Hundreds of German Choir Boys Abused Over Six Decades

As the Roman Catholic Church remains outwardly hostile towards LGBT individuals and continues to let go of its 12th century understanding of human sexuality (and the writings of church fathers who seemingly had some mental health issues), a new report out of Germany reminds us that the Church's unnatural and bizarre approach to human sexuality inflicts a cost on many, especially children and youths.  Sadly, the Church's celibacy requirement for its all male priesthood makes that priesthood a safe haven for the psycho-sexually dysfunctional and abnormal particularly when the near obsession with all things sexual is combined into the mix.  Sex abuse cases continue to unfold in America, all hell is breaking lose in Australia where the number three man at the Vatican has been charged with sex crimes, including rape, and similar stories are unfolding in Guam, India and various parts of Africa.  The problem is systemic yet no high cleric who was involved in aiding and abetting or covering up for such sex crimes has been punished.  Pope Francis' commission to address this has done nothing. As an institution, the Church is morally bankrupt.   Here are highlights from the BBC on the latest bombshell:

At least 547 young members of the Regensburger Domspatzen boys choir in Germany were subjected to physical and in some instances sexual abuse over a period of 60 years, a new report says.

The report accuses 49 members of the Catholic Church of carrying out the abuse between 1945 and the early 1990s.

The alleged perpetrators are unlikely to face criminal charges because of the amount of time that has elapsed.

Victims said the experience was like "a prison, hell and a concentration camp".

The alleged physical abuse relates to children attending both the Regensburger Domspatzen's pre-school and high school, according to the lawyer tasked with investigating the abuse, Ulrich Weber.

Among those singled out for criticism in the report was former choirmaster Georg Ratzinger, elder brother of retired Pope Benedict XVI.

Mr Weber said that while Mr Ratzinger, now 93, had no knowledge of sexual abuse, "one can accuse him of looking the other way and failing to intervene".

Presenting his findings on Tuesday, Mr Weber said the investigation had found 500 cases of physical abuse and 67 instances of sexual abuse over six decades.

However, he said he was unable to contact or speak directly to a number of former students and said he estimated the true number of victims to be as high as 700.

Of the 49 church members who carried out the abuse under what was described as a "culture of silence", nine were found to have been involved in sexual abuse, Mr Weber added.

He said the alleged perpetrators had been identified but were not expected to face criminal charges because the alleged crimes took place too long ago to be legally valid.

He said the victims described their experiences at the boarding schools in southern Germany as "the worst time of their lives, characterised by fear, violence and hopelessness".

The 1,000-year-old choir was initially rocked by allegations of widespread sexual abuse in 2010.  A 2016 report into the allegations found that 231 children had been abused.

Mr Weber also criticised Regensburg Bishop Gerhard Ludwig Müller, who is now a cardinal, for the weaknesses of the initial review of the scandal when it first came to light in 2010. The cardinal has rejected his findings.

The UN has accused the Vatican of "systematically" adopting policies allowing priests to sexually abuse thousands of children.

I ask again: how can  a morally decent person remain a member in this church and, worse yet, continue to support it financially? 

For Many Younger Gays Parental Abuse remains a Serious Problem

As has been noted before a number of times on this blog, it is estimated that roughly 40 % of homeless teens are LGBT teens many of who have either been thrown out of their homes by their "godly Christian" parents or who have fled abusive family settings where their sexual orientation has made them targets of parental physical abuse.   Like almost all anti-gay hate and violence, what these LGBT youths experience tracks directly to toxic religious belief based ultimately on uneducated ignorance perpetuated by a slavish deference to a literal reading of the Bible, a book of in many cases myths increasingly shown to be inconsistent with accurate history and modern scientific knowledge.  Yet (in my view) cretinous parents continue to reject and/or abuse their own children because of these ignorant writings.  A piece in This Week looks at the horrors still endured by far too many of our LGBT youth.  Here are highlights:

If you're gay, it's hard not to feel optimistic these days. We're a small part of the population, but a solid majority of Americans and much of the political elite is on our side and wants to guarantee our political equality under the law. I was reminded early this morning that despite the amazing progress, life for some of my younger gay friends is, and will remain, quite hard.

I don't mean, or just mean, gay kids who are bullied in schools. That problem has the attention of educators and activists.

I mean this: You're 17, 18, 19 years old. Your family kicks you out. Maybe your father abuses you. You have no money. You have no place to go. You don't live in a city with a vibrant supportive gay community. Or you don't live in a state with a strong domestic/adult dependent abuse safety net.

Last month, in a fit of drunken rage, his father, who is much, much larger than he is, threw a large metal pan at C.____. It missed his torso, but it clipped his knee, tearing a ligament.

This was light punishment. Because he is gay, C.____ has been punched and kicked by his father. His mother is under the sway of his father, and so does not, or cannot help him.  C.____ has no money. He needs to get out of his house. 

This is not a unique story. Since moving to Los Angeles, I've met a lot of younger gay men who have been kicked out of abusive households. The most heartbreaking of the stories was told to me by a talented young clothing designer. Upon learning he was gay, he was severely beaten, given $500, driven to the airport, had a one-way plane ticket bought in his name, and was abandoned.
1980?  No: 2007.  He was 16. 

I don't know how to help these young men. It does seem to me that they're slipping through the safety net that the gay community is building for its most vulnerable.

Political rights are critical. But social equality is probably more meaningful. Parents who abuse children are abominable. But parents of gay children can get away with it more, because there's a stigma, because everyone just wants the problem to go away, because we still lack the guts to challenge some of our brother's darker secrets.

These mothers and fathers still think in such bizarre, incomprehensible ways. Nothing will change until it becomes shameful not to treat your gay child with respect and decency.

Fundamentalist religion of all stripes is a toxic poison that truly needs to be eradicated from the earth.  Its principle fruits are hate, bigotry, violence against others and the embrace of ignorance and bigotry.  It is evil and when I encounter these "godly Christian" types, I am sorry, by I can only see them as a force for evil in the world.  Evil, and of course, rank hypocrisy.  These people deserve neither respect nor deference of any kind.

Poisonous Heterosexual Parenting

The professional Christian set - including those whose asses Obama is about to kiss via a meeting at the White House - bloviate ad nausea about two parents - a mother and a father - being required to raise a healthy and happy child. That is, of course, unless the mother and father are extreme religious nut cases who put their religious based lunacy ahead of the life or mental health of their child. The latest example of the heterosexual parenting model so loved by the Christianists comes from Rusk County, Texas, where the parents of a 13 month old child have been indicted for capital murder of their child. It seems that these Christian parents - who strike me as the type who would be sending contributions to CWA or FRC - beat their little girl to death with a hammer to rid her of "demonic possession." Somehow, I cannot help but think that 13 month old Amora Carson would have been ever so much better off with a committed gay or lesbian couple as her parents. Here are some highlights from WFIE-TV 14:

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RUSK COUNTY, TX (KLTV) - A Rusk County grand jury handed up the capital murder indictments against Blaine Keith Milam, 19 and Jessica Bain Carson, 18. The couple is accused of trying to rid 13-month-old Amora Carson of demonic possession by beating her to death with a hammer.

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At the time of the arrest, Rusk County detectives told KLTV it was the worst crime scene they had ever seen. KLTV later learned Milam is a registered sex offender and was supposed to be behind bars. The couple remains behind bars on $2 million bonds.

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Of course there are forms of child abuse that do not involve physical abuse. In fact, the first post I ever posted on this blog back in the fall of 2006 looked at a form of child abuse that happens virtually daily in "Christian" homes around the country and which is promoted by the two organizations that Obama has invited to the White House as per an earlier post this evening. Here is a portion of that posting, a part of which came from a blog called "Proceed at Your Own Risk":

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AMERICA'S ULTIMATE HATE CRIME

Every so once in a while I allow myself to consider the nightmare existence of a queer child growing up with religious fundamentalist parents. The thought of it is so painful that I need to keep it mostly compartmentalized and in the back of my mental and emotional closet.

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It's an aspect of the world of homophobia and fundamentalist religion that we very much ignore. For many reasons, it's the forgotten stepchild of gay activism, child care services and the mental health profession. But the obvious fact is that there are thousands of these kids living in a hell on earth as they fight their way through childhood.

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I can think of few other situations that have the potential to engender such a relentless and pervasive environment of psychological and possibly even physical child abuse. Generally speaking we do not do a good job of handling child abuse in this nation but when it come to gay kids the picture is even bleaker. The ratio of gay kids to straight kids among runaways, child prostitutes and suicides, well documented by the CDC, makes this painfully clear.

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Long before a child develops self-awareness of his or her own sexual orientation, he is trained to believe that homosexuality is an abomination and a perversion that is a threat to the American way of life.In a fundamentalist religious environment, he is told that homosexuality threatens the American family and the sacred institution of marriage. He is told that homosexual activists and their agenda are leading the charge in a war against Christianity. The homosexuals are the enemy.

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This young and impressionable child learns that the Bible, the absolute word of god and truth, clearly states that homosexuals are an abomination and that their sin is punishable by death.And then, worst of all, he learns that homosexuality is a choice made by sick and evil people and that to make this choice is a very bad and wicked thing. But then nature takes its course and at some point the gay child realizes that he's "chosen" homosexuality. He doesn't remember being asked. He doesn't remember checking off that particular choice on any application. And he searches through the mail for the recruitment brochure, but it isn't to be found.Somehow, somewhere along the way, he has made this monumental, life-changing and life-shattering choice, against his will and against the will of god.

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No problem, he thinks, he'll just chose otherwise until he one day realizes that he can't. Try as he might, the gay just won't go away, along with the color of his skin and the texture of his hair.His intellectual and emotional energies become singularly focused on changing that choice but to no avail. He turns up the engines and works hard to hide his nature. Self-hatred begins to rip open his guts. Childhood innocence and joy are not part of his experience. He lives in a state of constant dread and anxiety, fearing exposure or worse.

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It's an exhausting and soul-crushing childhood. While other children are looking to the future with hope, he lives in a world of despair, pain and fear. While other children are considering ballerina, doctor, astronaut or fire fighter, the gay child's energies are focused on hiding his or her true self. The boy dreads his first fake sexual encounter: will he be able to perform? The girl worries less, she will just turn away and cry and wait until it's over.

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Many ex-gays believe that the origins of homosexuality are to be found in an abusive childhood. Their logic is flawed but their childhoods were likely abusive. Many of them come out of strict Christian homes. Growing up gay in a strict fundamentalist Christian home most likely oftentimes means a battering patten of abuse, certainly verbal and sometimes physical. Many of these parents likely steam roll over the self-esteem and self-confidence of these children as they struggle to make "her" more feminine and "him" less of sissy.

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Protected by a very misguided notion of religious freedom, fundamentalists of all sorts are allowed by our society to engage in the ultimate hate crime, a pervasive and monstrous form of child abuse that will one day be seen by social historians and anthropologists as a very barbaric and grotesque aspect of the American civilization. Sexual orientation is not a choice, but our society's willingness to tolerate this terrible treatment of children is a choice and a choice that should make us all ashamed. We will be judged harshly by future generations as we are already judged by more evolved societies on the other side of the Atlantic.

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When slavery, the oppression of women and child labor were recognized for what they were, modern nations changed. When certain Biblical practices including the stoning to death of adulterers were recognized for what they were, modern nations changed.And when the abuse of homosexual children was recognized for what it was, modern nations changed--tragically we were not among them. Freedom of religion was designed to protect people from oppression and persecution. Instead, in 21st Century America, "freedom of religion" is used to do great harm to millions of Americans, including many of our children who are unable to defend themselves, their psyches and their hearts."

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Freedom of religion" should not, in my opinion, be used to excuse behavior that violates sound practices and standards that are based on science, morality and ethics. Further, "freedom of religion" should not exempt people from laws governing discriminatory practices, mental health care, child care and child protection.If we allow religious beliefs to justify human degradation and oppression, we reduce our constitution to nothing but an old piece of paper.

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Homosexuality is common throughout hundreds of animal species and every scientific measure that has been used thus far has confirmed over and over again that this is about nature and not nurture. Of course, people who act exclusively on faith and belief rather than on fact and reason will never be convinced of this. The facts are that dinosaurs and unicorns did not miss the Ark and gay children did not chose to be who they were born to be. But the question that seems to plague us at every turn these days is whether we are to be a nation of fact and reason or a nation of people packed and ready to jump on the Rapture bus? In the meantime, suffer the little children.

Gay Relationships: Verbal Abusive

Several close blogger friends have recommended this article about gay relationships (http://gaytwogether.typepad.com/gaytwogether/2008/01/gay-relations-7.html) that touched on issues that are very relevant and important. I felt certain portions of the article were worth repeating. The reality is that sometimes as hard as it may seem, being alone is better than being in an abusive relationship. Here are some highlights:

So often in a new relationship we learn the dynamic of the new relationship. This includes how you react together as a couple, with each other, and in group settings. Backgrounds are very different and as our techniques in dealing and interacting with other people. One thing you need to be on the look out for is verbal abuse. Verbal abuse always takes place before physical abuse does. Knowing what the signs of verbal abuse are as well as being able to stop that treatment early on is key in a relationship.

Tell your partner that behavior like that is unacceptable, and you will walk away, or leave when they choose to act like that. If your partner does not respond and change in a positive way, you need to keep in mind that if you are just dating, that future treatment can be worse. Verbal abuse can and does often get worse. Verbal abuse is always a precursor to physical abuse.

The key is recognizing when verbal abuse happens, talking honestly with your partner about the actions that have occurred, and then noting the changes. You may have to cease contact with the partner by walking away, not seeing your partner for awhile to help get your point across. If the behavior does not change, it is time for serious reflection regarding that relationship. You deserve a relationship free of verbal abuse, and it is up to you to recognize it, and see that it stops, either by helping to change that behavior or leaving the relationship.