My blood pressure is so high up at this moment. I just read an outrageous article by the AP.
NY priest pleads guilty to raping 3 teenage boys
A Franciscan priest admitted raping 3 boys in the 70s and 80s. BOSTON - A Franciscan priest from New York pleaded guilty to raping three teenage boys during overnight trips to Boston in the 1970s and 1980s and was ordered Tuesday to serve time on probation.
The Rev. Frank Genevieve avoided prison time as a Suffolk Superior Court judge sentenced him to a suspended sentence of eight to 10 years, with five years' probation.
Where is the fucking justice?
I recently read Richard Dawkins :The God Delusion," which has made me rethink some things.
Dawkins questions why we treat questions of religion with such kid gloves. I realize that writing about a rapist priest is picking the low-hanging fruit, but this sentence is just OUTRAGEOUS. I know caps are frowned upon by the literati here. Sorry.
Three rapes of three teenage boys. All had come forward and were willing to testify. Why such a light sentence?
At first I thought because the statute of limitations had expired, this had an impact on the sentence, but no:
Genevieve was indicted by a Suffolk County grand jury in 2006. Prosecutors said that because Genevieve returned to New York after each visit to Boston, the Massachusetts statute of limitations did not expire.
I can only find the AP story, and I can't find the name of the judge who came up with this abonimation. A district attorney named Conley seemed satisfied with the sentence. Why? Because he won't rile up his Boston Catholic base?
Rape is rape. Rape of minors by trusted adults is especially ugly.
Back to Dawkins: I was raised a Catholic; later evolved into a sort of Taoist idea, without a personal God or God figure of any kind. Dawkins is often asked why he is so "hostile" toward religion. His answers are the usual: cause of much wars and "othering." Cause of Book-sanctioned violence toward children, women, and other religions. But he also hates teaching children to take things that make no sense "on faith." The Three Gods in One of the Holy Trinity, for example (never could quite wrap my head around it).
Here's one that makes no sense to me: a man admits to raping 3 minors and gets a suspended sentence. Should I believe that God works in mysterious ways or that religion has bound our hands when it comes to justice, because politicians are so afraid of angering their constituencies?
If he'd been a Muslim cleric or a black man in Boston court, I doubt they'd have been so lenient. Then again, the Muslim cleric might have gotten the same light treatment somewhere in the Middle East.
I have to say when Obama talks about God it makes me ill. It's pandering of the worst sort for the worst reasons. I know he supports giving more money to faith-based social services only if "they separate their faith out of their services." But why the hell should we be paying religious organizations to provide services the government should be providing? Either you believe government exists to serve the people, or you go through the backdoor and pay churches and temples and, maybe, mosques (but maybe not too many mosques, and certainly not Wiccans). Because all religions are equal but some are more equal than others.
By george, Barry Goldwater had him some cajones:
On religious issues there can be little or no compromise. There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God's name on one's behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both.
I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in "A," "B," "C" and "D." Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of "conservatism."
Being a conservative in America traditionally has meant that one holds a deep, abiding respect for the Constitution. We conservatives believe sincerely in the integrity of the Constitution. We treasure the freedom that document protects....
By maintaining the separation of church and state, the United States has avoided the intolerance which has so divided the rest of the world with religious wars. Throughout our two hundred plus years, public policy debate has focused on political and economic issues, on which there can be compromise....
The great decisions of government cannot be dictated by the concerns of religious factions. This was true in the days of Madison, and it is just as true today. We have succeeded for 205 years in keeping the affairs of state separate from the uncompromising idealism of religious groups and we mustn't stop now. To retreat from that separation would violate the principles of conservatism and the values upon which the framers built this democratic republic.
I am made so sick by this sentence. Can we get any Democratically elected politician to decry it?
The priest was also ordered to have no contact with the victims, no contact with minors, and to wear a GPS anklet at all times to monitor his whereabouts.