XPost: alt.ufc, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, talk.politics.guns   
   XPost: alt.transgendered, alt.atheism   
   From: elonx@protonmail.com   
      
   The GOP is just another Christian pedophile cult.   
      
      
      
   Because American politics are now just one, long, low-rent nightmare,   
   Republican culture warriors have spent the past few weeks slandering their   
   various enemies as being soft on pedophilia. For some time, this sort of   
   raving was mostly confined to adherents of QAnon, the Trump-idolizing   
   conspiracy cult that believes Democratic politicians and other elites are   
   secretly operating a global child trafficking ring.   
      
   But a confluence of events has helped bring a version of it mainstream.   
      
   During the Supreme Court confirmation hearings of judge Ketanji Brown   
   Jackson in March, Republican Senators Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz attempted   
   to smear the nominee by inaccurately claiming that she had a record of   
   handing out unusually light sentences in cases where defendants were   
   accused of viewing child pornography. The issue descended deeper into   
   absurdity after three moderate Republicans voted to confirm Jackson this   
   week and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene—the walking id of MAGA-   
   America—tweeted about them, saying “Murkowski, Collins, and Romney are   
   pro-pedophile.”   
      
   Meanwhile, defenders of Florida’s new “don’t say gay” law, which strictly   
   limits public school teachers’ ability to discuss LGBTQ people and issues   
   in the classroom, began referring to the legislation as an “anti-grooming”   
   bill—evoking the deeply homophobic idea that an adult would only talk   
   about these topics with a child in order to prime them for abuse. After   
   Disney, one of Florida’s largest employers, called for the law to be   
   repealed, conservative social media influencers and Fox News personalities   
   like Laura Ingraham launched a wild crusade against the company accusing   
   it too of being complicit in “grooming.”   
      
   This is all galling. But it’s especially rich considering that, of the two   
   major parties, the GOP has many more notable and recent scandals involving   
   the sexual abuse of minors and young students—as well as a recent track   
   record of reacting to them with a shrug.   
      
   Let’s review some of that history …   
   Advertisement   
      
   In 2006, Florida Rep. Mark Foley was forced to resign after it was   
   revealed that he’d sent sexually explicit messages and propositioned   
   teenage congressional pages via email and text.   
      
   In 2015, former Rep. Dennis Hastert, the longest-ever serving Republican   
   speaker of the House, pleaded guilty to making illegal hush-money payments   
   in order to cover up his history of sexually abusing high school wrestlers   
   he had coached decades before.   
      
   “Nothing is more stunning than having ‘serial child molester’ and ‘speaker   
   of the House’ in the same sentence,” the judge said at his sentencing.   
      
   During and after the 2016 presidential race, among the dozens of women who   
   accused former president Donald Trump of being a sexual predator were   
   several contestants in the 1997 Miss Teen USA pageant, who reported that   
   he barged into their dressing room while girls as young as 15 were   
   changing. (Trump allegedly told them, “Don’t worry, ladies, I’ve seen it   
   all before.”)   
      
   His campaign denied the accusation, but CNN unearthed a 2005 Howard Stern   
   interview where Trump bragged about walking into backstage dressing rooms   
   at the pageants he ran.   
      
   During the 2018 midterms, Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore was accused   
   of preying on girls as young as 14 and 16; the New Yorker reported that   
   his habit of trying to pick up high schoolers was so notorious that it   
   actually got him banned from a local mall.   
      
   Also in 2018, Rep. Jim Jordan, one of Trump’s fiercest allies and a co-   
   founder of the hardline conservative Freedom Caucus, became embroiled in a   
   scandal over his time as a wrestling coach at Ohio State University, where   
   a team doctor named Richard Strauss, who committed suicide in 2005, was   
   found to have sexually abused more than 177 male student athletes.   
      
   An investigation commissioned by the university found that Strauss   
   regularly used examinations as an excuse to grope and fondle the students,   
   sometimes to the point of ejaculation; often ordered them to strip nude   
   unnecessarily; and in two cases, attempted to perform oral sex. Numerous   
   former wrestlers told reporters that Jordan was personally aware of the   
   abuse during the early 1990s but chose to turn a blind eye. The   
   Congressman simply denied having any knowledge of it—and suggested at   
   least one of the accusers claiming otherwise was acting on a personal   
   vendetta against him.   
   Advertisement   
      
   And finally, Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida is currently the subject of a   
   literal sex-trafficking investigation, which is looking into whether he   
   had sex with an underage 17-year-old girl, among other issues. (Greene is   
   close with Gaetz, who denies the allegations, and has defended him.)   
      
   On Twitter, liberals have taken to rattling off this list of   
   scandals—among others—in response to conservative accusations of grooming   
   (in a somewhat apt turn of events, a former Republican National Committee   
   staffer was sentenced for a child pornography conviction the same day   
   Jackson was confirmed to the court).   
      
   Some have gone further, remarking that the GOP is particularly afflicted   
   with a pedophilia problem. “Every accusation is a confession,” goes one   
   popular refrain. (Some large social media accounts have been trying to   
   make the phrase “pedocon” stick.)   
      
   Personally, I don’t think Democrats ought to start earnestly debating with   
   Republicans over which party really has more pedophiles overall (which is   
   a sentence I can’t really believe I’m typing, but here we are). Sexual   
   abuse and misconduct doesn’t have a partisan valence. You can certainly   
   find some Democrats out in the world who’ve been convicted on child porn   
   charges. And never forget that Anthony Weiner went to jail for sexting a   
   15-year-old.   
      
   But if conservatives are going to smear progressives as “groomers” and   
   pose as the nation’s protectors of children, it’s certainly fair to bring   
   up this history in retort. It’s also entirely valid to note how weak the   
   GOP’s response has been to recent scandals concerning its own rank-and-   
   file.   
      
   The way Republicans set aside the vast array of sexual abuse charges   
   against Trump and lined up behind him has been discussed so many times   
   that there’s no real need to go over it again. The party’s response to   
   Moore, meanwhile, was what you might describe as, well, semi-pathetic. To   
   their credit, a number of elected Republicans called on Moore to exit the   
   race or said they would vote for a write-in candidate, and the National   
   Republican Senatorial Committee pulled its funding from his campaign.   
      
   The Republican National Committee did as well, at least briefly.   
   Advertisement   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)