September 22, 2010 on CNN:
Two Georgia men have filed a lawsuit claiming that prominent Atlanta, Georgia, pastor Eddie Long coerced them into sex.See also: Accused pastor crusaded against homosexuals
The suits, filed Tuesday in DeKalb County, Georgia, allege that Long used his position as a spiritual authority and bishop to coerce young male members and employees of his New Birth Missionary Baptist Church into sex.
A spokesman for Long told CNN on Wednesday that the allegations are "a case of retaliation and a shakedown for money by men with some serious credibility issues."
Read more
I'll wait for the evidence on this one. Just because some preachers are pedos doesn't mean they all are.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that he's intensely anit-gay (because he is a self-loathing closet case), believes homosexuality can be cured (so he views himself as a heterosexual with sexual lapses which, unimportantly, happen to be same-sex in nature), and faces accusations which include details which can be easily corroborated (it is completely unnecessary and foolish to include such details if one expects to sustain a false accusation like this) those is enough evidence for me to form a strong hunch.
ReplyDeleteIt's a text book case.
<span>It's a text book case.
ReplyDelete</span><span>1) He's intensely anit-gay (because he is a self-loathing closet case)</span>
<span>2) He believes homosexuality is a choice and can be cured (so he views himself as a heterosexual with sexual lapses which, unimportantly, happen to be same-sex in nature)</span>
<span>3) He faces accusations which include details which can be easily corroborated (it is completely unnecessary and foolish to include such details if one expects to sustain a false accusation like this)</span>
<span>That is plenty enough evidence for me to form a strong expectation that the allegations will prove credible.
</span>
Okay, no. being against homosexuality is NOT a sure sign that someone is gay. I get that it's a clever insult because if they're anti-gay then it's going to offend them, but some of you people are actually starting to believe that it's a fact. Take your head out of your ass.
ReplyDeleteHi Andrew,
ReplyDeleteIts not a sure sign, but it is certainly often the case. A study a few years back (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8772014) clearly showed that those who self-identify as being against homosexuality showed greater signs of arousal when confronted with lewd pictures of those their own sex, compared to straight people who profess not to be homophobic. It don't find it much of a coincidence that homophobic preists, or pastors like Ted and this guy, are themselves gay. Projection and denial are common bedfellows.
Andrew,
ReplyDeleteI didn't say that taking a position against homosexuality is enough to assume someone is gay. That is, of course, ridiculous. You're assuming he is straight, then speculating about reasons for why he might be homophobic. (religion, culture, whatever)
I invite you to assume, as a thought experiment, that he is gay. Casual homophobia is usually heterosexual. But gay people cannot easily remain casually homophobic, because they have to find a way to resolve the cognitive dissonance from condemning themselves. There are many ways to resolve it. The best way is to accept yourself, and get rid of your condemnation of homosexuality.
But, other people choose to retain, with certainty, the belief that homosexuality is sinful. This escalates the dissonance. There are patterns of behavior and thought which emerge from taking this path. Those include being intensely, publicly homophobic. There are many reasons why behaving like this can seem like a good idea, but I won't get into that now. The biggest requirement however is what keeps the dissonance strong, but unresolvable and cyclical, in the context of the Christian doctrines of salvation and damnation, is the belief that homosexuality is a sinful temptation which can be resisted, battled, and cured if only you try hard enough.
So Long could either have exhibitted a common pattern of behavior typical of closetted gay men throughout his life, or he's straight but for some unknown reason he has been intensely homophobic his whole life.
He's not the "gays rape/recruit children" type of hater, which would make sense for a straight father to worry about. What is it?
IianM,
ReplyDeleteI tried to follow the link you posted to the study, but it said that the requested page does not exist.
I said:
ReplyDelete"I'll wait for the evidence on this one. Just because some preachers are pedos doesn't mean they all are."
and
"being against homosexuality is NOT a sure sign that someone is gay. I get that it's a clever insult because if they're anti-gay then it's going to offend them, but some of you people are actually starting to believe that it's a fact."
Where's the part where I assumed he was straight? Where's the part where I speculated based on culture, religion etc? I'm not lacking the ability to imagine that he's gay, I'm just not going to jump to conclusions just because they would agree with my morality. You're like a text book case of an arrogant liberal who doesn't see that he's the one who's close minded.
Shep,
ReplyDeleteI'd like to appologize, that last sentence was out of line.
The closing paren got in the way. Try this:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8772014
I might add that the fact that this is a textbook case does not 'prove' he's gay, but it does provides plausibility by fitting a pattern. (That's a perfectly rational observation.)
Regarding your OP: who said all pastors are pedos? I must have missed something.
Otherwise I agree: there will no doubt be more evidence coming to the surface; we'll know better then.
There used to be a video of Gore Vidal narrating the results of this study for some HBO documentary, but I think it's gone now. The only thing I can see is this old YT video.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOc5w6Ti22U
I would've added my comments to this post but shep has defined them already with such precision and tact that I would merely be redundant.
Andrew is right about this thing: "All preachers guilty of S (S being some activity they consider sinful) will preach very hard against S" does not imply the converse that "all preachers who preach hard against S are guilty of S". I thought we were supposed to be rational people here - can't we understand that simple bit of basic logic? it's basically a specific instance of the fallacy "all X are Y therefore all Y are X."
ReplyDeleteExcept that empirical induction depends on exactly that 'fallacy'. Namely, when we believe that X --> Y and observe Y, we may, depending on the circumstances, infer X. This is rational. It's just not purely deductive logic, that's all.
ReplyDeleteTo be clear: Of course the general statement "X --> Y therefore Y --> X" is false. It's just that that's not the simplistic way that evidence works.
Whatever man. I wasn't trying to criticize when I said you are working from an assumption of that Long is straight. I guess I didn't word it right.
ReplyDeleteI don't think you really tried to understand my point, and jumped into being defensive. Oh well.
No one speaking in logically certainties here. Besides, I reject the statement that "all preachers guilty of S will preach very hard against S".
ReplyDeleteDo you maintain that the probability that Long is heterosexual is unchanged in light of the allegations that have been made?
Exactly. You just have to consider two sets. 1. What proportion of pastors is X? 2. What proportion of pastors that have such allegations raised against them is X? Unless allegations are completely uncorrelated to X, the probability of X rises after allegations. You can then refine your analysis to the set of preachers who preach against X, etc.
ReplyDeleteAllegations, almost by definition, are not very strong evidence due to the possibility of false accusations. So the probability might increase only a little.
wake up chimp.
ReplyDeleteyou're all in denial. First off, you worship an imaginary friend. case closed.