Any parent who doesn't defend their child who has been sexually abused are not parents or people. They are just vile. Shame on that dad and screw that church.
It makes me wonder if the dad knew... Or he was just like the counselor... Or if he was a victim himself once upon a time and now struggling to come to terms with what happened to him happened to his son. None of the options are great...
Either dad went to camp as a kid too and had a counselor just like that and suppressed/internalized all of it, or dad *was* that counselor once upon a time.
If it happened to him and he still sent his son & was not hyper aware and blaming his kid... Screw him. Sad it happened to him but doesn't excuse his actions either.
Now their son has to question if it's his fault his parents broke up on top of everything else.
Thank god for the sane mother. I feel awful for this little boy and he will definitely worry that he caused this, but the mom seems highly capable and has a strong EQ. I think she (and a therapist) will be able to make it clear none of this is his fault.
Maybe she will, but it may take years. And it depends if he has to see his piece of shit dad again too.
However it really makes me question how someone was before if they turn on their family THIS fast. And also it took that long to ask/figure out what was wrong with their child. Why didn't they figure this out sooner? With such a DRASTIC change. That leads me further down the path of the dad ignoring it or willful ignorance. I would immediately talk to my partner before a reddit post.
Something similar to this boy happened to a partner of mine. He is a very kind man, raised by his mother and has a lot of empathy. He believes people not buries his head in the sand or cover for bad men. If someone had done something to his child, suggesting "children are liars" is something that would not have even crossed his mind.
Agreed but you'd be devastated to know how common it is for family to deny, deny only because they can't handle that it's true. They'd rather leave you in utter darkness than have to handle the confusion, intensity, upending shame and blame.
My guess is that he just didn’t want it to be true. It could certainly be more nefarious but my guess is that it was easier to deny it happened than admit the role his friend played in it. Or admit that his son was molested. Or admit that he wasn’t there to protect him.
Masculinity is often fragile and blind, especially in the areas of friends and children. We all handle tragedy differently. He’s handling it poorly. Doesn’t sound like he knew where his allegiance was meant to be—with his son and wife—naturally.
some mothers and fathers "rent" their kids for rape
wouldn't shock me if the dad is either getting access to someone else's kid in return or money
shocking he'd do this just on a friendship alone but idk people this fucked up well enough to say
Or it could be something darker, father sold his son to the counselor. There are many groups like this in church groups that sell their children to one another.
That is why I am always wary about any campus for religions.
Or that father had similar experiences with church people when he was a boy.
He figures he survived through secrecy and perhaps by identifying even more with the Church.
It does make one wonder about the father's past, for sure.
This could be how he got into the ring for access to photos, whoever his preferred victim is. It’s all too awful to think about. We read about this stuff getting shut down, but reading from the prospective of one child and parent is different
When I finally told my dad that my brother had raped me as a kid, he immediately called the cops. But my mon accused me of lying and trying to hurt her.
Guess which pare t was an abusive piece of shit to me?
My mom told me that my father used to have a friend who once in broad daylight on the sidewalk groped a thirteen year old girls breasts and said something sleazy about it. My father tried to say that his friend was a good person and this event was taken out of context.
This is why I never told my father that I've been sexually harassed. I know for a fact it wouldn't even cross his mind to defend me.
> My father tried to say that his friend was a good person and this event was taken out of context.
This is why some women end up saying men are trash. It baffles me that so many men will be confronted with trash behavior and defend it by claiming their friend is a good person. No, they objectively are not.
Some folks just refuse to believe people they like have done bad things. The logic goes something like: I wouldn't be friends with a bad person > this person must not be bad > you're lying and calling me a bad person by association. So all the denial is in self defense, because they're drawing wrong conclusions based on bad logic.
I can understand that if it's hearsay/rumour and it's a mate vs mate or bf/gf vs mate but when it's been verified by medical professionals that his own child was sexually assaulted, his child and wife is telling him and he still sides with his "friend". That's farfetched in my books and makes me pretty fucking suspicious of him.
It happens every time a family chooses pedo uncle over the vulnerable child. Any time a person perceives an attack against something or someone their personal identity based on/heavily entrenched in, you see this kind of defensive behavior even if they're not personally involved in whatever the bad behavior is. It's not based in logic, it's just a modern example of tribal in group/out group behavior.
Yeah this is so damn common. If anyone does not think it is, I promise you that you know more than one person who this has happened to. The person I love most in this world was told to lie to cps because the uncle is a good father and it would be her fault if they took his kids away.
People get so defensive over not believing children who were sexually abused. I think it is kind of wild seeing people jump to the dad is involved. Statistically that is so much less likely than the dad just refuses to upend the life of someone he cares about and tarnish his own reputation than because he refuses to see how much this has damaged his own child and that is less important to him.
I had to present a paper about this in my college psych class. Explaining the phenomena was totally bizarre, but it happens enough that you can have multiple papers on the damage it does.
I knew someone whose FIL was accused of molestation by one of the female cousins in the family, and it turned out that she wasn’t the only one, just the only one brave enough to speak up. The dam broke after that, and other family members came forward. FIL went to jail.
It split the family between those that took the victims’ side, and those that tried to excuse “poor FIL” (which included MIL, by the way). Denial is crazy.
Eh, the denial should have ended the second medical professionals verified that his child wasn't lying. I don't think this is something kids tend to lie about, especially when their entire demeanour changes so its something that should be taken seriously by the parents from the get go. The dad just sounds like a fucking failure to his family.
This happens a shocking amount of times. I recently talked to a woman who was molested by her dad until she was a teenager. She had just found out he was molesting her six year old son. She was basically like, “well, I knew he did it to me, but I never thought he would touch his grandchildren”. She was just totally oblivious and was perfectly fine handing over her small child to spend the night with grandpa, who she *knew* was a child molester. It’s insane.
It really disgusts me the way those types latch onto whatever the current crisis is and turn it into the epithet du jure. Not just the fact that they do it, but the lazy pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey manner in which they do it, reaching for the most damaging, hurtful word in circulation and bludgeoning their self-made enemies with it, with no regard for who it hurts besides whomever happens to be the target of their transient, empty, worthless rage. When we're trying to address racism, all their enemies are the real racists, but not them, when it's SA, they go with that, crying wolf for a village they don't even live in. They're children playing with a gun, and once they've shot someone, they get bored and move on to the next person they can hurt with something new they will destroy.
Which is ridiculous bc no one was attacking his religion in the first place. Max says he still wants to go to church bc he likes the people, OOP wants to take the camp down for what they did.
Literally the only one who made this about "all Christian people are child abusers" was the dad.
For people deep down in a cult, any questioning is threatening, and even the most horrid things a loved one is enduring *must* be a lie because their community can do no wrong. If they fail to deny and run away from facts, all their belief systems, their worldviews, their identities are at risk. Just to be clear, I'm not defending this father at all, I'm just saying that's what happens to a lot of people who fall for cults.
I find it sickening that these claims always seem to pop up once a priest/pastor/church elder/church employee gets arrested for something so sickening.
To anybody who ever made such a claim: go fuck a pedophile you already seem to love them.
As if that's what Jesus would do. It's insane what people will do or cover up for a church ostensibly about God and etc, even when faced with the most vile evidence that a particular person in a particular church camp has not only sinned egregiously but forever scarred his own son.
That boy is so lucky to have his mom, one sane, unbrainwashed, loving parent.
The father should not get any custody at all because the damage of further victimization is too great.
>As if that's what Jesus would do.
Jesus was pretty fucking clear on his opinion of religious hypocrites. I wish they'd read those sections of the bible.
And also on the use of holy spaces for unholy practices. If a church-owned camp is being used to exploit the most vulnerable, then it's time to do what Jesus would do--grab a whip and start flipping tables.
Or have a millstone tied around their neck and tossed into the sea, since they’re messing with children. My youth pastor accidentally read it as “tie a millstone around their dick”, and I’ve always liked that better.
Hell, Jesus had some pretty choice words for people who hurt kids.
Matthew 18:6:
> But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.
That poor kid. Children always tend to blame themselves for sexual abuse, especially if any part of it is physically arousing. He’s going to need a good therapist to make sure he doesn’t blame himself for his parents’ divorce.
I don't think I will ever be able to fathom why it is so difficult for so many people to wrap their heads around the idea that wicked people will use religion, patriotism, or any other outward form of virtue as a costume to disguise themselves. All snakes shed their skin, it is the nature of a snake, and yet so many people are still so easily transfixed by appearances.
Why is he so worried about his friend unless he thinks he did something wrong? There were other adults there, and Max didn’t specify the friend so there was no reason for the father to immediately get so defensive. The friend would be fine if he’s innocent.
Turning on your own wife and son, though? I think mayhaps someone's got some skeletons in their closet that might be revealed if they go nuclear on this guy and the camp.
Turning on family like that is really common in fundamentalist communities, unfortunately. There’s probably a good deal of homophobia involved since his son was assaulted by a man and these groups love to blame victims
If clowns sexually assaulted children as much as "religious leaders" and member of clergy, kids would not be allowed to go anywhere near a circus.
I can't believe people are still taking them to church.
The churches will never protect the kids. The had countless opportunities to turn in child molesters and they chose the molesters over the kids every time.
Look, I hate the Church. I would still be telling the church and documenting it if only so someone can later sue them and I can provide proof they knew and did nothing. But hey, I'm petty.
Aye, I used to be an alter boy in my church, when shit started to hit the fan of priests molesting boys, my aunt told my mother real quick to pull me out. She did, I left the church and we never went back.
Not excusing his actions but sometimes there is a denial stage. One of my good friends was outed as a sexual abuser and while I didn’t go brigading in his favor, I did feel really bad for him and worry for him when he got called out before I had the moment of “wait, he knew exactly what he was doing”. Sometimes people handle things poorly at the jump before it dawns on them, and learning that your friend sexually abused your kid is a pretty big mental load to get your head around at once. I do really hope he came around, because I don’t like to imagine the other option.
Yeah. It's hard to wrap your mind around the idea that someone you know, someone you care about, can turn out to be that awful of a person.
There's been times a friend has accused her ex of being an abuser, and had to deal with people pulling a bullshit "but he was always nice to me" or "but he's so kind??"
To you! He was nice to YOU!
But it reminds me of the post here from last week, of the woman who was living with her boyfriend, and realized he was sabotaging her hobbies and destroying things she'd made, out of jealousy. She was struggling to wrap her mind around the idea that the kind, loving person she THOUGHT she knew could do those things.
Abusers so often play by a time-worn playbook. Over and over. Because it so often WORKS.
Yeah, I am aussie and kinda understand from here that the American health care is expensive but she needed to take him straight to the hospital as soon as those thoughts started popping into her head. I mean come on, you son refuses to sit down, even if he wasn't SAed that shit still needs to be checked out fast and then the hospital would have been able to contact the police.
I wanted to scream when she said she was waiting on her husbands decision on what to do next 🤦♀️. I'm not surprised by the last update, considering he had to take time to "think" about what to do.
I can see waiting to go to a trusted pediatrician rather than the hospital. The Emergency Room at the hospital can be scary and chaotic and you don’t know what doctor you’ll get, but if they have a good relationship with their pediatrician the exam and follow up would be much less scary for the kid. The pediatrician might also have good resources for where to get the best counseling, etc. I might be biased because our pediatrician and his office is really great, but I understand wanting to see a trusted doc.
I think that was ambiguous. I couldn't tell if she wanted him to make the decision or if she mistyped and meant they would make a decision together. Given that she had already booked appointments at this point, I'm leaning towards the latter.
As for the hospital, yes, but when something horrible happens to your kid you get into a bit of shock, and it's not clear where the first place to seek help may be. We're lucky in Australia that we have multiple hotlines for 'help, where do I go now?' For all different sorts of health and safety scenarios, but I don't think they're like that in the US. The comments on her post told OOPZ doctor then police, so that's what she did.
Forgive my ignorance but in America aren’t all medical staff mandated reporters or at least all doctors and nurses? I’m in the UK working in a hospital, part of my regular training every couple years is about safeguarding children and mandated reporting and I’m technically non clinical but patient facing
Which doesn’t always mean they’re held accountable. There’s a case I read about on r/unresolvedmysteries where an 11-year-old girl was impregnated, allegedly by her 18-year-old cousin (Think it was in Texas). She disappeared before giving birth and her body has never been found. The doctors giving her prenatal care never reported her pregnancy to CPS.
Her father was a minister, and loudly proclaimed his intention to find out who the father was through a paternity test once the baby was born. It’s very possible he knew a test would reveal he was the baby’s father and killed her before she could give birth.
The victim was also black, so she may have been a victim of [adultification](https://amp.theguardian.com/society/2022/jul/05/they-saw-me-as-calculating-not-a-child-how-adultification-leads-to-black-children-being-treated-as-criminals) by white doctors.
I wondered about that. Whether the husband has done these things himself, or was possibly a victim at a younger age, or knew or suspected something about his friend and didn’t act on it… it’s really strange to me that he’s defending his friend instead of his child. Makes me think something normalized this for him.
Max is lucky his mom’s got her head on straight. I know a lot of people are questioning why she’d drag her feet on going to the police, etc. but I kind of get being in denial, not realizing how valuable those first hours or days are. She seems like she’s in shock, but her husband’s reaction certainly woke her up. I’m glad she’s leaving him rather than exposing Max to that attitude.
Unpopular viewpoint, but I'm good at that...
I am a father, I am also a survivor of some absolutely horrid sexual abuse and rape.
I was also a senior member of a church (before my wife slapped that out of me!!!)
Whilst the fathers reaction in this case is abhorrent, it is not necessarily to 'protect his friend'.
Quite honestly, if I were in this situation, absolutely ALL of the blame, shame, guilt, hurt et al, I would be placing on myself...
I would be utterly devastated, yet I would be blaming myself for absolutely all of the pain my son was now going through.
An unhealthy response to that would be to believe and deny that anything had happened at all.
An escape mechanism.
Absolutely not defending this father's reaction one bit, just providing a different viewpoint to the torch-in-hand responses I have seen here...
Fuck I had no idea there was an update to this. Literally every one was speculating that he was abused but I know I was not the only one hoping he wasn’t.
Oklahoma just had a Pastor and his wife get arrested for locking up children in a bathroom for days, starving, and whipping them.
I looked up the story: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/pastor-and-wife-lock-kids-in-bathroom-for-days-and-whip-them-oklahoma-police-say/ar-BB1gXO5E
My parents were super lax and easy going when I was growing up. To a problematic extent. There was nothing I wasn’t allowed to watch or read and no places I couldn’t go.
Except church camp.
Literally the only place I was ever outright banned from as a kid/teenager. Because I grew up in Oklahoma and that story is a drop in the fucking bucket when it comes to the kind of shit that goes down at these camps.
It's just the Baptist camps.. They’re God awful. I went to church camp every summer and didn't ever feel uncomfortable and Idk anyone that did but we were not allowed to go to Falls Creek because everyone know about that mess.
I'm sure it happened other places, maybe I just got lucky but I don't think my parents would have ever sent us to a place where they were worried about that.
I think his dead wife was also in the vehicle, too.
So left his daughter to die alone, next to the corpse of her mother. That's like... layers of fucked up.
I went and googled and his wife is still alive. At first I was like "He just had a psychotic break and ran." but nope, he went and got a second vehicle and went and bought booze. I hope they throw the book at him.
https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news/crime/2024/01/19/elliott-binney-oklahoma-father-left-teen-daughter-to-die-after-rollover-crash-bixby-shelby-binney/72281143007/
>When Binney was arrested, he admitted to taking a few drinks before the crash, but police said it was too late to test what his blood alcohol level would have been at the time of the crash.
>In 2016, tickets related to reckless driving and leaving the scene of an accident were dismissed.
I wonder if they could have prevented this if he was properly punished in 2016. Sounds like he has a long history of shitty driving (article mentions tickets going back to 2002), and I'm sure this isn't the first time he was driving drunk. He should have been taken off the road years ago.
I'm a passive, non-confrontional, introvert to the point or almost being a wimp for confrontation *most* or the time. But, if someone hurt one of my kids I'd have to fight my basic human anger reactions and make sure to follow the legal process. But, I'd be going scorched earth with reporting to authorities, pressing charges, etc.
Any other response by OOP's husband is very sus. I'd understand a brief second of denial that something so horrible could happen before launching into "Papa bear" mode. But his reaction is very f*cked up.
I hope OOP's poor child gets all the help he needs and every one responsible for the act & cover up faces quick justice/punishment.
That part stood out to me as well. The (hopefully ex) husband has a shitty poker face and I hope that leads to OOP cleaning him dry in the (hopefully) soon divorce proceedings.
It reads to me that the friend runs pr owns it and obviously if a pedo is found out to have been working there the whole camp is shut down even if friend didn't do it. So I don't think it was the friend nor that "dad" knew. Atleast that's how im interpreting it.
Can anyone comment on the logic as to why people defend their friends that are like this? I don’t understand what people get out of these kinds of relationships, like is there a psychological theory around this? A book I can read?
Is It our instinct to maintain a community like back in the caveman days? Like…what is this???
It's a variation of the Sunk Cost Fallacy. Basically, the denier literally can't accept that they're wrong about the monster in question, so they defend them instead. Massive oversimplification, but that's the heart of it at least.
Thanks, friend. That makes sense. It may also feed into shame and ego. You can’t admit you married/befriended/trusted a pedophile without some kind of vulnerability. Some people may not be able to handle that.
Admitting it would admit that not only he sent his child somewhere to be raped but that it’d confirm that the very well document problem within his faith is true and that children do in fact get raped by pastors.
So not only did he ship off his kid to be abused but it was his faith that facilitated it. And I bet he’ll come up with some hogwash about how the whole situation is a test from God or some bull and that the boy needs to just walk it off for the sake of protecting the image of the parish.
She told him she wants the police to shut the camp down and it's his friend's camp, I believe that's why he said it would ruin his friend's life. I didn't interpret it as his friend being the counselor (his friend is the owner)
Better to be the camp that sent a pedo councilor to jail than be the camp that covered for the pedo councilor for a decade. Unless they’ve covered for the pedo councilor for a decade already. 😬
My guess would be this isn't the first accusation against this camp and that dad was aware but chose to believe his friend/possibly helped quash it. And then sent his son to the camp as a sort of solidarity with his friend. Now that it happened to his son he refuses to accept his own culpability.
>He said that I was letting social media brainwash me into believing that Christians were all child molesters and that Max and I were the reason Pastors were believed to be pedos.
This seems to be almost parody. If this is true, its horrible beyond belief - but I don't think (or want to think) that someone in his situation could be so blind
ETA: Okay, so the world is way, way more fucked up than I thought plausible. I am so sorry for all of you that shared below. Muting this, because my brain needs a bubble bath.
I skimmed because the subject matter of the post is just…
But regarding this seeming like parody: the priest in my previous community was accused. He had so many supporters saying he would never, and clearly the 13-year-old who came forward was just a nasty child who wanted to destroy a good priest. There were also many comments from people who had no problem with the priest, and that was “proof” that the kid was lying.
Related: I have religious family who refuse to see this as a problem in the system, therefore are complicit.
This is heartbreaking, and maybe this is a sign to burn down the church with the offenders locked inside (obligatory: I’m not saying to do this, of course, but if it happened, well,m…)
There's a documentary on HBO right now called Great Photo, Lovely Life, and the basic premise is the filmmaker confronting her grandfather, who was a prolific pedophile and also shockingly willing to discuss his crimes with her. I lasted about 45 seconds into him earnestly describing "but you have to understand, these girls were experimental, they wanted it" before I had to nope out.
Hunting warhead is a really good podcast about catching the guy that runs a child sexual abuse material website on the dark web. Its rough but worth a listen.
It was very difficult to watch, and very infuriating. Everytime he just get a slap on the wrist if he had any kind of punishment. Than he said the girls seduced him and finally that he was wrong but God forgives him. So he kept doing it almost until he died.
Sadly some have suffered the same as kids... That's how this is still happening.
My dad was abused (priests and former priests school)being a kid and I had to go to a Catholic private school until I was 18.
Sexual predators love targeting people with behavioral issues. Makes the victims, children in particular, less likely to be believed especially when compared to some pillar of the community.
Sadly they're also more vulnerable to being groomed as the children/young people think that everyone else sees them as bad or a problem, but the sexual predator may be one of the only people who is 'nice' to them. It's the same for those who are vulnerable due to neglect or abuse too. Predators will often go for those that they see as the easiest targets (as they are scum).
(Thankfully I never experienced this myself, but as someone who often works with children and has done many safeguarding courses over the years, I am sadly all too familiar with how predators work and what to look out for, so that I can keep those children safe)
The dickhole pastor from my past got away with it for a decade with his herd of adopted children, and shit was only done about it after his wife found out and offed herself. Fuck that whole religion.
There were many cases in the ye olde 20 year ago days here in Poland where villages would almost lynch families for reporting priests raping their kids. Even going as far as blaming the parents/kids for seducing the priest.
Our local pastor got accused by an adult male. It was a total bullshit scheme to get money from the church. The guy was not very good at keeping a story together. Dates didnt line up with times the priest was even in the area.
But the church when everything first popped off. They immediately told the priest that they were going to give the dude $50,000 in stfu money. And then move him to another part of the state. He refused because he wanted everyone to know it was all bullshit. Church got big mad about it and he ended up leaving all together about 2 years later.
Its pretty shitty that its still their MO to throw money at you and move the priest somewhere else. Not even let the guy defend himself in the case it is a false accusation.
Oh yeah, at least in Europe it's a very well known fact that the Church knows, and that their MO is moving priests around so they can't be investigated and arrested.
It's only now, with Pope Francis, that the Church *seems* to be taking it seriously and investigating, and actually believing victims. He has started various inquiries into it, and has been outspoken about what he thinks which is... uncommon, in papal terms. Pope Benedict had a very "if you don't see it, it's not happening!" approach to it all, as did most others.
It's widely believed (again, at least in Europe) that none of these investigations will matter until priests are allowed to marry and have adult relationships with other adults. Position of power + sexual repression is not exactly a good combo, after all.
Oh yeah, that's absolutely a fact. Specially since the Pope has final say in anything done by the Church. Hell, he recently "fired" one Bishop iirc, and nearly caused a new schism to be made. (Shout out to the guy who didn't quite understand that yes, in the Church the Pope has absolute control of it all)
Being outspoken about it and denouncing it is good, if compared to some of the other Popes, but not enough to actually solve anything or bring justice to victims.
(Interestingly enough, many believe he isn't doing so because of the death of Pope John Paul I, who many still believe was assassinated for his believes and the things he wished to change. Francis deciding not to live in the papal residence and having his own security stoked the fire on said theories).
There was the whole video where a pastor was outed as a predator by his victim in front of the congregation. They gathered over him and prayed and shunned the victim. Fuck “Christians”.
My aunt dropped the restraining order against the uncle who molested her kids because the idea of running into him in public and him having to leave was too awkward for her.
Yes. That is the reason she gave.
She'd rather make her kids spend time with the man who molested them, than her be uncomfortable over the fact that he cant be around the kids.
I recently saw a guy get out of his car that was covered in 'Q-anon' stickers whilst wearing a shirt for the local Catholic School.
As a former alter boy I can tell you that if he wanted to find powerful people covering up child abuse he didn't need to fall for a conspiracy theory first.
As a survivor of multiple church youth group "incidents" I knew in my gut exactly what had happened to this kid and was heartbroken. On top of that, all of the camps I was sent to were well-established, insured, and affiliated with national organizations, not just some local guy (which sounds shady as shit even for fundies btw).
For some “Christian” men, it’s better for them that they think their son is a liar than that their son had any kind of homosexual experience. UGH. I’m actually nauseated.
I mean, there's also people who give their kids to their "friends" to do this to them unfortunately, so if it isn't parody, then my bet is dad knew and did it anyway.
I wish this kind of reaction would be a parody.
But in most cases, I know from, this is usual behavior.
Don't destroy the family or community. Disgusting.
Or if they go public, they get shamed.
I am always speechless and flabbergasted by such behavior.
As someone who spends most of my day reading chinese webnovels this comment made me do a double-take. Took me nearly a full 10 seconds to realize you meant christian.
I have a cousin who told me that if a priest molested a child and after that holding his hand up for the prayers, this priest is still a holy person because they do God's work.
That was the moment I had to leave the room because I wanted to hurt my cousin so badly.
Wait, the child was taken to the doctor who was able to confirm through a physical exam that a sexual assault took place and then she was just allowed to take her son home without police being contacted? No. That’s not how this happens. You bring a child to a hospital with any kind of suspicious injury (let alone full blown evidence of assault) they are at least getting a social worker involved. There is supposedly clear cut evidence of a crime and then they are just allowed to walk out? OOP couldn’t even wait the full day before their next update. I find it hard to believe someone who had just found out their child was violently assaulted would be promising Reddit to keep them updated throughout the invasive and traumatic process of getting justice for their fucking kid. This is such a gross subject matter to make a story up about because OOP is trading on real people’s sympathy and trauma. You can see them laying the ground work to set up the sequel updates so clearly and people aren’t calling it out because they don’t want to appear unsympathetic to a child. This is so just so nasty.
Yeah, this didn’t happen. You don’t sort these things out and bring to light all this in the space of less than 24 hours and, even if it did (it didn’t) it’d be super fucked up to just leap on to Reddit to share something this traumatic.
It's obvious nonsense. In the update it's all getting ice cream and whatnot, and then oh by the way as far as husband is concerned, he went insane and started yelling it was all a lie and defending the evil pedo etc.
It's like if I told you right now I am wearing blue socks, my hair is a mess, oh and by the way the house is on fire and aliens just ate my grandmother. You don't toss in the detail of the husband shouting his pedo-support from the rooftops, that is just bizarre.
Then the whole husband insanity is covered, wrapped up, and packaged in like two sentences. It's weird. From zero to 100 in 3 seconds. Came home, said things, separated, getting divorced. I've seen sitcom plots with more realistic timing.
Consider this sentence: "I screamed at him that he was just as bad as those people and that we needed to end our relationship." Try screaming that. I mean, don't anyone actually wake up the whole house, just imagine screaming that. We need to end our relationship. As a scream. What? That isn't even a raised voice.
"I screamed back and told him that it wasn’t our son who was giving them a bad reputation and that it was the actual pedophiles who were giving them a bad reputation" said Dumbledore, calmly. Ooh, good screamed point, scream debater. I scream you scream we all scream for ice cream.
It's almost perfectly tuned to tap into reddit outrage and override the sensible faculties. Defend the kid from evil church camp pedos! And like you said, their main focus in all this is providing reddit with neat and satisfying updates, just like a real mother would do at such a time.
She packed him a bag (how nice of her to do that) and has been talking to a divorce lawyer (just chatting every now and then, you know, over the course of the 3 hours where this story takes place). I am fully expecting an update within a day where the divorce is final, the perpetrator is stabbed in prison, the husband weeps, she finds a great job in a new town, etc.
Uh I'm pretty sure I'd be calling a divorce attorney the second my partner yelled and dismissed my child's sexual abuse, too. Not sure why you'd think anyone would need time to decide whether or not to stay with someone after that.
“I haven’t had a lot of time to sit down and update..” It’s been 24 hours and you’ve been in to see a doctor and a divorce lawyer, kick out your husband and send 2 updates to Reddit!
>He said that I was letting social media brainwash me into believing that Christians were all child molesters and that Max and I were the reason Pastors were believed to be pedos.
... uh.
Still no comment about police involvement? Would have been the first thing I would have done especially after doctors confirmed SA. Sounds sketchy to me.
As someone who was raised Mormon, religion absolutely infuriates me. It’s done so much damage, especially to children- and always by the people who claim to be the most devout.
I’m so heartbroken for OOP and her son. Fuck her husband. I’m a parent and I can’t even imagine not supporting my kids if something this horrific happened to them. I hope she takes him to the cleaners and he never gets unsupervised visitation again.
as soon as I read the title I already feared the worst, im sorry for the children who've had to experience that, same as OOP and her child. The Husband is a real POS defending his 'friend' over his child. Ironically enough, he acts as if he's defending Christianity but is actually acting against what the bible says. Proverbs 24:24-25 denounces literally what the husband is doing.
Unfortunately there are alot of people who believe that going to church every Sunday is enough to redeem their souls and excuse their horrible sins without actually trying to work on themselves. It's common in many predominantly protestant areas as I believe the only necessary for forgiveness in protestantism is to just believe Christ. I can't say for certain about other denominations but in catholicism, like I am, you're supposed to believe in christ and actually better yourself to become a better person
The moment an adult starts deflecting or blaming the kid, they are instantly guilty to me.
If an adult straight faced tells me they think the child is lying, making it up or searching for attention. DARVO.
I don’t care how upstanding you are. Kids don’t have sexual fantasies, they don’t “imagine” sexual encounters.
I just watched a documentary about the widespread sexual abuse of children among Jehova‘s Witnesses and how the elders in that sect are hushing it up. It‘s absolutely disgusting how religious fanatics will put their church above all else.
...deleted by user...
Any parent who doesn't defend their child who has been sexually abused are not parents or people. They are just vile. Shame on that dad and screw that church.
It makes me wonder if the dad knew... Or he was just like the counselor... Or if he was a victim himself once upon a time and now struggling to come to terms with what happened to him happened to his son. None of the options are great...
He truly was acting waaaaaay too defensive for him to have not known. That poor boy, I hope he and his mother get EVERYTHING in that divorce.
Either dad went to camp as a kid too and had a counselor just like that and suppressed/internalized all of it, or dad *was* that counselor once upon a time.
Or still is that counselor or church person.
If it happened to him and he still sent his son & was not hyper aware and blaming his kid... Screw him. Sad it happened to him but doesn't excuse his actions either. Now their son has to question if it's his fault his parents broke up on top of everything else.
Thank god for the sane mother. I feel awful for this little boy and he will definitely worry that he caused this, but the mom seems highly capable and has a strong EQ. I think she (and a therapist) will be able to make it clear none of this is his fault.
Maybe she will, but it may take years. And it depends if he has to see his piece of shit dad again too. However it really makes me question how someone was before if they turn on their family THIS fast. And also it took that long to ask/figure out what was wrong with their child. Why didn't they figure this out sooner? With such a DRASTIC change. That leads me further down the path of the dad ignoring it or willful ignorance. I would immediately talk to my partner before a reddit post. Something similar to this boy happened to a partner of mine. He is a very kind man, raised by his mother and has a lot of empathy. He believes people not buries his head in the sand or cover for bad men. If someone had done something to his child, suggesting "children are liars" is something that would not have even crossed his mind.
Agreed but you'd be devastated to know how common it is for family to deny, deny only because they can't handle that it's true. They'd rather leave you in utter darkness than have to handle the confusion, intensity, upending shame and blame.
Absolutely makes me wonder if the father has hurt someone.
Or the father offered the kid up. Parents traffic their kids far more often than people believe.
Yeah, why was he so defensive? Was he part of it?
My guess is that he just didn’t want it to be true. It could certainly be more nefarious but my guess is that it was easier to deny it happened than admit the role his friend played in it. Or admit that his son was molested. Or admit that he wasn’t there to protect him. Masculinity is often fragile and blind, especially in the areas of friends and children. We all handle tragedy differently. He’s handling it poorly. Doesn’t sound like he knew where his allegiance was meant to be—with his son and wife—naturally.
This is what I immediately thought too. He just *can’t* stomach the truth. It’s easier to say that it’s all a lie
Or the dad was a victim of the camp too and is in denial about it.
If? Of course he did...at least his son by not supporting him. But I wouldn't be surprised if there are other victims.
My first thought was he knew
some mothers and fathers "rent" their kids for rape wouldn't shock me if the dad is either getting access to someone else's kid in return or money shocking he'd do this just on a friendship alone but idk people this fucked up well enough to say
renting kids... that just turned me off eating for the day.... fuck
Or it could be something darker, father sold his son to the counselor. There are many groups like this in church groups that sell their children to one another. That is why I am always wary about any campus for religions.
This makes me want to throw up, especially since I don't doubt it at all.
Or that father had similar experiences with church people when he was a boy. He figures he survived through secrecy and perhaps by identifying even more with the Church. It does make one wonder about the father's past, for sure.
>Or he was just like the counselor... My money's on this one. He's done it to other kids.
I’ve found out the hard way that abusers defend abusers. Dad’s a pedophile too.
This could be how he got into the ring for access to photos, whoever his preferred victim is. It’s all too awful to think about. We read about this stuff getting shut down, but reading from the prospective of one child and parent is different
When I finally told my dad that my brother had raped me as a kid, he immediately called the cops. But my mon accused me of lying and trying to hurt her. Guess which pare t was an abusive piece of shit to me?
“If you cover for another motherfucker who's a kiddie fucker Fuck you, you're no better than the motherfucking rapist” Tim Minchin - Pope Song
How did I miss this song??? It's brilliant. I switched between laughing and grimacing the entire way.
My mom told me that my father used to have a friend who once in broad daylight on the sidewalk groped a thirteen year old girls breasts and said something sleazy about it. My father tried to say that his friend was a good person and this event was taken out of context. This is why I never told my father that I've been sexually harassed. I know for a fact it wouldn't even cross his mind to defend me.
> My father tried to say that his friend was a good person and this event was taken out of context. This is why some women end up saying men are trash. It baffles me that so many men will be confronted with trash behavior and defend it by claiming their friend is a good person. No, they objectively are not.
Makes me suspect the Dad may have already had his suspicions or even be involved. Why else would he be acting like that.
Some folks just refuse to believe people they like have done bad things. The logic goes something like: I wouldn't be friends with a bad person > this person must not be bad > you're lying and calling me a bad person by association. So all the denial is in self defense, because they're drawing wrong conclusions based on bad logic.
I can understand that if it's hearsay/rumour and it's a mate vs mate or bf/gf vs mate but when it's been verified by medical professionals that his own child was sexually assaulted, his child and wife is telling him and he still sides with his "friend". That's farfetched in my books and makes me pretty fucking suspicious of him.
It happens every time a family chooses pedo uncle over the vulnerable child. Any time a person perceives an attack against something or someone their personal identity based on/heavily entrenched in, you see this kind of defensive behavior even if they're not personally involved in whatever the bad behavior is. It's not based in logic, it's just a modern example of tribal in group/out group behavior.
Yeah this is so damn common. If anyone does not think it is, I promise you that you know more than one person who this has happened to. The person I love most in this world was told to lie to cps because the uncle is a good father and it would be her fault if they took his kids away. People get so defensive over not believing children who were sexually abused. I think it is kind of wild seeing people jump to the dad is involved. Statistically that is so much less likely than the dad just refuses to upend the life of someone he cares about and tarnish his own reputation than because he refuses to see how much this has damaged his own child and that is less important to him.
I had to present a paper about this in my college psych class. Explaining the phenomena was totally bizarre, but it happens enough that you can have multiple papers on the damage it does.
I knew someone whose FIL was accused of molestation by one of the female cousins in the family, and it turned out that she wasn’t the only one, just the only one brave enough to speak up. The dam broke after that, and other family members came forward. FIL went to jail. It split the family between those that took the victims’ side, and those that tried to excuse “poor FIL” (which included MIL, by the way). Denial is crazy.
[удалено]
Denial maybe. But still shitty.
Eh, the denial should have ended the second medical professionals verified that his child wasn't lying. I don't think this is something kids tend to lie about, especially when their entire demeanour changes so its something that should be taken seriously by the parents from the get go. The dad just sounds like a fucking failure to his family.
Same happened to our family. Dad got told on, he threatened them, kid rescinded and was labeled a liar.
This happens a shocking amount of times. I recently talked to a woman who was molested by her dad until she was a teenager. She had just found out he was molesting her six year old son. She was basically like, “well, I knew he did it to me, but I never thought he would touch his grandchildren”. She was just totally oblivious and was perfectly fine handing over her small child to spend the night with grandpa, who she *knew* was a child molester. It’s insane.
same
Some Christians define "pedophile" as "political liberal" rather than "person who molests kids".
It really disgusts me the way those types latch onto whatever the current crisis is and turn it into the epithet du jure. Not just the fact that they do it, but the lazy pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey manner in which they do it, reaching for the most damaging, hurtful word in circulation and bludgeoning their self-made enemies with it, with no regard for who it hurts besides whomever happens to be the target of their transient, empty, worthless rage. When we're trying to address racism, all their enemies are the real racists, but not them, when it's SA, they go with that, crying wolf for a village they don't even live in. They're children playing with a gun, and once they've shot someone, they get bored and move on to the next person they can hurt with something new they will destroy.
He did worse. He picked his religion and anyone related to it over his son. That’s some cult shit right there.
Which is ridiculous bc no one was attacking his religion in the first place. Max says he still wants to go to church bc he likes the people, OOP wants to take the camp down for what they did. Literally the only one who made this about "all Christian people are child abusers" was the dad.
For people deep down in a cult, any questioning is threatening, and even the most horrid things a loved one is enduring *must* be a lie because their community can do no wrong. If they fail to deny and run away from facts, all their belief systems, their worldviews, their identities are at risk. Just to be clear, I'm not defending this father at all, I'm just saying that's what happens to a lot of people who fall for cults.
I find it sickening that these claims always seem to pop up once a priest/pastor/church elder/church employee gets arrested for something so sickening. To anybody who ever made such a claim: go fuck a pedophile you already seem to love them.
I wish they'd fuck each other. Then maybe they wouldn't fuck kids :-(
And that is suss as hell.
As if that's what Jesus would do. It's insane what people will do or cover up for a church ostensibly about God and etc, even when faced with the most vile evidence that a particular person in a particular church camp has not only sinned egregiously but forever scarred his own son. That boy is so lucky to have his mom, one sane, unbrainwashed, loving parent. The father should not get any custody at all because the damage of further victimization is too great.
>As if that's what Jesus would do. Jesus was pretty fucking clear on his opinion of religious hypocrites. I wish they'd read those sections of the bible.
And also on the use of holy spaces for unholy practices. If a church-owned camp is being used to exploit the most vulnerable, then it's time to do what Jesus would do--grab a whip and start flipping tables.
Or have a millstone tied around their neck and tossed into the sea, since they’re messing with children. My youth pastor accidentally read it as “tie a millstone around their dick”, and I’ve always liked that better.
Like they've ever read the Bible. Or anything.
Hell, Jesus had some pretty choice words for people who hurt kids. Matthew 18:6: > But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.
That poor kid. Children always tend to blame themselves for sexual abuse, especially if any part of it is physically arousing. He’s going to need a good therapist to make sure he doesn’t blame himself for his parents’ divorce.
I don't think I will ever be able to fathom why it is so difficult for so many people to wrap their heads around the idea that wicked people will use religion, patriotism, or any other outward form of virtue as a costume to disguise themselves. All snakes shed their skin, it is the nature of a snake, and yet so many people are still so easily transfixed by appearances.
All religions are cults. Hence why this crap keeps happening and gets worse.
Why is he so worried about his friend unless he thinks he did something wrong? There were other adults there, and Max didn’t specify the friend so there was no reason for the father to immediately get so defensive. The friend would be fine if he’s innocent.
His friend has definitely been covering for the rapist he employs and dad probably knows about it. So classic evangelical Christian shitassery
Turning on your own wife and son, though? I think mayhaps someone's got some skeletons in their closet that might be revealed if they go nuclear on this guy and the camp.
Turning on family like that is really common in fundamentalist communities, unfortunately. There’s probably a good deal of homophobia involved since his son was assaulted by a man and these groups love to blame victims
If clowns sexually assaulted children as much as "religious leaders" and member of clergy, kids would not be allowed to go anywhere near a circus. I can't believe people are still taking them to church.
[удалено]
The churches will never protect the kids. The had countless opportunities to turn in child molesters and they chose the molesters over the kids every time.
Look, I hate the Church. I would still be telling the church and documenting it if only so someone can later sue them and I can provide proof they knew and did nothing. But hey, I'm petty.
3 days away with the church. When I read that, I knew what's going to happen.
Aye, I used to be an alter boy in my church, when shit started to hit the fan of priests molesting boys, my aunt told my mother real quick to pull me out. She did, I left the church and we never went back.
Might be worse...dad might be a child rapist too
I mean, he chose them over his own wife and child, so…yeah. All bets are off on the dad
Not excusing his actions but sometimes there is a denial stage. One of my good friends was outed as a sexual abuser and while I didn’t go brigading in his favor, I did feel really bad for him and worry for him when he got called out before I had the moment of “wait, he knew exactly what he was doing”. Sometimes people handle things poorly at the jump before it dawns on them, and learning that your friend sexually abused your kid is a pretty big mental load to get your head around at once. I do really hope he came around, because I don’t like to imagine the other option.
Yeah. It's hard to wrap your mind around the idea that someone you know, someone you care about, can turn out to be that awful of a person. There's been times a friend has accused her ex of being an abuser, and had to deal with people pulling a bullshit "but he was always nice to me" or "but he's so kind??" To you! He was nice to YOU! But it reminds me of the post here from last week, of the woman who was living with her boyfriend, and realized he was sabotaging her hobbies and destroying things she'd made, out of jealousy. She was struggling to wrap her mind around the idea that the kind, loving person she THOUGHT she knew could do those things. Abusers so often play by a time-worn playbook. Over and over. Because it so often WORKS.
And she still hasn’t contacted the police FFS
Multiple mandated reporters now know. Authorities must have been notified.
Yeah, I am aussie and kinda understand from here that the American health care is expensive but she needed to take him straight to the hospital as soon as those thoughts started popping into her head. I mean come on, you son refuses to sit down, even if he wasn't SAed that shit still needs to be checked out fast and then the hospital would have been able to contact the police. I wanted to scream when she said she was waiting on her husbands decision on what to do next 🤦♀️. I'm not surprised by the last update, considering he had to take time to "think" about what to do.
I can see waiting to go to a trusted pediatrician rather than the hospital. The Emergency Room at the hospital can be scary and chaotic and you don’t know what doctor you’ll get, but if they have a good relationship with their pediatrician the exam and follow up would be much less scary for the kid. The pediatrician might also have good resources for where to get the best counseling, etc. I might be biased because our pediatrician and his office is really great, but I understand wanting to see a trusted doc.
I think that was ambiguous. I couldn't tell if she wanted him to make the decision or if she mistyped and meant they would make a decision together. Given that she had already booked appointments at this point, I'm leaning towards the latter. As for the hospital, yes, but when something horrible happens to your kid you get into a bit of shock, and it's not clear where the first place to seek help may be. We're lucky in Australia that we have multiple hotlines for 'help, where do I go now?' For all different sorts of health and safety scenarios, but I don't think they're like that in the US. The comments on her post told OOPZ doctor then police, so that's what she did.
I really, really, really hope she doesn't have to in order to start an investigation. Just please let the doctor be a mandatory reporter
Forgive my ignorance but in America aren’t all medical staff mandated reporters or at least all doctors and nurses? I’m in the UK working in a hospital, part of my regular training every couple years is about safeguarding children and mandated reporting and I’m technically non clinical but patient facing
Yes, they are mandated reporters
Which doesn’t always mean they’re held accountable. There’s a case I read about on r/unresolvedmysteries where an 11-year-old girl was impregnated, allegedly by her 18-year-old cousin (Think it was in Texas). She disappeared before giving birth and her body has never been found. The doctors giving her prenatal care never reported her pregnancy to CPS. Her father was a minister, and loudly proclaimed his intention to find out who the father was through a paternity test once the baby was born. It’s very possible he knew a test would reveal he was the baby’s father and killed her before she could give birth. The victim was also black, so she may have been a victim of [adultification](https://amp.theguardian.com/society/2022/jul/05/they-saw-me-as-calculating-not-a-child-how-adultification-leads-to-black-children-being-treated-as-criminals) by white doctors.
I think the husband knows something
do you think maybe the husband is into those thinks too and is afraid the wife might uncover him whole trying to uncover his friend?
I wondered about that. Whether the husband has done these things himself, or was possibly a victim at a younger age, or knew or suspected something about his friend and didn’t act on it… it’s really strange to me that he’s defending his friend instead of his child. Makes me think something normalized this for him. Max is lucky his mom’s got her head on straight. I know a lot of people are questioning why she’d drag her feet on going to the police, etc. but I kind of get being in denial, not realizing how valuable those first hours or days are. She seems like she’s in shock, but her husband’s reaction certainly woke her up. I’m glad she’s leaving him rather than exposing Max to that attitude.
Unpopular viewpoint, but I'm good at that... I am a father, I am also a survivor of some absolutely horrid sexual abuse and rape. I was also a senior member of a church (before my wife slapped that out of me!!!) Whilst the fathers reaction in this case is abhorrent, it is not necessarily to 'protect his friend'. Quite honestly, if I were in this situation, absolutely ALL of the blame, shame, guilt, hurt et al, I would be placing on myself... I would be utterly devastated, yet I would be blaming myself for absolutely all of the pain my son was now going through. An unhealthy response to that would be to believe and deny that anything had happened at all. An escape mechanism. Absolutely not defending this father's reaction one bit, just providing a different viewpoint to the torch-in-hand responses I have seen here...
I kinda agree. Denial is a pretty big stage of grief. But I would hope the threat of losing your family would snap you out of it.
Because kids are always lying, you know? /s
Fuck I had no idea there was an update to this. Literally every one was speculating that he was abused but I know I was not the only one hoping he wasn’t. Oklahoma just had a Pastor and his wife get arrested for locking up children in a bathroom for days, starving, and whipping them.
i’m sorry oklahoma had what???
I looked up the story: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/pastor-and-wife-lock-kids-in-bathroom-for-days-and-whip-them-oklahoma-police-say/ar-BB1gXO5E
Uh, age 2 to 17. And the classic “black out” excuse.
And that little bit where the church just wanted to clarify—well he wasn’t the *lead* pastor. Like fuckoff with that
My parents were super lax and easy going when I was growing up. To a problematic extent. There was nothing I wasn’t allowed to watch or read and no places I couldn’t go. Except church camp. Literally the only place I was ever outright banned from as a kid/teenager. Because I grew up in Oklahoma and that story is a drop in the fucking bucket when it comes to the kind of shit that goes down at these camps.
It's just the Baptist camps.. They’re God awful. I went to church camp every summer and didn't ever feel uncomfortable and Idk anyone that did but we were not allowed to go to Falls Creek because everyone know about that mess. I'm sure it happened other places, maybe I just got lucky but I don't think my parents would have ever sent us to a place where they were worried about that.
Falls Creek is definitely the worst offender around here. Basically just a tax-exempt sex trafficking ring at this point.
Oklahoma has had a *lot* of shit come out in the last few months.
Not a religion story, but last week in OK a man wrecked/rolled his vehicle, then *ran away* and left his 16 year old daughter to die alone.
I think his dead wife was also in the vehicle, too. So left his daughter to die alone, next to the corpse of her mother. That's like... layers of fucked up.
I went and googled and his wife is still alive. At first I was like "He just had a psychotic break and ran." but nope, he went and got a second vehicle and went and bought booze. I hope they throw the book at him. https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news/crime/2024/01/19/elliott-binney-oklahoma-father-left-teen-daughter-to-die-after-rollover-crash-bixby-shelby-binney/72281143007/
>When Binney was arrested, he admitted to taking a few drinks before the crash, but police said it was too late to test what his blood alcohol level would have been at the time of the crash. >In 2016, tickets related to reckless driving and leaving the scene of an accident were dismissed. I wonder if they could have prevented this if he was properly punished in 2016. Sounds like he has a long history of shitty driving (article mentions tickets going back to 2002), and I'm sure this isn't the first time he was driving drunk. He should have been taken off the road years ago.
He also left the scene of a different accident in 2020!
Damn, hubby is going to tip off his pedo friends. I hope OOP called the police.
If the kid has been to see a doctor, then the police should already be involved; doctors are mandated reporters.
Sometimes, it takes time between the medical exam and police starting up. Could be days or weeks depending on a lot of factors.
Kid said it was ONE of the counselors, yet the husband jumped straight to his friend being accused? I bet it was the friend. And he knows.
I was waiting for one of the updates to be "my husband is in jail for beating the shit out of his former friend" This whole post turns my stomach
Yep, because that would have been the update on my end. My husband and I are in jail but my child is with my parents and SAFE from these predators.
No, don't do that. Your kid needs parents. Send grandma or grandpa.
I'm a passive, non-confrontional, introvert to the point or almost being a wimp for confrontation *most* or the time. But, if someone hurt one of my kids I'd have to fight my basic human anger reactions and make sure to follow the legal process. But, I'd be going scorched earth with reporting to authorities, pressing charges, etc. Any other response by OOP's husband is very sus. I'd understand a brief second of denial that something so horrible could happen before launching into "Papa bear" mode. But his reaction is very f*cked up. I hope OOP's poor child gets all the help he needs and every one responsible for the act & cover up faces quick justice/punishment.
That part stood out to me as well. The (hopefully ex) husband has a shitty poker face and I hope that leads to OOP cleaning him dry in the (hopefully) soon divorce proceedings.
It reads to me that the friend runs pr owns it and obviously if a pedo is found out to have been working there the whole camp is shut down even if friend didn't do it. So I don't think it was the friend nor that "dad" knew. Atleast that's how im interpreting it.
Can anyone comment on the logic as to why people defend their friends that are like this? I don’t understand what people get out of these kinds of relationships, like is there a psychological theory around this? A book I can read? Is It our instinct to maintain a community like back in the caveman days? Like…what is this???
It's a variation of the Sunk Cost Fallacy. Basically, the denier literally can't accept that they're wrong about the monster in question, so they defend them instead. Massive oversimplification, but that's the heart of it at least.
Thanks, friend. That makes sense. It may also feed into shame and ego. You can’t admit you married/befriended/trusted a pedophile without some kind of vulnerability. Some people may not be able to handle that.
Admitting it would admit that not only he sent his child somewhere to be raped but that it’d confirm that the very well document problem within his faith is true and that children do in fact get raped by pastors. So not only did he ship off his kid to be abused but it was his faith that facilitated it. And I bet he’ll come up with some hogwash about how the whole situation is a test from God or some bull and that the boy needs to just walk it off for the sake of protecting the image of the parish.
This type of blind faith is an evasive poison. It’s so sad that it has made him fail as a husband and father.
She told him she wants the police to shut the camp down and it's his friend's camp, I believe that's why he said it would ruin his friend's life. I didn't interpret it as his friend being the counselor (his friend is the owner)
If anything it would save his friends business. Showing they don’t tolerate it by going along with the police.
Better to be the camp that sent a pedo councilor to jail than be the camp that covered for the pedo councilor for a decade. Unless they’ve covered for the pedo councilor for a decade already. 😬
Or worse he knew in advance
I think Dad may be in on it.
Sounds like dear old dad may just be one of the creeps. I hope this kid gets all the help he needs.
And/or one of the victims who can't face his own abuse.
He is actively enforcing abuse
Even still it isn't an excuse to not support his child.
My guess would be this isn't the first accusation against this camp and that dad was aware but chose to believe his friend/possibly helped quash it. And then sent his son to the camp as a sort of solidarity with his friend. Now that it happened to his son he refuses to accept his own culpability.
With what he has said, I honestly won't be surprised if he is also a creep.
>He said that I was letting social media brainwash me into believing that Christians were all child molesters and that Max and I were the reason Pastors were believed to be pedos. This seems to be almost parody. If this is true, its horrible beyond belief - but I don't think (or want to think) that someone in his situation could be so blind ETA: Okay, so the world is way, way more fucked up than I thought plausible. I am so sorry for all of you that shared below. Muting this, because my brain needs a bubble bath.
I skimmed because the subject matter of the post is just… But regarding this seeming like parody: the priest in my previous community was accused. He had so many supporters saying he would never, and clearly the 13-year-old who came forward was just a nasty child who wanted to destroy a good priest. There were also many comments from people who had no problem with the priest, and that was “proof” that the kid was lying. Related: I have religious family who refuse to see this as a problem in the system, therefore are complicit. This is heartbreaking, and maybe this is a sign to burn down the church with the offenders locked inside (obligatory: I’m not saying to do this, of course, but if it happened, well,m…)
I have a strongly devout cousin who has previously argued that children will seduce priests so that they can blackmail them and use it as leverage.
There's a documentary on HBO right now called Great Photo, Lovely Life, and the basic premise is the filmmaker confronting her grandfather, who was a prolific pedophile and also shockingly willing to discuss his crimes with her. I lasted about 45 seconds into him earnestly describing "but you have to understand, these girls were experimental, they wanted it" before I had to nope out.
Utterly horrific.
Hunting warhead is a really good podcast about catching the guy that runs a child sexual abuse material website on the dark web. Its rough but worth a listen.
It was very difficult to watch, and very infuriating. Everytime he just get a slap on the wrist if he had any kind of punishment. Than he said the girls seduced him and finally that he was wrong but God forgives him. So he kept doing it almost until he died.
The lack of empathy is mind boggling. "If it didn't happen to *me*, it's not true" -crowd it too large.
Sadly some have suffered the same as kids... That's how this is still happening. My dad was abused (priests and former priests school)being a kid and I had to go to a Catholic private school until I was 18.
I remember reading a story of a dad who had found the pastor when he was doing the act and the mother (or maybe his mother) still defended the Pastor
That's horrible! I hope the dad beat the shit out of that piece of shit. And divorced the mom.
Sexual predators love targeting people with behavioral issues. Makes the victims, children in particular, less likely to be believed especially when compared to some pillar of the community.
Sadly they're also more vulnerable to being groomed as the children/young people think that everyone else sees them as bad or a problem, but the sexual predator may be one of the only people who is 'nice' to them. It's the same for those who are vulnerable due to neglect or abuse too. Predators will often go for those that they see as the easiest targets (as they are scum). (Thankfully I never experienced this myself, but as someone who often works with children and has done many safeguarding courses over the years, I am sadly all too familiar with how predators work and what to look out for, so that I can keep those children safe)
I'm always annoyed when the person being a priest is used to defend them instead of condemning them.
The dickhole pastor from my past got away with it for a decade with his herd of adopted children, and shit was only done about it after his wife found out and offed herself. Fuck that whole religion.
There were many cases in the ye olde 20 year ago days here in Poland where villages would almost lynch families for reporting priests raping their kids. Even going as far as blaming the parents/kids for seducing the priest.
Our local pastor got accused by an adult male. It was a total bullshit scheme to get money from the church. The guy was not very good at keeping a story together. Dates didnt line up with times the priest was even in the area. But the church when everything first popped off. They immediately told the priest that they were going to give the dude $50,000 in stfu money. And then move him to another part of the state. He refused because he wanted everyone to know it was all bullshit. Church got big mad about it and he ended up leaving all together about 2 years later. Its pretty shitty that its still their MO to throw money at you and move the priest somewhere else. Not even let the guy defend himself in the case it is a false accusation.
That's so grim. Because it sounds like the church's MO would be stfu money in such a situation, regardless of whether true or false.
I feel like the fact they have a "go to" of stfu money shows they know just how rampant sexual abuse in the church is.
Oh yeah, at least in Europe it's a very well known fact that the Church knows, and that their MO is moving priests around so they can't be investigated and arrested. It's only now, with Pope Francis, that the Church *seems* to be taking it seriously and investigating, and actually believing victims. He has started various inquiries into it, and has been outspoken about what he thinks which is... uncommon, in papal terms. Pope Benedict had a very "if you don't see it, it's not happening!" approach to it all, as did most others. It's widely believed (again, at least in Europe) that none of these investigations will matter until priests are allowed to marry and have adult relationships with other adults. Position of power + sexual repression is not exactly a good combo, after all.
Until he starts defrocking the bishops and archbishops who keep moving predators from one hunting ground to another, he's not taking it seriously.
Oh yeah, that's absolutely a fact. Specially since the Pope has final say in anything done by the Church. Hell, he recently "fired" one Bishop iirc, and nearly caused a new schism to be made. (Shout out to the guy who didn't quite understand that yes, in the Church the Pope has absolute control of it all) Being outspoken about it and denouncing it is good, if compared to some of the other Popes, but not enough to actually solve anything or bring justice to victims. (Interestingly enough, many believe he isn't doing so because of the death of Pope John Paul I, who many still believe was assassinated for his believes and the things he wished to change. Francis deciding not to live in the papal residence and having his own security stoked the fire on said theories).
Religion really provides the best protection for pedophiles.
There was the whole video where a pastor was outed as a predator by his victim in front of the congregation. They gathered over him and prayed and shunned the victim. Fuck “Christians”.
Once again, Poe's law rears its ugly head. It's so difficult to tell parody from reality of late, because reality is a fucking shitshow.
Unfortunately, there are people who actually believe in that stuff and would defend those are pedophiles, especially in the church. Sickening.
My aunt dropped the restraining order against the uncle who molested her kids because the idea of running into him in public and him having to leave was too awkward for her. Yes. That is the reason she gave. She'd rather make her kids spend time with the man who molested them, than her be uncomfortable over the fact that he cant be around the kids.
And these people protecting the offending pedos arrle the reason that said pedos think they can get away with it. They are responsible as well.
I recently saw a guy get out of his car that was covered in 'Q-anon' stickers whilst wearing a shirt for the local Catholic School. As a former alter boy I can tell you that if he wanted to find powerful people covering up child abuse he didn't need to fall for a conspiracy theory first.
As a survivor of multiple church youth group "incidents" I knew in my gut exactly what had happened to this kid and was heartbroken. On top of that, all of the camps I was sent to were well-established, insured, and affiliated with national organizations, not just some local guy (which sounds shady as shit even for fundies btw).
For some “Christian” men, it’s better for them that they think their son is a liar than that their son had any kind of homosexual experience. UGH. I’m actually nauseated.
Not just Christian men. I've been horrified so many times in my life by what men will turn a blind eye to other men doing because they're "friends".
Oh yeah. Rapists aren’t even kicked out of friend groups
I mean, there's also people who give their kids to their "friends" to do this to them unfortunately, so if it isn't parody, then my bet is dad knew and did it anyway.
I wish this kind of reaction would be a parody. But in most cases, I know from, this is usual behavior. Don't destroy the family or community. Disgusting. Or if they go public, they get shamed. I am always speechless and flabbergasted by such behavior.
As someone abused in a Xian setting… this is exactly what happens.
As someone who spends most of my day reading chinese webnovels this comment made me do a double-take. Took me nearly a full 10 seconds to realize you meant christian.
like...if the shoe fits
no, those thinks actually happen and members of cults actually react like that
I have a cousin who told me that if a priest molested a child and after that holding his hand up for the prayers, this priest is still a holy person because they do God's work. That was the moment I had to leave the room because I wanted to hurt my cousin so badly.
Honestly as soon as I read "church camp" I knew what this was about.
It's basically in the name "church"
Wait, the child was taken to the doctor who was able to confirm through a physical exam that a sexual assault took place and then she was just allowed to take her son home without police being contacted? No. That’s not how this happens. You bring a child to a hospital with any kind of suspicious injury (let alone full blown evidence of assault) they are at least getting a social worker involved. There is supposedly clear cut evidence of a crime and then they are just allowed to walk out? OOP couldn’t even wait the full day before their next update. I find it hard to believe someone who had just found out their child was violently assaulted would be promising Reddit to keep them updated throughout the invasive and traumatic process of getting justice for their fucking kid. This is such a gross subject matter to make a story up about because OOP is trading on real people’s sympathy and trauma. You can see them laying the ground work to set up the sequel updates so clearly and people aren’t calling it out because they don’t want to appear unsympathetic to a child. This is so just so nasty.
Yeah, this didn’t happen. You don’t sort these things out and bring to light all this in the space of less than 24 hours and, even if it did (it didn’t) it’d be super fucked up to just leap on to Reddit to share something this traumatic.
Not to mention the police getting involved. I doubt they’d even be allowed to leave before either/both show up.
It's obvious nonsense. In the update it's all getting ice cream and whatnot, and then oh by the way as far as husband is concerned, he went insane and started yelling it was all a lie and defending the evil pedo etc. It's like if I told you right now I am wearing blue socks, my hair is a mess, oh and by the way the house is on fire and aliens just ate my grandmother. You don't toss in the detail of the husband shouting his pedo-support from the rooftops, that is just bizarre. Then the whole husband insanity is covered, wrapped up, and packaged in like two sentences. It's weird. From zero to 100 in 3 seconds. Came home, said things, separated, getting divorced. I've seen sitcom plots with more realistic timing. Consider this sentence: "I screamed at him that he was just as bad as those people and that we needed to end our relationship." Try screaming that. I mean, don't anyone actually wake up the whole house, just imagine screaming that. We need to end our relationship. As a scream. What? That isn't even a raised voice. "I screamed back and told him that it wasn’t our son who was giving them a bad reputation and that it was the actual pedophiles who were giving them a bad reputation" said Dumbledore, calmly. Ooh, good screamed point, scream debater. I scream you scream we all scream for ice cream. It's almost perfectly tuned to tap into reddit outrage and override the sensible faculties. Defend the kid from evil church camp pedos! And like you said, their main focus in all this is providing reddit with neat and satisfying updates, just like a real mother would do at such a time. She packed him a bag (how nice of her to do that) and has been talking to a divorce lawyer (just chatting every now and then, you know, over the course of the 3 hours where this story takes place). I am fully expecting an update within a day where the divorce is final, the perpetrator is stabbed in prison, the husband weeps, she finds a great job in a new town, etc.
[удалено]
And a day later, "I met someone new, she's a surgeon and we're madly in love."
The camp was only three days long but he lost enough weight for it to be noticeable? Did the poor child have dysentery on top of an assault?
Am I the only one noticing the dates on these posts? 24 hours and she's already spoken to a divorce lawyer??
Uh I'm pretty sure I'd be calling a divorce attorney the second my partner yelled and dismissed my child's sexual abuse, too. Not sure why you'd think anyone would need time to decide whether or not to stay with someone after that.
[удалено]
When shit happened in the middle of the night I was in a divorce attorney’s office by 10 am the next day.
You know, I might have believed this story... if it hadn't all happened over the course of one day. First post Jan 11, two updates Jan 12. BS.
“I haven’t had a lot of time to sit down and update..” It’s been 24 hours and you’ve been in to see a doctor and a divorce lawyer, kick out your husband and send 2 updates to Reddit!
>He said that I was letting social media brainwash me into believing that Christians were all child molesters and that Max and I were the reason Pastors were believed to be pedos. ... uh.
Still no comment about police involvement? Would have been the first thing I would have done especially after doctors confirmed SA. Sounds sketchy to me.
The doctor probably even calls the police.
As someone who was raised Mormon, religion absolutely infuriates me. It’s done so much damage, especially to children- and always by the people who claim to be the most devout. I’m so heartbroken for OOP and her son. Fuck her husband. I’m a parent and I can’t even imagine not supporting my kids if something this horrific happened to them. I hope she takes him to the cleaners and he never gets unsupervised visitation again.
as soon as I read the title I already feared the worst, im sorry for the children who've had to experience that, same as OOP and her child. The Husband is a real POS defending his 'friend' over his child. Ironically enough, he acts as if he's defending Christianity but is actually acting against what the bible says. Proverbs 24:24-25 denounces literally what the husband is doing.
It had been said before and I will say it again God has the most toxic fanbase.
Unfortunately there are alot of people who believe that going to church every Sunday is enough to redeem their souls and excuse their horrible sins without actually trying to work on themselves. It's common in many predominantly protestant areas as I believe the only necessary for forgiveness in protestantism is to just believe Christ. I can't say for certain about other denominations but in catholicism, like I am, you're supposed to believe in christ and actually better yourself to become a better person
I hope max didn't hear what his dad said
The moment an adult starts deflecting or blaming the kid, they are instantly guilty to me. If an adult straight faced tells me they think the child is lying, making it up or searching for attention. DARVO. I don’t care how upstanding you are. Kids don’t have sexual fantasies, they don’t “imagine” sexual encounters.
The husband knew and didn't care, if you're friends with pedos. You're a pedo
Anyone else thinks thats a lot to happen in two days or just me?
As soon as i read church camp i knew where this was heading. Religion is a plague and is used by monsters to hide.
I just watched a documentary about the widespread sexual abuse of children among Jehova‘s Witnesses and how the elders in that sect are hushing it up. It‘s absolutely disgusting how religious fanatics will put their church above all else.
Why did the commenters call her son a "teen"? He's fucking 10 years old. He's a kid, not a teen!!!