Compares "girlish" 4-year-old behavior to a cockroach:
"Squash it!"
North Carolina and Tennessee are now lost to the
21st. century: Tennessee has just passed an "abstinence only" law,
stating that AO is the only thing to teach in lieu of sex education. And North
Carolina's looming Amendment One vote has brought out all the vitriol
and lies the Right can
conjure up.
Now a Sunday sermon has come to light exhibiting
the darkest of North Carolina's mentality: a Fayetteville Pastor, Sean Harris
of Berean Baptist Church, advocates "cracking" your 4-year old son's
wrist if it "goes limp." Oh, and it's evidently OK if you post a
YouTube video of his wearing a dress so that he will be humiliated, bullied and
... go straight. Furthermore, the normal (read: macho) boy "digs
ditches." The vehemence with which he is stating all of this reaches the
level of Dennis Terry's "Get Out" introduction of Rick Santorum to
his Southern Baptist congregation. It is the intensity - more of a barely
literate rant than a sermon - that causes the listener to think that this
pastor should himself be investigated for child abuse. He tops off the intensity
with an authorization, a "special dispensation" to parents in the
congregation to proceed with the abuse: go ahead, he won't mind - nor will God.
Any backpeddling will be extremely difficult.
Not that there will be any attempt, of course, because he seems to have the
wholehearted support of his congregation: perhaps the most disturbing
about the tape of this "sermon" is the laughter and applause it
produces - the same kind of reaction Gov. Rick Perry produced when speaking
proudly to Republicans about his record as state executioner.
These Are Not Nice People, Mr. Dobson
James Dobson, founder of Focus On The Family and
the Family Research Council, got his big start in politicizing morality and
"family values" by writing a book titled Dare To Discipline .
From wikipedia :
In his book Dare to
Discipline, Dobson advocated the spanking of children up to eight years old when they
misbehave, but warns that "corporal punishment should not be a frequent
occurrence" and that "discipline must not be harsh and destructive to
the child's spirit." He warns against "harsh spanking" because
"It is not necessary to beat the child into submission; a little bit of
pain goes a long way for a young child."
Evidently, Pastor Harris thinks that
"spanking" a 4-year-old for a limp wrist is not enough. He must also
think that he couldn't possibly live up to cult leader Peter Moses' murder of
4-year-old Jaden Higgenbothan because he perceived he was gay. (see OpEdNews
article Who
REALLY Killed Jaden Higgenbotham? ). So what's the big deal?
If he responds (at all) to the violent sermon,
James Dobson will no doubt simply distance himself with a
that's-certainly-not-what-I'm-about blanket statement, confident that no one
would ever link him to such ministerial malice. Where Harris got the idea of
extreme corporal punishment and his ideas on parenting, however, is still to be
seen. Dare To Discipline has spawned an awful lot of "it's ok to beat the
kid" parenting techniques by pastors these last 42 years.
It's North Carolina. Meh.
The heat of North Carolina's Amendment One
measure may have caused blogs and news feeds like Joe.My.God to pick up on
anti-gay sentiments more than usual, but closer scrutiny of a social issues
like extreme homophobia and religion-sanctioned child abuse is not simply a
knee-jerk reaction: it is a reaction based on history and intuition. It is a
reaction based on disastrous attempts to change the habits of children through
outright abuse. "That's how we do it around here" (as in the infamous yard
sign-shooting video ) is an indication that spots in NC have regressed to a
point of no return.
Yes, we've heard it all before about places like
North Carolina and we're loathe to drone on.
But we must.
This flash video was removed for security reasons