Thirty-five years later, Debbie Vasquez's voice trembled as she described her trauma to a group of Southern Baptist leaders.
She was 14, she said, when she was first molested by her pastor in Sanger, a tiny prairie town an hour north of Dallas. It was the first of many assaults that Vasquez said destroyed her teenage years and, at 18, left her pregnant by the Southern Baptist pastor, a married man more than a dozen years older.
In June 2008, she paid her way to Indianapolis, where she and others asked leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention and its 47,000 churches to track sexual predators and take action against congregations that harbored or concealed abusers. Vasquez, by then in her 40s, implored them to consider prevention policies like those adopted by faiths that include the Catholic Church.
"Listen to what God has to say," she said, according to audio of the meeting, which she recorded. "... All that evil needs is for good to do nothing. ... Please help me and others that will be hurt."
Days later, Southern Baptist leaders rejected nearly every proposed reform.
The abusers haven't stopped. They've hurt hundreds more.
As a complete outsider to this entire system and culture, my take is that the victims need to go to law enforcement, not leave it as a church matter. I realize it is complicated and there are huge power dynamics, trust, issues, family issues, and so on. But my take is that it doesn't matter if someone is clergy: this is a crime and needs to be prosecuted as a crime and the perpetrator needs to be convicted and sentenced in the criminal justice system.
When you go to the police in the South you are talking to Baptists and people from churches that are close to being Baptists. Did not read of any same sex trouble in the Baptist church. Hope that also comes out soon.
-------------------------------- Several people have eaten my cooking and survived.
Posts: 25850 | Location: Still living at 9000 feet in the High Rockies of Colorado | Registered: 20 April 2005
It's all about institutional protection of abusers. Whether it's religious, political, or corporate entities, the people in charge habitually turn a blind eye to despicable behavior by members of the group.
It's all about power, I guess.
-------------------------------- When the world wearies and society ceases to satisfy, there is always the garden - Minnie Aumônier
Posts: 38221 | Location: Somewhere in the middle | Registered: 19 January 2010
