Lawyers for megachurch pastor blame 12-year-old for ‘initiating’ sexual contact
Lawyers for megachurch pastor blame 12-year-old for ‘initiating’ sexual contact
Morris resigned in June after admitting to the incident which allegedly occurred on Christmas Day 1982
Lawyers for Donald Trump’s former faith advisor Robert Morris accused a 12-year-old girl of initiating “inappropriate” sexual conduct with the ex-Dallas megachurch pastor, new documents have revealed.
Morris resigned in June after admitting to the incident. His accuser Cindy Clemishire previously claimed that the pastor had begun abusing her on Christmas Day in 1982.
Clemishire, now 52, said that Morris and his wife had been staying at her family home at the time when he asked her to come into his room, whereafter he told her to lay on his bed and then began touching her inappropriately.
She said the abuse had continued until 1987 when she told her parents.
However, 25 years after the incident, a lawyer for Morris – J Shelby Sharpe – claimed that it was the child who was actually to blame.
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Even if she did, so what? A 12-year-old cannot consent. The adult cannot engage. This is not a defense.
The fact that this post has a downvote is legitimately worrying to me. I really hope that's not someone who disagrees with this statement.
MAGA(t)S gonna MAGA
I was thinking Libertarian. Could be both.
libertarianism is also where I went. There are some people who think contrary to whatever appears in front of them, however.
Are there really any MAGAs on Lemmy? Seems like they wouldn’t bother.
MAGAs' core principles are bigotry and oppositional defiant disorder. They have a mental disorder compelling them to make the out-groups angry. So of course they spread to places where people hate them, including Lemmy.
lemm.ee has a conservative community that's full of some of the most dense individuals I've seen on here. It's quite fun watching them twist themselves into knots when faced with dissenting opinions over there.
We can see who did but that being said, I've downvoted posts many times before by accident. It's very easy to do when scrolling, it was most likely that.
Whoever downvoted has definitely used the word "ephebophilia" unironically int he past.
Pedophiles with thesauri
People genuinely are twisted about sex and age and consent, and there is no truer view into our massive flaws as a species. That we have anyone at all in this age and at this point in our evolution targeting children for self-gratification tells me all I need to know about the Fermi Paradox. We are NOT an advanced species. The very worst of us represents all of us.
The right thing to do if a 12-year-old makes sexual advances on an adult is for the adult to report it because the 12-year-old is probably being abused!! Not to have sex with them!! What the fuck?! (Not that I believe this shit for a second but even if it were true that makes him just as much of an abuser.)
the 12-year-old is probably being abused!!
Eh. I dunno. I was engaging in explicitly sexual activities with other children my own age when I was 7, and I wasn't being abused. To the best of my knowledge, they weren't either. Sexuality is pretty well baked into our DNA, and sexual exploration, sex play, and yes, sexual intercourse is something children tend to do because it's so biologically coded into us.
On the other hand, parents should probably have a frank, shame-free discussion with children about what is, and is not, appropriate behavior with adults, how consent works with peers, and discuss time and space constraints on behaviors.
"Other children my own age", sure. You weren't seducing 22-year-old men.
The point was that sexual behavior in young children does not necessarily equal abuse.
The implication was that sexual behaviour towards adults in young children is the warning sign.
EDIT: formatting
Children having sexual urges towards and crushes on adults is pretty normal--particularly once they hit early pubescence and are flooded with hormones--so I don't necessarily see it as a sign that a child has already been abused. But, again, an adult acting sexual towards any child is absolutely, 1000% wrong.
The perspective I'm coming at this from is that, based on feedback I've gotten over the years, I was sexually precocious, and my parents responded by, first, shaming, and second, taking me to a professional because they were sure something was "wrong" with me, and that it needed to be "fixed". That ended up being deeply harmful to me, and it's taken me decades to reach some kind of detente with who I am. (The psychologist was actually quite supportive of me. He said my parents were wrong, and that I was going through normal things, albeit at an earlier age than most. But that didn't really help with the load of shaming that I was getting from my parents and religious leaders.) Parents freaking out and immediately going to an authority is going to have that kind of effect on a child. IMO, it would likely be better for parents to have a very frank, but non-judgmental discussion with a child before leaping to the conclusion that they were acting out because they were abused, rather than because they had a colossal lapse in judgment.
Sometimes there's smoke but there's no fire. A warning sign isn't a conclusion.
Next will be the "I slipped and fell" defense
Hav me you read the Bible?
Within some circles, it's a little bit of one. Just not one that works legally or with you or me.
A 12-year-old cannot consent.
The people who need to hear this the most are also the ones who will respond to this statement with "No you idiot, it SAYS she initiated!" Or at least inside they will think this.
I used to think that this kind of statement would carry all the necessary information to teach people about consent, but no, it's not nearly enough. We have several whole generations that skipped PBS and education and reading and life experiences entirely, they have withdrawn to isolated spaces that indulge whatever twisted passions they have and people make far, far less effort to understand concepts than they used to.
What you have to explain is that what a child thinks they want versus what you, an adult with adult perspectives wants, are not aligned and will lead to massive, massive power imbalances, and we protect children from their own foolish ideas ALL DAY LONG about other things.
You can do massive damage to a child psychologically by taking away their natural pace of growth and self-discovery and replacing them with your own ideas of what a sexual relationship is. A twelve year-old has another DECADE TO A DECADE AND A HALF to go before they finalize growth and development for the most part. In that time, they will draw on all their life experiences to guide them to a healthy future and a positive attitude about themselves and sex. If someone out there is reading all this and still does not get it, you need to haul yourself to therapy yesterday.