Interview with The Daily Edge's Unprecedented
Interview with The Daily Edge's Unprecedented
Richard Hine, the independent journalist behind @TheDailyEdge, had some questions about my recent Twitter thread documenting the cases of sexual abuse within Christian churches in Texas.
If you are actually serious about protecting children from sexual predators that engage in grooming, shouldn’t your focus be on the institutions that have a documented history of enabling the systemic sexual abuse of children?
From The Daily Edge's Unprecedented:
I reached out to Teddy Wilson, who tweets at @reportbywilson and is the publisher of Radical Reports on Substack, to find out more about what he’s documented in terms of the actual child sexual abuse by the “Christian” right—and the ways it contrasts with the sensationalist “groomer” rhetoric by the hypocrites and charlatans of the Ultra-MAGA wing of the GOP.
What prompted you to write your recent 15-tweet thread focused on the sexual abuse of children by pastors and staffers at Christian churches in Texas?
The LGBTIQ community has been the target of an ongoing campaign by the far right and right-wing media, which has sought to portray the LGBTIQ community, transgender people in particular, as a danger to children. From advocating for laws that restrict access to public restrooms of transgender youth or criminalize parents and medical professionals for providing gender affirming care — the targeting of drag shows is just the latest tactic employed by the far right to perpetuate the narrative that the LGBTIQ community is a threat to children.
The far right’s weaponization of the term “groomer” is a deliberate attempt to reinforce the narrative that it is dangerous to expose children to anything related to the LGBTIQ community.
When I wrote the Twitter thread, I posed a simple question: If you are actually serious about protecting children from sexual predators that engage in grooming, shouldn’t your focus be on the institutions that have a documented history of enabling the systemic sexual abuse of children? The primary example of such an institution would be the Christian Church, however, there are several other examples of institutional failures regarding the sexual abuse of children including both public and private schools, children’s daycare centers, and youth sports.
Texas is arguably on the leading edge of the attacks on the LGBTIQ community from Republican state lawmakers, right-wing advocacy organizations, and far-right extremists, and therefore it seemed appropriate to focus on the documented cases in the state of alleged sexual abuse by pastors and church staff. Also, focusing on those individuals that have been arrested, charged, or convicted within the past year removes the ability to dismiss allegations as unproven or uncorroborated, and illustrates that this type of sexual abuse in churches in Texas is an ongoing systemic problem.
Among the most typical responses to the thread from conservatives Christians is the claim the arrests and prosecutions prove the Christian Church is serious about accountability for those who commit acts of sexual abuse, however, this completely ignores that there are documented cases of Christian churches covering up sexual abuse, gaslighting and blaming the victims of sexual abuse, or enabling the abuse to continue. In fact, in many of the cases cited in the thread of those arrested, charged, and convicted, the perpetrators were brought to justice with limited cooperation from the churches, and in some cases the churches actively worked to prevent the exposure of the abuse.
