as the new campus pastor.... From October 2001 to July 2007, Lehman served jointly as youth pastor at First Mennonite Church, and at Trinity Mennonite Church, both in Hillsboro, Kan. Earlier experience as youth pastor included a one-year term at Zion Mennonite Church, Broadway, Va., from September 2000 to July 2001.

Slog tipper Charlie writes...

My wife and I were walking by the ol' Mars Hill this Sunday and came across this scene. The beauty and horribleness of this iPhone snapshot is beyond further description.

New York:

A former Centereach private school teacher and youth pastor pleaded not guilty Friday to charges of having a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old girl.

Rodney A. Jackson Jr., 29, of Patchogue, was arraigned before First District Court Judge John Iliou in Central Islip on charges of third-degree criminal sexual act and endangering the welfare of a minor, according to Suffolk prosecutors.

Jackson began a relationship with the student in April 2006 while he was a teacher and youth pastor at the Our Savior New American School, prosecutors said.... School principal Dolores Reade said only that she was not aware of the court appearance. She declined to comment further, citing a "school policy that we do not discuss these things."

It must be a comfort for parents to know that sexual abuse by youth pastors is so common at Our Savior New American that the school has established a policy about handling media inquiries.

Just in time to exploit that all-important Mother's Day angle, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar--the publicity-seeking right-wing Arkansas Christian couple whose giant family inspired the "Vagina: It's Not a Clown Car" poster--have announced they're having their 18th kid. If the Duggars were black, of course—or immigrants, or Muslims, or lesbians—such profligate breeding would be roundly condemned as lousy family planning, a strain on society, and a bad, neglectful home environment for the kids. But because they're good, all-American evangelical nut jobs, the national press treats every new baby Michelle squeezes out as a God-sanctioned miracle worthy of lavish, slobbering praise. The Discovery Channel has even given them their own TV show and web site (on its "Discovery Health" page, ironically), currently headlined "The Duggars' Big Announcement: Baby #18!"

Check out this fawning piece from the Today Show (which also reported—uncritically—the Duggars' unfounded theory that the eeevil birth control pill caused Michelle's first miscarriage):

Michelle and Jim Bob decided to pray for as many children as God would give them. Within a year, Michelle was pregnant with the first of their two sets of twins.

Their large number of offspring has meant other large numbers for the Duggars. Michelle has been pregnant for 135 months of her life, with an average of 18 months between births. The family estimates it has used 90,000 diapers and launders 200 loads of clothes each month in a row of industrial-size washers and dryers.

Most importantly, there is a unique dedication to serve the greater good of the home and family. An older child will take on the responsibility of a younger sibling throughout the day. The children help prepare meals and keep to a steady home-schooling schedule. Group studies include materials from Advanced Training Institute International, a Bible-based education program for families.

To celebrate the latest addition to the Duggar clan, the TODAY Show planned their own surprise for Michelle by sending her children out to either shop or make new gifts for their busy mother.

The main gifts, picked by all the kids, included a ring Michelle saw and liked in a used jewelry store two weeks ago, as well as a pearl necklace and matching earrings. The older girls, Jana, Jill, Jessa and Jinger, picked out an outfit for their mom designed for “in-between” stages of pregnancy.[...]

“They thought they’d give their a mom surprise,” Jim Bob said. “But she gave them a surprise.”

Memo to the Today Show's producers: Somehow I doubt that kids savvy enough to buy their mom a dress for the next time she's in those pesky in between stages" of pregnancy--hell, kids savvy enough to look around and count--are too fucking surprised that the human incubator they call Mom is knocked up again.

Many of the stories on the Duggars have focused on their supposed frugality, noting admiringly that they live "debt free." From an old CBS News story on Michelle Duggar, titled "What a Mother!: A Young Mom With 14 Kids Knows the Meaning of Family":

Duggar is like any mom -- multiplied several times over.

Michelle Duggar, 37, and her husband, former state Rep. Jim Bob Duggar, have 14 kids. All of their names start with the letter "J," and number 15 is due this month.

"I'm either expecting or nursing," Michelle Duggar says with a laugh. "We actually didn't set out to have a large number of children. I don't think that was our intention when we were first married. But I think we realized children are a gift."

The Duggars are a very religious, Southern Baptist family.

[...] Michelle Duggar homeschools all 14 children. Sometimes, they study as a group or on their own. They use workbooks, computers and each other to study.

[...]That may be hard to do in the modest house of only 2,400 square feet.

Dad and the two oldest boys are building a 7,000-square-foot house. The Duggar dream house will have bathrooms galore, a commercial kitchen and one heck of a laundry room.

"We'll have four washers and eight dryers," says Jim Bob Duggar. "Yes, a laundromat."

How do they afford it? Jim Bob Duggar made some smart investments, and they're pretty frugal. The Duggars shop in bulk, basketfuls at a time.

"We spend about $1,500 a month on food," say Jim Bob.

When they do splurge, they go in style -- the family bus. But the bus has a couple of extra seats.

"I would like more," says Michelle Duggar.

Jim Bob Duggar says he has something very special planned for Mother's Day. Michelle says if that means he's cooking, she'll have quite a mess to clean up when he's done.

Another example from the Dallas Morning News, printed shortly after Baby No. 16:

Inquiring minds want to know: How do they make it work? The answer: It's all about faith, finances and family. It's a system developed over their two decades together, and still evolving today.

The Houston Chronicle, which stuck the story about the Duggars' 18th lil' miracle in its "Bizarre News" section , does note that the Duggar patriarch "has not been specific when asked how he supports such a big family" but adds that Jim Bob's mysterious accounting system "blends finance and religion."

And, they fail to mention, donations. No family of 20 could get by on a single income—something any reporter who's ever collected a paycheck ought to be able to surmise. In truth, the Duggars subsist on food donations from Sysco; supplement their bank accounts with contributions from other evangelical Christians and their church; and built their 7,000-square-foot "dream house" with donated supplies and decked it out with appliances donated by the Discovery Channel. Once it was built, the Discovery Channel sent the whole family on a trip to Disneyland. They also reportedly pay the Duggars for their participation. That's not frugality--it's welfare. The more babies Michelle Duggar has, the more free stuff she and her family get. The Republicans had a name for that... if only I could remember what it was.

The really sick thing about the Duggars' whole setup is that they actually believe that God wants women to be pregnant all the time (to the extent that Michelle reportedly stops breast feeding as soon as possible after each birth, the better to ensure a quick pregnancy)--an unnatural setup that renders Michelle Duggar routinely incapacitated, makes her permanently dependent on her husband (would you hire a non-college-educated housewife who hasn't worked since she got married at 17?), and puts her at serious risk of early death and other health problems later in life. But Michelle, of course, doesn't matter. Her job is to keep pumping out the precious little babies--to keep the family's quiver full. Her value is functional, not intrinsic.

Louisiana:

The Louisiana School for the Deaf has hired a consultant following a number of incidents involving current and former staff. Most recently, 31-year-old Joey Thomas, a youth minister at the school, was arrested in April for having an inappropriate relationship with a 14-year-old girl.

Thomas is the fifth person affiliated with the school arrested in so many months.

Texas:

Austin Police revealed Tuesday that 32-year-old Shane Flournoy, who is accused of paying a Texas School for the Deaf student to expose himself, had inappropriate sexual contact with at least five boys in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. Police say the boys were between the ages of 13 and 16-years-old.... Flournoy moved to Austin in May of 2007 and was hired at the Texas School for the Deaf as a dorm worker. He was also a youth minister at the Solid Rock Baptist Church...

Austin Police also revealed that Flournoy had been a youth pastor helping the deaf community when he was living in Houston. They say he groomed teenagers and their parents by taking them on field trips and buying them gifts.

You might think that, what with the tornadoes and cyclones and earthquakes and elections and all, that even Christians would conclude that Jesus has His hands full at the moment. But the Lord can always has time for a Christian with a porn problem, according to Godtube...

The actor playing Jesus looks a little old for the part, I have to say. And is it just me or are Christian Mac users not nearly as a cute as secular Mac users? Still, I'm thinking Brendan might be right: the regional theater tony went to the wrong company.

From the AP:

Vatican: It's OK to believe in aliens

But what we really need to know, of course, is what the Vatican usually concerns itself with: Is it okay to sleep with aliens?

Kids, mom lived with 90-year-old's corpse for weeks in Wis.

Two children and their mother lived for about two months with the decaying body of a 90-year-old woman on the toilet of their home's only bathroom, on the advice of a religious "superior" who claimed the corpse would come back to life, authorities said Friday.

The children—a 15-year-old girl and a 12-year-old boy—cried hysterically Wednesday after a deputy who came to their Necedah home looking for Magdeline Alvina Middlesworth ordered them out because of the stench from her body....

When Deputy Leigh Neville-Neil arrived at the house, she encountered Lewis, also known as Sister Mary Bernadett, the complaint said. Lewis, 35, initially refused to allow the deputy to check on Middlesworth, telling her that Middlesworth was on vacation and saying she had to check with her "superior" first.

But she eventually let the deputy in. The house smelled of incense and burned wood, and had religious materials everywhere and hymns playing on the stereo, according to the complaint. When the deputy opened the last closed door, she smelled "decaying matter" and noticed something piled on what appeared to be a toilet. Lewis told her it was Middlesworth's body, the complaint said.

Lewis told the deputy that Middlesworth had died about two months earlier, but that God told her Middlesworth would come to life if she prayed hard enough. She said she couldn't say anything more until she spoke with her "superior"—Bushey, 57, also known as Bishop John Peter Bushey.

Pennsylvania:

An Allegheny County jury convicted a former youth minister at a Wilkinsburg church Thursday of raping two boys and assaulting a third.

David Baird, 46, of West Deer was convicted of raping a 14-year-old boy and molesting a second boy. He also was convicted of raping a third boy over an eight-year period beginning when the child was 10.

Baird faces a maximum penalty of more than 100 years in prison for the two dozen convictions.

The AP:

Evangelicals warn of politicizing faith

We wouldn't want to see that happen, now would we?

Pennsylvania:

Testimony began yesterday for a former youth minister charged with sexually assaulting three boys under his tutelage. [Rev. David Baird] faces more than 20 charges....

Mr. Baird was youth minister at Covenant Church of Pittsburgh in Wilkinsburg in 1999 when an East Hills boy, the first to file a complaint, was recruited to participate in programs. The boy was 9 or 10 years old when the alleged assaults began, according to his testimony at a hearing in June.... The third alleged victim told investigators that he was on juvenile probation in 2002, and had been ordered to perform community service in Wilkinsburg with Mr. Baird as his supervisor.

Instead of working on the assigned project, the boy said in a sworn affidavit, Mr. Baird drove him to Friendship Park in Penn Hills. The boy said he was "shocked, afraid and offended" as Mr. Baird molested him. The youth said the assault ended only after he began to cry out in pain.

Arizona:

A former Surprise charter school teacher who was charged in a pair of child pornography investigations over the past two months had more charges brought against him this week.

Surprise police detectives on Wednesday charged Victor Scott McPeak Jr. with four counts of aggravated assault after four former students alleged that he molested them.... McPeak Jr., the son of a retired minister, attended a private Christian college in Joplin, Mo., and served stints as a church leader in Gering, Neb., and Douglas, Wyo.

Keith Couch, an elder at the Nebraska church, said McPeak Jr. would sometimes help out as a youth minister at the Central Church of Christ.

Minnesota:

A former Spring Valley youth pastor at Valley Christian Center was sentenced last week to 120 days in jail after pleading guilty Feb. 25 to two counts of criminal sexual conduct. Derrick DeBoef.... was charged Feb. 2, 2007, with 32 felonies, all of them criminal sexual conduct, for allegedly engaging in sexual penetration and sexual contact with the girl, who was 17 at the time.

At that time, she was meeting with him to receive religious or spiritual counseling.

Texas:

Priest calls for new strategies to keep young adults in church

Every diocese needs a comprehensive pastoral plan specifically aimed at young adults to reverse the hemorrhage of Catholics in their 20s and early 30s leaving the Catholic Church, a national pioneer in young adult ministry said.

Hm... a strategy... how about stop raping kids maybe?

I recommend this NYT editorial on John McCain:

While Democrats voted in North Carolina, which Mr. Obama won, and in Indiana, which was too close to call at press time, Mr. McCain spoke about his judicial philosophy. He is determined to move a far too conservative and far too activist Supreme Court and federal judiciary even further and more actively to the right.

Mr. McCain predictably criticized liberal judges, vowed strict adherence to the founders’ views and promised to appoint more judges in the mold of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito. That is just what the country does not need.

Since President Bush chose Justices Roberts and Alito, the court has ordered Seattle and Louisville to scrap voluntary school integration, protected employers who illegally mistreat their workers and constrained women’s right to choose and citizens’ right to vote.

Mr. McCain did not mention, of course, how the Roberts-led court blithely overruled Congress by nullifying an important part of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. He did wax nostalgic about what “the basic right of property” has meant “since the founding of America.” (He did not mention that in 1789, many women could not own property and African-Americans were property, but he did criticize the idea that values evolve over time.)

I am very close to a 3L law student, and I have been distressed as to the slow migration of his ideas about the judiciary over the last couple of years. The Constitution is neither living nor dead—it's a text, like any other. Call me a doctrinaire English major, but I know that even words and phrases change meaning over time. We cannot divine the founder's true intentions through their writings, and it's useless to try.

I've had a very hard time understanding why the court's most hardcore Catholics have cleaved to dunderheaded, precedent-defying originalism. Weren't they taught from the cradle that both scripture and tradition have their place? Literal interpretation of anything, from the Bible to the Constitution, is folly. "We the People" now signifies something wholly different from the meaning it had for the founders, and we're all better off for it.

The Fremont Market assured us yesterday that we won't be seeing Scientology "vendors" at their European-style flea market/rummage sale/antiques fair again—nor will we be seeing Jews for Jesus vendors or Mormon vendors or Jehovah's Witness vendors. The Scientologists slipped into the market "under the pretense of being ordinary 'booksellers,'" wrote Fremont Market's Jon Hegeman in an email. "Ministries, religious organizations and professional outreach 'services' are not what we usually do. Their volunteer 'ministry' won’t be here again."

Good to know.

And here's something else I'd like to know: When did the Scientologists make off with the cross? You know, the cross—symbol of Christianity for two thousand years now. And how did they do it without a peep of protest from Pat Robertson or Pope Benedict or Bill Donohue or Rev. Wright or John Hagee or Concerned Women for America or Tim Burgess?

I first noticed Scientology's appropriation of the cross when Tom Cruise accepted some big Scientology award for being a totally awesome Scientologist...

When I saw that cross I shrugged and gave the Scientologists the benefit of the doubt. I mean, maybe that little spiked burst in the middle of the cross meant that it was supposed to be a star, not a cross, which would be appropriately sciencefictiony. Still, it looked a lot like a baroque Christian cross to me. But on Sunday at the Fremont Market I noticed that the yellow Scientology tent had crosses all over it—and the star-like spikes had been replaced by soft, round squiggles.

So... the spikes are gone... replaced by squiggles... squiggles that seem to resemble... gee, does any one else think those squiggles on that cross suggest perhaps a human form? Isn't that a head? And aren't those two arms and two legs? And a pair of epaulettes and a couple of armpit goiters?

When did the Scientologist's cross become a crucifix?

Come now, Scientologists, out with it: What are you up to? For famously litigious religious sectarians/cultists/book vendors, you don't seem shy about copyright violations when it comes to the sacred symbols/logos of other religions—violations in spirit, I realize, not in fact. Is your use of the cross intended to fool people? "Oh look, Marge, a cross. Must be a real religion after all. Say, let's get a good, Christian personality test." Or was your crack team of imagineers pooped after making up a whole bunch of new horseshit to get your religion off the ground—which you had to do in order to compete with older, more established religions that made up their horseshit centuries ago—and so, in a state of complete creative exhaustion, you opted to swipe some other religions sacred symbol instead of doing the hard work of coming up with your own?

And, hey, are any actual Christians bothered by this? Has anyone checked with the pope about this? Wright? Hagee? CWfA? Tim Burgess?

Texas:

A former Upshur County youth minister was sentenced to life in prison Tuesday for aggravated sexual assault of a child, said Billy Byrd, Upshur County district attorney

Kevin Othell Laferney, former youth minister at the First Baptist Church in Glenwood, was scheduled for trial on May 12, Byrd said. Laferney, 41, changed his plea today and accepted a sentence of life in prison, he said.

Laferney was arrested in August 2006 on charges of sexual assault of a 13-year-old girl. He was also charged with indecency with a 10-year-old child in another investigation.

Alaska:

Pleas of "not guilty" were entered in Kenai Superior Court on Monday on behalf of a 46-year-old Kenai church youth leader on charges ranging including sexual abuse of a minor, indecent exposure and possession of child pornography.

Kenai police arrested [Richard J.] Wagner on April 18, following an investigation by the Alaska Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force looking into child pornography. When task force members served a search warrant at Wagner's Kenai residence, they seized multiple items including at least 20 pornographic videos on a computer.

The investigation revealed Wagner allowed at least two boys to spend the night at his residence unsupervised, according to Alaska State Troopers, and during police interviews, one of the boys told Kenai police of the alleged sexual abuse.

North Carolina:

More than 9,000 North Carolina license plates have been recalled because they begin with "XXX"—a common symbol for sexually explicit material. At least 1,015 of the plates were distributed before the recall went into effect....

A Winterville man returned his plate Thursday afternoon, after realizing in the parking lot that he was holding the suggestive prefix.

"I definitely don't want XXX on there," Blake Coghill said. "I'm a youth pastor."

Here's a youth pastor after my own heart. This story out of California has everything—porn, hookers, meth, nephews, videotape, and the always-reliable judgment of the devout. Meet Ramon Hernandez of Colton, California...

He was a church youth minister when he was elected in February 2002 after the previous councilman admitted taking bribes. He ran on a platform of restoring the public's trust in the city government.... He was a paid employee of the Diocese of San Bernardino from 1995 to 2006. Church members called him a man of the "highest moral character."

Did they now? Hm. Because after getting his youth-ministering, highest-moralizing ass elected to the Colton City Council, Hernandez quickly ran up "$5,500 in illicit charges" on his city-issued credit card and cell phone.

He came up with at least three stories when confronted about stays at local hotels and calls to phone sex services:

He blamed his nephew, who he claimed stole and cloned his city cell phone—three times.

He blamed his behavior on being distraught at his brother's death.

He claimed he was being blackmailed by his nephew, then claimed he was being blackmailed by a male lover who had compromising videotape and forced him to use methamphetamine.

Why bother with old-fashioned planning? Last week Ken Hutcherson sent this note to his Prayer Warriors:

Please be praying! We have submitted a proposal to lease a 76,000 square foot building which would allow us to have a 24/7 facility. Please pray that we get a favorable response to our proposal tomorrow evening.

The deal wouldn't be contingent on a fat bank account--filled from the pockets of the Prayer Warriors--of course. Money takes a back seat to worship when it comes to signing leases. And the almighty hand obviously cinched the deal this morning.

God came through, Prayer Warriors! It looks like Antioch is about to have a home!

The master leaseholder of the building we want has agreed to sublease to us. All we need now is approval from the building owner so please be praying for that.

The building’s owner wouldn’t be looking at past rental history, credit ratings, etc. Only prayer can cover the details. When we go to sign the lease, pray the car has gas in it. Pray that the pen works, and if it doesn’t, that another pen will be on hand. Is God's help necessary for every little thing?

A part-time teacher and tutor associated with Palace of Praise Church in Aloha has been taken into custody in connection with sexual-abuse accusations. [David Michael] Schedin, 40, of Aloha, was arrested at 3:18 p.m. Thursday by detectives from the Beaverton Police Department, and transported to the Washington County Jail. He has been charged with third-degree sodomy and third-degree sex abuse.

A juvenile female told her parents that Schedin had sexual contact with her Thursday in the parking lot at Beaverton High School, according to Sgt. Paul Wandell, Beaverton police spokesman. The parents contacted police.

Part-time teacher, tutor, and no doubt an aspiring youth-pastor...

Texas child welfare officials say more than half the teen girls swept into state custody from a polygamist sect's ranch have been pregnant. Child Protective Services spokesman Darrell Azar says 53 girls between the ages of 14 and 17 were living on the ranch in Eldorado. Of that group, 31 already have children or are pregnant.

I blame Miley Cyrus.

Arsonists and armed robbers and rapists can serve in our armed forces—but only good Christian ones.

When Specialist Jeremy Hall held a meeting last July for atheists and freethinkers at Camp Speicher in Iraq, he was excited, he said, to see an officer attending.

But minutes into the talk, the officer, Maj. Freddy J. Welborn, began to berate Specialist Hall and another soldier about atheism, Specialist Hall wrote in a sworn statement. “People like you are not holding up the Constitution and are going against what the founding fathers, who were Christians, wanted for America!” Major Welborn said, according to the statement.

Major Welborn told the soldiers he might bar them from re-enlistment and bring charges against them, according to the statement.

Oklahoma:

Did Bethany church assign pedophile to kids program to 'help' him?

Five victims of a former youth minister in prison for molestation are suing the Nazarene Church, saying warning signs about his behavior were ignored.

"This is about what the church knew, what the church did about it and, more specifically, what the church didn't do about it,” their attorney, Jason Stephens, said Wednesday....

Ryan Martin Wonderly, a former youth minister at Bethany First Church of the Nazarene, was sentenced in 2005 to 35 years in prison for molesting girls at the church. He left the church in February 2003.

Among the allegations in the lawsuit are that Wonderly's roommates at Southern Nazarene University discovered he had been looking at child pornography on a computer, and the university allegedly recommended him for an internship as an elementary pastor at the Bethany church "as part of his program of getting ‘help.'”

In the comments to my earlier post about the National Day of Silence—protesting the bullying and harassment of gay and lesbian students, and protested by local bonehead Reverend Ken Hutcherson—an interesting discussion sprung up around the unfair lumping of all Christians with such psycho Christian bigots as Hutcherson.

My proposal: Decide on a distinguishing moniker for these evolved, enlightened Christians, to help draw the distinction between reasonable, sane people who appreciate the life and teachings of Jesus and alleged Christians who treat Jesus like a holy Gumby to be bent to support whatever bullshit bias needs supporting.

But whatever shall this name be?

Slog reader Price makes a good point about the FLDS saga—DNA tests to determine whose kids are whose are underway—in Eldorado, Texas. These polygamists have been all over cable news and the front pages of American newspapers for weeks now. Says Price...

WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE?

Where's the outrage from the "marriage should be between one man and one woman" crowd about this nonsense in Eldorado? You'd think they would be up in arms about this. Aren't these people DESTROYING all marraige for normal straight couples

When I was in South Carolina before that state's primary for Real Time with Bill Maher, I asked a religious conservative—a supporter of Mike Huckabee—who was the bigger sinner: a gay man married to one man or a polygamist married to a hundred women. He didn't even hesitate: the gay man. You hear very little from the one-man-and-one-woman shriekers for the same reason you heard so little from them during the decades straight people spent redefining marriage for themselves. After straight people redefined marriage to a point that it no longer made any logical sense to exclude same-sex couples from the institution's rights and responsibilities, suddenly marriage had to be defended from the gays. Activists that want to "save marriage" have never been motivated by what they're for (one man and one woman) but what they're against (gay sex, love, desire, etc.).

Ohio:

The Boardman man charged with raping a young boy three times between June 2002 and June 2004 and filing false tax returns has pleaded guilty to three misdemeanor offenses in the rape case.

Darryl L. Adams, 44, of Glenwood Avenue, pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual conduct with a minor, and two counts of assault Monday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court. His victim was 14 when the offenses began....

Dawn Krueger, an assistant county prosecutor, said Adams used his status as a youth pastor in the boy’s church to take advantage of the teenager.

By intolerant representatives of the secular left? No, Joel. By other priests.

Dozens of Greek and Armenian priests and worshippers exchanged blows at one of Christianity's holiest shrines on Orthodox Palm Sunday, and used palm fronds to pummel police who tried to break up the brawl.

The fight came amid growing rivalry over religious rights at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, built over the site in Jerusalem where tradition says Jesus was buried and resurrected.

It erupted when Armenian clergy kicked out a Greek priest from their midst, pushed him to the ground and kicked him, according to witnesses.

When a church is attacked, or a mosque burned down, or someone somewhere is discriminated against on the basis of his or her religious beliefs, it never seems to be those intolerant secular lefties, does it? It's always other religious people, people whose imaginary friend disapprove mightily of other peoples' imaginary friends.

The secular left, once again, isn't intolerant and isn't the problem.

Someone needs to introduce Mark Driscoll to Shad Smith, an ultimate fighter and ex-con recently profiled in The New York Times Magazine. Smith is just the sort of man's man that Driscoll, seeking to build his non-chickified, non-queer church, would like to bring to Christ. Hell, Smith sounds like a man after Driscoll's own heart, what with his callused hands and big biceps.

FOR MOST OF M.M.A.’S early years, Shad Smith was oblivious to the sport—he was in prison. In 1995, he was arrested for carjacking and began a four-year sentence, the first and longest of several stints in prison. But just days after he got out, Danny Caldwell, the brother of a childhood friend, told him he had arranged a fight for Smith. Caldwell, an M.M.A. enthusiast, was a co-founder of Tapout, a clothing company that sponsors fighters. “I’m like, Whatever, I’m still partying, partying like a rock star,” Smith said. “Three weeks later, they show up at my house.”

....

We drove back to Smith’s modest-but-roomy single-story home, which he shares with his boyfriend. Recently, his parents, one of his brothers and a niece moved in—despite Smith’s adolescent fears, his family seems now to fully accept his sexual orientation. We walked into the green-carpeted den, decorated festively with a Christmas tree and other holiday knickknacks. Smith’s father, in pajama bottoms and shirtless, was sitting in an armchair in front of the television, watching football.

Smith’s boyfriend, Jesse Empey, also joined us. Younger than Smith, Empey has an angular face and dark features and looks a little like Keanu Reeves. He’s a makeup artist and used to live in New York, and he met Smith through a mutual friend.

The tape was already in the video player — Smith had called ahead and asked his mother to cue it to one of his street fights. On the video, Smith appears in a backyard, shirtless and in black pants, wearing boxing hand wraps. His opponent is a trained boxer, a much larger man. It plays out like Smith’s Felony Fights match. Smith’s opponent keeps his distance, throwing punches, while Smith tries to take the fight to the ground. After a few botched charges, Smith tackles his opponent, and when he establishes a full mount, his opponent’s father quickly intervenes and stops the fight before Smith’s punches can do further damage.

“But keep watching,” Smith told me. The camera is fixed on Smith as he unwinds the wrapping from his right hand. The camera zooms in, and there’s a long patch of white running along one of his fingers. “That’s where my bone came out,” Smith said, smiling. “It hurt like hell, but I kept fighting.”

You can read the whole profile here.

It those Roman bastards tried to crucify Jesus today he'd tear off all their arms and beat the Jews to death with the wet ends—well, at least He would in Mark Driscoll's fantasies.

The message of Church for Men and GodMen is resonating with ministers of all stripes. Following Murrow's advice, Don Wilson, pastor of Christ's Church of the Valley in Peoria, Arizona, has geared his entire ministry toward reaching young men. And while his ministry is not to men in particular, Mark Driscoll, pastor of Seattle's Mars Hill Church, nevertheless desires greater testosterone in contemporary Christianity. In Driscoll's opinion, the church has produced "a bunch of nice, soft, tender, chickified church boys. … Sixty percent of Christians are chicks," he explains, "and the forty percent that are dudes are still sort of chicks."

The aspect of church that men find least appealing is its conception of Jesus. Driscoll put this bluntly in his sermon "Death by Love" at the 2006 Resurgence theology conference (available at TheResurgence.com). According to Driscoll, "real men" avoid the church because it projects a "Richard Simmons, hippie, queer Christ" that "is no one to live for [and] is no one to die for." Driscoll explains, "Jesus was not a long-haired … effeminate-looking dude"; rather, he had "callused hands and big biceps." This is the sort of Christ men are drawn to—what Driscoll calls "Ultimate Fighting Jesus."

Man, could someone from Mars Hill please explain to me again how this Mark Driscoll asswipe is so totally not anti-gay? Driscoll, by my reading, really seems to hate women and have a problem with effeminate men—including that pansy-ass savior of his. (Once again: misogyny = homophobia = misogyny.) I mean, Jesus just let those Roman soldiers nail him to that cross—what, He couldn't go Bruce Willis on their asses first? Just to make a point about how he's so totally not, you know, Richard Simmons? Jesus could still have died for our sins and shit, but there was nothing to stop Him from taking out a few of those Roman soldiers out with him, right? Can I get an amen?

Sigh.

Now I don't want to get drawn into a complex theology debate with an educated man's man like Rev. Mark "My Wife Got Fat so I Sucked Off This Male Escort" Driscoll, but... uh... doesn't Jesus love the little children? All the little children of the world? And wouldn't that include children who are, you know, sissies?

Or did Christ only die for the sins of preening, insecure douchebags like Driscoll?

... is off to a brilliant start with Expelled, an agitdoc proposing that a vast conspiracy has risen out of the academy to shut down free thought and inquiry. The evidence for this supposed conspiracy is completely anecdotal (here, an underperforming assistant professor being denied tenure, there, an unpaid research assistant being moved to another office at the Smithsonian), but that hasn't stopped the movie from doing a rollicking business at the box office.

The Discovery Institute has been covering the movie obsessively on its blogs: Ten of the last ten posts on its Evolution News & Views blog are dedicated to the movie (sample headlines: "Discovery Salutes Expelled; "Is There a Connection Between Hitler and Darwin?"; and, my favorite, "Opponents of Academic Freedom Using Outlandish Rhetoric"). Officially, however, the Seattle think tank denies any connection to the documentary. This official position is belabored during the movie itself, in a scene where host Ben Stein wanders the streets of downtown Seattle struggling to locate the organization's headquarters. There are reasons to doubt this official story (in an unguarded interview with the Christian film site Past the Popcorn, Stein explains he learned about arguments for intelligent design from one of the film's producers, Walt Ruloff, and someone named "Steven Meyer"—presumably a transcription error for Stephen C. Meyer, vice-president of the Discovery Institute and cofounder of the intelligent design movement).

But even if you charitably assume that the Discovery Institute was not directly involved with the production, an alarming percentage of the people who helped make the film have Northwest connections. The production company is located in Vancouver, B.C.. Producer Walt Ruloff lives outside of Vancouver and made his millions selling a software company to Microsoft. Almost all of the intelligent design proponents interviewed in the film are affiliated with the Discovery Institute, including Meyer, senior fellows David Berlinski, William Dembski, and Jonathan Wells, and fellow Paul Nelson. Meanwhile, several of the academics who claim to have been discriminated against for their ideas about intelligent design have a Seattle connection. Guillermo Gonzalez, an astronomer who was denied tenure at Iowa State University, received his PhD from and did postdoctoral work at the University of Washington. He is now a Discovery Institute Senior Fellow. Robert J. Marks II, an engineer at Baylor University (which declined to host his intelligent design website), taught at the UW for 25 years and served as the faculty advisor for the UW's chapter of Campus Crusade for Christ for 15 years.

So when the Discovery Institute tries to brag about box office performance in my hometown, it annoys me:

Across the country this weekend, people did a rare thing and turned out in droves for a documentary. In Ames, Iowa the line to get into Expelled stretched around the block Friday night. In Seattle theaters were crammed with students—on a Saturday afternoon, no less.

In the spirit of anecdotal sharing, I'd like to point out that Pacific Place at the 3:10 pm Saturday screening was hardly "crammed with students." There were about 20 people in attendance, most of them sweet, delusional older couples. A couple of teenagers pranced in about halfway through, but I suspect they, like me, had not bought a ticket to this particular show. (Don't worry, Pacific Place--I did buy a ticket to 10,000 B.C. and several items from the concessions stand.)

My review of Expelled will be in this week's issue of The Stranger. For now, please enjoy the National Center for Science Education's anti-Expelled website, expelledexposed.com.

The Vatican official that said this...

"People say these children adopted by same sex couples are very happy. Maybe, when they are one or two years old. But when they are able to think for themselves, when they grow up, what a tragedy when they have to say 'my parents are two men, or two women'. Their personality, their stability is put at risk."

...died of a heart attack this weekend. Cardinal Alfonso López Trujillo also described gay adoption as "morally violent" act. López wasn't just charged with spreading lies about gay parents on behalf of the Vatican. He was also the Catholic Church's point man on spreading lies about the effectiveness of condoms: In 2003 López claimed that HIV can pass right through latex and that condoms didn't offer any protection against AIDS. His demonstrably untrue statements about condoms drew a condemnation from the World Health Organization. His demonstrably untrue statements about gay parents, however, did not—because, hey, when it comes to committing "moral violence" against children, the world defers to the expertise of the Catholic Church.

Via Towleroad.

I got an email this morning from the anti-gay nutters at Concerned Women for American—you know, Tim Burgess' old pals—about how desperately Lisa Miller, a resident of Virginia, needs our prayers (and CWfA needs our money). From the CWfA's press release:

We're asking for your pledge to pray for Virginia residents Lisa Miller and her 6-year-old daughter Isabella. Miller, who is now a born again Christian, and little Isabella are living examples of what happens when God's definition of marriage and family is twisted and mocked. The Vermont Supreme Court recently granted Janet Jenkins, Miller's former lesbian partner, parental rights over Isabella even though Jenkins has no relationship to the little girl and is neither an adoptive nor a biological parent. The Virginia Supreme Court is now scheduled to hear oral arguments on Thursday, April 17, 2008, to determine whether Lisa and Isabella will be bound by the Vermont decision.

Here's what Lambda Legal, which is representing Jenkins, has to say:

Janet Jenkins (formerly Janet Miller-Jenkins) filed an appeal with the Virginia Court of Appeals seeking to ensure respect for a Vermont court order saying she must have regular visitation with the daughter she and her former partner, Lisa Miller (formerly Miller-Jenkins), had when the two women were joined in a Vermont civil union.... In this case, the Virginia Court of Appeals rightly recognized that federal law protects parents against the very thing Lisa Miller did—shopping around for a court to give them sole custody. The message is clear: lesbian and gay parents must be treated like other couples when courts evaluate the best interest of the child in custody cases.

And here's a long Washington Post story on the case from February 2007.

But here's what interests me: When CWfA argues that Jenkins has "no relationship to the little girl," they mean that Jenkins was neither the biological parent nor had she taken the time, or shouldered the considerable expense, of doing a second-parent adoption. So it's just too bad for the God-mocking dyke, right? There have been lots of lesbian custody disputes that hinged on the failure of the non-biological mother to do a second-parent adoption, which, again, are quite expensive. (And the expense can seem like an unnecessary one when your child is young, money is tight, and your partner is, um, still a lesbian.) Numerous courts have recognized the rights of non-biological lesbian mothers in cases like this—cases where some scummy ex-lesbian like Miller leans on anti-gay laws to deny her lesbian ex-partner access to a child she helped raise from birth.

Anyway, the good men at CWfA and Ms. Miller are shitbags of the highest order—that's quite clear. What I want to know is this: Where would CWfA come down in this gay custody dispute out of Ireland? A gay male donor sued for guardianship over a child created with sperm he donated to a lesbian couple—and the donor lost.

Rejecting his claim yesterday, Mr Justice John Hedigan said the child's welfare was best served by remaining with the couple, and by the man in his forties having no guardianship or access to the infant.

There was nothing in Irish law to suggest that a family of two women and a child had "any lesser right to be recognised as a de facto family than a family composed of a man and woman unmarried to each other and a child." ....

The child's welfare was the paramount consideration. Where there were factors negative to the child's welfare, the blood link was of little weight, he said. Where there were positive factors beneficial to the child, there might be rights inherent to the sperm donor.

The Irish kid is almost two, a court-appointed psychiatrist described the women as "excellent parents," and the judge declared the women and their son a, "loving, secure, de facto family," which is supposed to be a compliment, I'm guessing.

I'm thinking this custody dispute would present a real brain teaser for the men at CWfA. Do you leave the baby—or toddler—with his "excellent" lesbian parents, one of whom has "no biological relationship" to the child? Or do you take him out of the only home he's ever known and place him with this gay dude, the kid's biological father? It's hard to know how CWfA would come down on this case—I mean, besides subjecting all gays and lesbians everywhere to forced sterilization to prevent anything like this from every happening again, of course. They'd be for that.

But what outcome, I wonder, would CWfA have us pray for in this case?

UPDATE: Here's a follow-up article about the gay dad...

PRESSURE is growing on the Government to bring in laws on "assisted reproduction" after a gay sperm donor was denied access to his biological son in the High Court.

Lobby groups said the decision was a major setback for fathers' rights and called for legislation that would eradicate the "inequality" in Irish family life. Opposition parties accused the Government of being "paralysed" by fear of controversy in bringing in laws on same sex couples.

Gay rights groups also acknowledged that updated family laws are "badly needed".

I agree with those gay rights groups—family laws, in Ireland and everywhere else, badly need updating. I also believe that this kid has a right to know his biological father—and the father has a right to visitation, if not custody—and I'm not sure if, under Irish law, "guardianship" and "custody" are the same thing.

You know that call from an abused 16-year-old girl that launched the whole FLDS mess?

It may have come from a 33-year-old woman in Colorado.

Lawyers, help me out: If this turns out to be true, will it poison the whole search? And will Texas authorities just have to hand the kids back to their rapey, rapey parents?

As you've probably heard, there's a huge, Mormon-scented shitstorm swirling around Texas, following the evacuation of over 400 children from a compound run by the Fundamentalist Church of Latter-Day Saints. The Fundamentalist Mormon church was formed after the regular Mormon church renounced the practice of polygamy, and the current shitstorm is centered in a polygamist FLDS compound in Eldorado, Texas, where police were summoned after a teenage girl phoned a domestic abuse hotline to report the sexual and physical abuse she'd suffered within the compound. Last week police came in, rounded up the 400-plus children, and now the courts are stuck with the largest, messiest child-custody case in history.

The shit's unfolding as I type this, so there's nothing conclusive to report, just a zillion fascinating questions.

*If investigators are unable to find the girl who made the call, will the case dissolve? (The girl's call was the probable cause that instigated the investigation; if the source of the probable cause can't be verified, the entire search could be deemed illegal.)

*Will FLDS lawyers gain traction with the claim that the entire raid is religious persecution? The FLDS argument: Using one child's claim of abuse to validate the removal of all the compound's children from their parents is unfair; police didn't round up every altar boy during the Catholic sex abuse scandal. The great complicating fact: The most widespread abuse chronicled in the FLDS compound is the marriage of very young girls (13 and up) to much older men—what we call statutory rape, and what they call "spiritual marriage" ordained by God. (Still, the FLDS abides within the United States, whose laws require us to view the FLDS compound not as a unusual church but as a full-scale statutory rape camp.)

*And finally, are the women and children of FLDS so inherently traumatized that they can't be expected to tell the truth about their experiences? (And will the damning testimony of former FLDS members--such as Brent Jeffs, who claims he was raped by his uncle, imprisoned FLDS leader Warren Jeffs--help cut through the cult-speak?)

God only knows, stay tuned...

California:

Humboldt County Superior Court Judge Marilyn Miles held up charges of lewd behavior with a minor against accused child molester Andrew Belant Wednesday, but told the district attorney that the evidence didn't support felony charges of sexual assault on the dates outlined in the complaint....

Belant, 25, was a youth pastor at the Eureka First Presbyterian Church and an after school aide at Jacoby Creek School. He was arrested in March and charged with two counts of molesting a child under 14 years old, and was later charged with 15 additional counts stemming from alleged acts with a total of four children. He pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Michigan:

For several hours, Calhoun County Circuit Court jurors heard explicit testimony from transcripts which prosecutors allege were from conversations between Troy Deal, 35, of Battle Creek, and people he believed were 14-year-old girls. The girls were actually undercover officers from the Office of the Michigan Attorney General and the Wayne County Sheriff Department.

Over several months before he was arrested in July, Deal allegedly used his computer to suggest performing various acts with the young girls, including threesome sex, bondage and submission.

Deal, at the time of his July arrest, was the director of youth ministries at Chapel Hill United Methodist Church in Battle Creek.

Lincolnshire, England:

A mentally ill man who set fire to a block of flats has been jailed for three years. Peter Nottage (28) torched a block of flats in Gainsborough because he thought it would help him get rehoused, Lincoln Crown Court heard.... When interviewed by police he admitted arson which recklessly endangered life.

A psychiatric report described Nottage as a vulnerable person who had started the fire in an emotional outburst. He was supported in court by YMCA staff and residents and the court was told that he wants to become a youth pastor with the Christian charity.

Church having trouble marketing poverty and celibacy to men

Thanks to Slog tipper Reggie.

In addition to Dan's post earlier about how many liberal Americans get to live their beliefs in a secular society, there's a logic problem in the Pope's statement that America's

secular tradition often prevents Americans from living their beliefs fully, accepting divorce, abortion and cohabitation outside of marriage.

It comes down to the fundamental difference in values that divides liberals from various varieties of religious conservatives. These people will argue--as many of my students have argued with me--that all laws are impositions of values, and so imposing conservative values or imposing liberal values are the same thing, morally equivalent.

The problem with that idea, and the logic bomb in Benedict's position, is that liberal laws still allow conservatives to live out their values, while conservatives would not allow liberals to live out theirs. That is, in an America where abortion, divorce, cohabitation and premarital sex are legal, if you truly believe due to your deeply held religious principles that these things are wrong, you are free to live out your religious principles by not having cohabitating premarital sex that leads to an abortion. Liberal values allow conservatives to do as they please, to live out their religious beliefs. Conservatives do not return the favor. That's the fundamental divide.

I would also add that if Benedict means that Catholics are unable to resist the various temptations offered by our secular society, and that's the problem: well, then, these Catholics do not hold their beliefs very firmly if they are so easily led astray. Orthodox Jews who keep Kosher and Mormons who abstain from booze and caffeine prove this every day as they manage to resist the alluring beauty of bacon, beer and Coca Cola.

Happy Birthday, Dear Poooo-ooooope, Happy Birthday to You.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld Kentucky’s method of execution by lethal injection, rejecting the claim that officials there administered a common sequence of three drugs in a manner that posed an unconstitutional risk that a condemned inmate would suffer acute yet undetectable pain.

While the 7-to-2 ruling did not shut the door on challenges to the lethal injection protocols in other states, it set a standard that will not be easy to meet.

Yesterday, of course, was Pope Benedict's birthday (he's 197 years young), and while thousands of American Catholics were gathering on the White House lawn to sing "Happy Birthday" to Pope Benedict XVI (nee Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger), the majority-Catholic US Supreme Court was handing down a pro-death-penalty ruling. Only two justices—Ginsberg and Souter—dissented. Voting to green light executions featuring potentially "acute yet undetectable pain," thanks to a three-drug regimen that vets no longer use on dogs, were all five Catholics on the Supreme Court: Chief Justice John Roberts, Anthony M. Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. (Ginsberg is Jewish; Souter is a Episcopalian.)

Not to put too fine a point on it but, again, this pro-death ruling was handed down the same day that George W. Bush welcomed Pope Benedict to the White House with these words: “[Americans] need your message that all life is sacred.".

The Catholic Church opposes the death penalty in almost every instance, lumping it in with abortion, stem-cell research, and euthanasia as moral outrages. Because, you know, all life is sacred. Here's John Paul II—another pope received worshipfully, if unthinkingly, by the American media—on the death penalty in 1995:

Assuming that the guilty party's identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.

If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people's safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity with the dignity of the human person. Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offence incapable of doing harm—without definitively taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself—the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity are rare, if not practically non-existent.

As we've seen with the scores of DNA-evidence-based exonerations of men sitting on death row (all since '95), it's a pretty big assumption—a massive assumption—that the state can ever "fully" determine a guilty party's "identity and responsibility." If JPII were issuing that statement about the death penalty today, it's safe to say that he would insist that the death penalty can never be justified.

Oh, and the US Conference of Bishops had this to say about the death penalty way, way back in 1980:

"We believe that in the conditions of contemporary American society, the legitimate purposes of punishment do not justify the imposition of the death penalty.... Abolition of capital punishment is also a manifestation of our belief in the unique worth and dignity of each person from the moment of conception, a creature made in the image and likeness of God."

Anyhoo, I only bring this up because over the last couple of election cycles we've been treated to debates about whether or not pro-choice Catholic politicians—Democratic politicians—should be denied Communion. And guess who weighed in on the issue back in July of 2004:

On the question of Communion for Catholic politicians, Cardinal Ratzinger outlined a process of pastoral guidance and correction for politicians who consistently promote legal abortion and euthanasia. That process could extend to a warning against taking Communion, and in the case of "obstinate persistence" by the politician, the minister "must refuse to distribute" Communion, he said.

Okay, Mr. Pope, what about those five Supreme Court justices? I realize that the death penalty wasn't on your list in 2004, but Catholic bishops in the United States explicitly linked the death penalty and abortion 28 years ago. And you're a big fan of that "seamless garment of life" metaphor, right? So this American Catholic is wondering, Mr. Pope, when and how you plan to deliver your all-life-is-sacred message Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Scalia, and Kennedy? Are the five practicing Catholics on the Supreme Court who voted to uphold the death penalty—a ruling they issued on your freakin' birthday, during your visit to Washington D.C.—going get any of that "pastoral guidance and correction" stuff you recommended back in 2004? And if their support for the death penalty proves obstinately persistent, will you instruct priests to refuse to distribute Communion to these wayward members of your flock?

Or is that kind of correction reserved exclusively for liberal Catholics?

UPDATE: After the execution of Saddam Hussein—which the Catholic Church condemned—the Vatican had this to say about the death penalty:

Church officials offered several motives for opposing the execution.

First, there's the principled argument that the right to life must always be upheld. This point was made in a Dec. 30 interview in Ansa, the Italian news agency, with Cardinal Renato Martino, President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.

"Man cannot simply dispose of life, and therefore it should be defended from the moment of conception to natural death," Martino said. "This position thus excludes abortion, experimentation on embryos, euthanasia and the death penalty, which are a negation of the transcendent dignity of the human person created in the image of God."

Note that Martino listed capital punishment on a par with key life issues long understood to admit of no exceptions.

So it's not just US bishops that linked abortion and the death penalty. The Vatican, under Benedict XVI, did so, and did so in no uncertain terms. So that means no more Communion for Scalia, right? Or Roberts? Or Kennedy, Alito, and Thomas, right? Right? Mr. Pope? Hello?

Dear Mr. Pope:

Pope Benedict XVI visited the White House on Wednesday—his 81st birthday—and praised America as a nation where strong religious belief can coexist with secular society. But he later warned that this secular tradition often prevents Americans from living their beliefs fully, accepting divorce, abortion and cohabitation outside of marriage.

Many of us believe—fully—in divorce, abortion, cohabitation, etc. Lots of us Catholics even believe in married priests, ordained women, and same-sex marriage.

Yours,

Americans

We're fun to hang out with and everything... but, according to the Scientologists, you don't want us riding shotgun.

Yes, the economy is in the toilet, and yes, there's that whole Iraq War business, but before we get to all that we need to do something really, really important:

A freshman Georgia Republican wanted to stress the importance of divine oversight of the US as he saw it portrayed in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Leading the pledge on the House floor Monday, Rep. Paul Broun lectured others in the chamber about the "correct way" of saying the pledge.

"There should not be a comma between 'one nation' and 'under God,'" Broun told his colleagues before beginning his rendition of a pause-free pledge.