Civil Commotion

I tweeted this a few days ago:

Now Patheos is on it.

As the transgender bathroom hysteria rages across the nation, it is important to remember where the real danger is for children. And despite the hysteria, a church is much more dangerous for a child than a public bathroom.

I am not kidding y’all: The best thing you can do on Sunday morning is take your kids out to a park and a leisurely brunch buffet somewhere; you do not want them sitting in church hearing all about how they were born no damn good.

I rarely note clergy crime any more, because (a) I’m sick of it, and (b) everybody who pays attention knows by now how seriously screwed-up the clergy actually are. But here’s a story that can’t be allowed to get lost in the noise.

Thirty-two men and women, including a children’s minister, were arrested on prostitution and human trafficking-related charges in Knoxville.

[ … ]

Court records say he allegedly responded to an ad on May 19 via a text message and was made aware another girl would be present who was underage. A $100 fee for a half hour of sex with both females was reportedly negotiated, according to court records, and Kennedy arranged to meet them at a Best Western.

I am not kidding y’all: Church is a far more dangerous place for children than the restroom at Target.

Stonehenge was built by Satanic giants that hate Israel!!

He will try, and he will fail. The Southern Baptist brand is toxic because that’s who Southern Baptists are.

The high school I attended in Detroit was analogous to the south’s “Governor’s Schools,” and located in downtown. Every day for 3-years, I rode a city bus from a leafy suburb on the western edge of the city, through declining neighborhoods, and then through some of the worst neighborhoods in America. I saw storefront businesses fail, replaced by other businesses which failed, replaced again — and then one day the windows would be broken and they would stay that way for months. I saw the same people sitting and jiving and drinking on abandoned, mouldering furniture in weedy, trash-strewn empty lots day after day … for years. Street fights that stopped traffic were a commonplace as you got deeper into the city, and on a couple of occasions I watched near-riots break out.

By the time I got out of high school I knew that the city was going rotten, and doomed, and when I left home to go to college the decision that I would never live in Detroit again was final. I could not have foreseen the specifics of an epochal bankruptcy, but I knew that the culture was sick and that the city’s great days were over.

There is talk of revival, and I gather that there are now some gentrifying, habitable, island-like areas near downtown. Good luck with that.