The media is all over the Southern Baptists for sexual sins, particularly child molestation, by its clergy. You’d think the Southern Baptists were especially evil. Yet, the desire to avoid besmirching their organization thrills through all institutions – from Hollywood, to Federal agencies, to universities, and beyond. The Southern Baptists acted like other institutions by hiding sexual dirt.

Part of the reason the media is so enraged with Southern Baptists is they exclude LGBTs from fostering, teaching, or caretaking kids: How dare the church enforce the historic belief that homosexuals seek sex with the underage when that belief is dead wrong? The American Psychiatric and American Psychological Associations and the National Association of Social Workers[1] plainly said in 1994 that “although gay men have been stigmatized with the allegation that they are disproportionately responsible for child sexual abuse, there is no evidence of any positive correlation between homosexual orientation and child molestation!”

Who is correct—the Southern Baptists or the media/mental health complex?

I and my colleagues analyzed 2,633 consecutive news stories about child sexual abuse from 2012 through 2021. We put ‘child sexual abuse’ into Google News and cataloged every story containing the sex of the perpetrator and sex of the victim(s). With journalists writing the stories, Google News choosing the stories, and our team merely tabulating the stories, what could be fairer?

What we found for child sexual abuse stories concerning a clergy member or church official molesting minors as a function of his position (e.g., the child was a member of his congregation or under his supervision) is summarized in Table 1. Situations where a stranger molested a child, after which he was discovered to be a member of the clergy, were not included. Molestations were categorized heterosexual (opposite sex victim[s]) or homosexual (same-sex victim[s]). The few molesting both sexes were counted among those engaging in homosexuality). Only physical adult/minor sex, not what adults said, wrote, or viewed, is depicted.

‘Perps’ in Table 1 refers to perpetrators; those who molested homosexually are noted as Homo; those who molested heterosexually as Het, the ‘% Perps Homo’ refers to the proportion of perpetrators who were homosexual, the ‘% victims by homos’ refers to the proportion of the victims molested by those engaging in homosexuality.’ Thus, in Table 1, of the 100 Catholic clergy caught molesting children, 85 molested homosexually for 581 victims (97% of the Catholic clergy victims), while 15 molested heterosexually for 19 victims (that is, 3% of the kids molested by Catholic clergy). Likewise, 30 of the 69 ‘other Protestant clergy’ homosexually molested 120 victims (65% of all the 185 Protestant-molested kids) and the other Protestant clergy heterosexually molested 65 victims.

The Houston Chronicle began the controversy about Southern Baptists in 2018 with a report of various crimes, especially child molestation. We applied our categorization to Houston Chronicle child sexual abuse [CSA] cases that made the news in Table 1. A few cases involved Seminarians. These were counted if the victim(s) were related to the perpetrator’s status as a seminary student. If it was unclear if the abuse was related to his position (e.g., he molested at a public park) or if it was not in a church or a church facility, we did not count it as ‘clergy.’ Non-sexual convictions or arrest records (which don’t give the sex of victims) were not counted. The Google News Baptist and Houston Chronicle Southern Baptist CSA sets are very similar in the proportion of homosexual perpetrators and victims.

Catholic clergy accounted for a disproportionate proportion of homosexual perpetrators and victims. As indexed by CSA, every religious group had a higher share of homosexuals in its clergy than the proportion in the general population.

Does requiring clergy to stay single encourage homosexuals to serve, and thereby increase the danger to children? The Catholic findings suggest such a pattern; the small sample of Rabbis, who are not required to stay single, does not.

Table 2 depicts CSA involving a psychiatrist, psychologist, mental health counselor, etc. acting within his professional duties.

Women were caught sexually involved with minor clients less frequently than men. Homosexuals were involved the most. Southern Baptists, Baptists, and Protestants had lower, while Catholics and Rabbis, had higher rates of homosexual perpetrators and victims than mental health professionals did. The amount of contact with minors and degree of oversight in church events v clinical settings are hard to compare. But as with almost any institution, some Southern Baptists are ‘corrupt,’ but it seems, that many mental health professionals are too.

Table 3 summarizes school-based child sexual abuse. 155 (34%) of 452 teachers homosexually molested pupils, and 733 (54%) of 1,362 pupil victims were victimized by homosexuals. Female teachers and non-professional staff molested more frequently heterosexually; homosexuals tended to molest more pupils per perpetrator than heterosexual molesters did in each category.

Goggle News’ finding that 34% of teacher perpetrators were homosexual is similar to Rubin’s report[2] of teachers caught molesting in 10 western states where 4 (22%) of 18 female and 59 (33%) of 181 male teachers [i.e., 63 (32%) of 199 teachers] were caught engaging in homosexuality. Similarly, of 7 teachers caught molesting pupils in the Washington, D.C. area,[3] 2 (29%) molested homosexually.

Conclusion: Disproportionate molestations by homosexuals and their more frequent victimization of children dominated media reports of child sexual abuse. The media may dislike it, but by discriminating against using or hiring LGBTs, Southern Baptists likely saved many more children from being molested.

These stories about child sexual abuse were written by (usually pro-LGBT) journalists and chosen by Google (also a pro-LGBT entity). Even with this potential bias, our 10-year set of news stories tends to reinforce traditional, historic church-based concerns about homosexuals’ sexual predation of children. Likewise, our set of 2,633 consecutive news stories also tends to falsify the contrary claims made by mental health/social work professional associations.

References:

[1] to the US Supreme Court in 1994 in Romer.

[2] Rubin, S 1988 Sex education: Teachers who sexually abuse students. Paper at 24th International Congress of Psychology, Sydney, Australia.

[3] Koklanaris M & Haydon J (1995, July 10) Washington Times, A2.