Bishop Eddie Long and TBN TV Family Should be Fully Investigated for Sex Crimes
http://www.yesumulungi.com/index.php/commentaries/434-bishop-eddie-long-and-tbn-tv-family-should-be-fully-investigated-for-sex-crimes.html
Kato Mivule | September 28, 2010
This past week saw the news headlines flooded with the Bishop Eddie Long scandal and the civil law suits against him concerning sexual coercion of subordinates, mainly young boys in their late teenage years. It is alleged that the Atlanta based prosperity preacher and pastor took a number of young men oversees, gave them expensive gifts, groomed them in a church youth program, and later engaged in coerced sex acts with them.
According to CNN, Bishop Eddie Long took to the pulpit this past Sunday and did not categorically deny the allegations but preached a fiery sermon vowing to fight the charges against him, comparing his situation with the David and Goliath story in the bible. Interestingly Bishop Eddie Long stated twice that he is not a perfect man but would fight the charges against him. Was this to prepare the Church for more serious revelations and allegations to come or were part of the allegations true?
We can all speculate and it is important to note that these are still allegations and Bishop Eddie Long deserves all justice and benefit of a doubt. What Bishop Eddie Long needs to do is step down and allow a full investigations into these serious criminal allegations instead of putting up a show of fiery manipulative Sunday sermons.
Interesting is that these allegations are not new in the Evangelical circles, Ted Haggard, another mega church Pastor in Colorado was accused of sexual relations with a male prostitute, leading him to resign and of recent he started another Church. Before that we had male sex accusations against TBN TV founder Paul Crouch, who ended up settling the case outside court. The Catholic Church has been dealing with priests accused of molesting hundreds of young boys in both the USA and Europe, paying million of dollars in settlement fees and some priests serving jail time.
In Uganda, Pastor Robert Kayanja was accused of the same, molesting and coercing young teen boys into sexual relations. Robert Kayanja, fought the allegations by using the State agencies to avoid being dragged to court, giving donations to Uganda's Police (which was seen as a bribe and corruption) and the police in turn arresting his alleged victims. In Uganda, unlike the USA, the victims of sexual abuse did not see their day in court but were arrested and some thrown in jail, some have not been heard of. Pastor Robert Kayanja could easily get away with such allegations simply because Uganda is more like a Banana Republic when it comes to justice.
To make matters worse, many Pastors in Uganda who took up the cause of fighting for the victims of sexual abuse were sidetracked into fighting against homosexuality and pushing for the death penalty against gays in Uganda. As such Pastor Robert Kayanja got off the hook as attention was turned away from him and to the anti-homosexual bill.
Even then some folks in the gay community were hoodwinked into thinking that Pastor Kayanja was being attacked because he was gay as could be seen on almost all Ugandan Gay Blogs. Yet the victims, the young boys, who were sexually molested never got their day in court, never received justice and their voice was muted.
As a matter of fact, Bishop Eddie Long's scandal has all the hallmarks of Pastor Robert Kayanja's sex allegations. In both cases, the young boys were lured with gifts and promises for trips abroad, taken to hotels, given sleeping pills and then molested sexually.
As I was watching CNN, listening to the Bishop Eddie Long sex scandal, I thought to myself, this sounds just like the Pastor Robert Kayanja sex allegations in Uganda. It was like I was hearing the same story again. While the Catholic Church has had to endure investigations by law enforcement, the Evangelical Church seems to be escaping unscratched, especially in nations like Uganda, were corruption is order of business.
Yet even with the Bishop Eddie Long case, it is just a civil law suit and no criminal investigations launched. This is a set back, especially to law abiding Evangelicals. This means that many crimes of child molestation by preachers and pastors go unreported and not fully investigated.
Therefore Pastors like Bishop Eddie Long, TBN TV Family, and even internationally traveling preachers like Robert Kayanja from Africa should be fully investigated by law enforcement and this is not only for the victims but also for the good of the Pastors involved perhaps to clear their names.
It is interesting that Ted Haggard, Paul Crouch, Robert Kayanja, and Bishop Eddie Long are all or were part of the TBN TV Family and what links them is sex scandals involving other males, mainly young teen boys. It would not surprise to hear another TBN TV superstar caught in the same scandal.
If Law enforcement in the US and Europe can investigate the Catholic Priests who sexually molested young boys thirty years ago, they can surely investigate preachers in the Evangelical circles who pretend to be preachers of the gospel but are liars, and wolves waiting for young boys who they can entice so as to satisfy their sexual appetites.
What we might have is men who pretend to be preachers and are not accountable to anyone but as it is turning out, are simply criminals waiting for their next sexual prey and using the Church as a cover for their activities. We might have an international gang of sexual predators using Evangelical Christianity as cover. The Law enforcement and Investigative journalists should fully investigate.
