Wow...

Whenever my hometown (or homestate) makes the news--before I even hear the details--I reflexively wince, knowing that whatever it is, it can't be good (or reasonable, or redeemable, or intelligent...) It turns out that my instinct to cringe first and listen second was correct, as usual:

A local independent church in Louisville's Germantown neighborhood has ordained a convicted child molester as a minister...WOW, indeed. The affirmed pedophile Mark Hourigan was sent to prison for three years and has been put on the sex-offender registry for life after repeatedly sodomizing an 11-year-old boy when he was a minister at Beechfork Baptist Church in Gravel Switch, KY (wherever that is). But never mind all that: the church, City of Refuge Worship Center (sounds pretty generic, like it should be corporately sponsored by Gatorade or something), is into forgiveness in a big way...so much so that it has decided to put more kids at risk for the sake of giving this one creep yet another shot at abusing a position of authority. Or, as Rochelle Fournier and David Clohessy (with the support group SNAP) put it: "We want authorities to err on the side of safeguarding the physical, emotional and spiritual safety of children, over boosting the self-esteem of one criminal adult." well...yeah.

I get that Christians are supposed to be turning the other cheek and all...but does that count for pedophiles? Especially when the recidivism of pedophiles is so commonly, consistently high (i.e.: he's going to do it again if he gets the chance)?? Shouldn't Jesus have put some sort of clause in there about the Golden Rule applying to everyone (your mom, your best friend, your enemy, your enemy's mom, etc) except that child rapist down the street? Maybe if Jesus had been raised by a lawyer instead of a carpenter the folks down at City of Refuge wouldn't be putting Creepy McGee in a situation where he would be tempted to screw up yet another kid's life.

Of course, all this makes it sound like I'm surprised that this happened in my hometown. Well, that's not completely true.: ask me about the summer during college when I worked at the local amusement park and they accidently hired a convicted sex-offender...to work in kiddie land! um, oops.