Buzzwords are shortcuts to meaning; their obfuscatory nature makes them popular with those who would instead use them as cudgels than have a real conversation.
If we were to ask someone using either of those terms if they are trying to keep kids safe, their answer would be a wholehearted YES! Fantastic. We have the same goal; keeping kids safe.
The next obvious question is, where ought we focus our efforts on keeping kids safe? The answer is obvious, too: start with the worst offenders. Who are the worst offenders? Public schools? Liberal elites (another buzzword)? Hollywood? Congress? Indoctrination/Grooming antagonists, would again shout YES!!! But is that where the evidence points?
The truth is the opposite. The world’s largest organizations giving safe harbor to pedophiles are none of those institutions. The reality is the largest organizations sexually harming children are bastions of conservatism: churches.
Pope Francis accused of opposing reforms to tackle clerical sexual abuse, February 14, 2024
‘The devil was in that building’: New Orleans church orphanages’ dark secrets, December 3, 2023
Spanish [Catholic] clergy sexually abused over 200,000 children, probe estimates, October 27, 2023
Baltimore Archdiocese files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy ahead of anticipated lawsuits over child sexual abuse, October 1, 2023
New Orleans archbishop: local Catholic institutions must help with cost of clergy abuse claims, September 9, 2023
Australian ex-priest has prison sentence extended to 40 years for molesting 72nd child victim, August 15, 2023
Netflix Trailer Exposes Boy Scouts Abuse Scandal: “This Is an Abomination”, (82,000 documented abuse claims) August 14, 2023
Sex Abuse Report Casts Shadow Over Pope’s Portugal Visit, July 29, 2023
More than 450 Catholic clergymen abused nearly 2,000 children in Illinois, state report says, May 23, 2023
Abuse victims set to sue Baltimore Archdiocese, May 9, 2023
Report details ‘staggering’ church sex abuse in Maryland, April 6, 2023
International Churches of Christ covers up sexual abuse of minors, March 1, 2023
Wave of child sexual abuse claims could bankrupt San Diego diocese, February 10, 2023
A new report finds decades of alleged sexual abuse by priests in Catholic churches in Kansas, January 15, 2023
FBI opens investigation into sex abuse in the Roman Catholic Church in New Orleans, June 29, 2022
Sex abuse suits pouring in as [California]’s Catholic leaders seek relief from highest court, May 23, 2022
The global scale of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, October 5, 2021 (Victims: France, 216K, Australia: 4K, Germany: 3.6K, U.S.: 11K, Ireland: 15K)
The French Catholic church acknowledges a staggering pattern of sexual abuse: Hundreds of thousands were victimised over 70 years, October 9, 2021
Boy Scouts of America files for bankruptcy after sex abuse lawsuits 2,000 reported cases of abuse, February 18, 2020
Almost 1,700 priests and clergy accused of sex abuse are unsupervised, Oct 4, 2019
The Southern Baptist Convention … 380 allegations against church leaders spanning 20 states, February 11, 2019
The grand jury report about Catholic priest abuse in Pennsylvania shows the church is a criminal syndicate, August 15, 2018
And that’s just in the past 6 years.
Cases of sexual abuse in the American film industry are non-hyperbolically a drop in the bucket. Misinformation campaigns by conservatives paint liberals as the sources of abuse rather than their own so-called virtuous institutions.
If only the story ended there. It’s not just conservative institutions that are abusers, it’s also some of the highest-ranking officials to hold office in the GOP.
The sexual abuse scandal that haunts Trump’s pick for House speaker, October, 11, 2023
Judge upholds the $5 million jury verdict against Trump in a writer’s sex abuse and defamation case, July 19, 2023
Ex-speaker Dennis Hastert released from federal prison, July 18, 2017
The longest-serving Republican Speaker of the House this century, Dennis Hastert, went to prison for sexually abusing students while he was an educator and paying one of them hush money