The Grooming, Indoctrination, and Sterilization of the American Mind

Why the Religious Right Supports Creepy Old Pedophiles

I have shared my experience with sexual abuse before on this Substack and across a few other platforms. When Ronan Farrow exposed the decades of abuse perpetrated by Harvey Weinstein in a 2017 New Yorker article, he opened the floodgates, along with Tarana Burke, the founder of the #metoo movement. People began posting their own stories of abuse on social media, and suddenly, victims of sexual assault across the world knew they weren’t alone. 

For a lot of us who have been abused by sexual predators, the triggers began all the way back in 2015 when the king of all sexual predators descended down that golden escalator. When the Billy Bush recording came out, I thought for sure this would be the end of his campaign, but well, we all know the outcome. 

I don’t know about y’all, but his presidency was triggering AF.

So when the New Yorker article came out, my trauma nerves were already frayed, and I absorbed the stories women shared, but could not bring myself to share my own. In 2018, when the Senate confirmation hearings of Brett Kavanaugh were happening, I really struggled, but I still stayed quiet. I mean, “boys will be boys,” amirite?

At this point, I had made the very misguided decision of confronting my abuser. I guess I thought he’d admit what he did and apologize, but instead, he accused me of being crazy, that I was “looking for a pay day,” and then he turned my family against me.

It wasn’t until 2021, when former Senator Tony Navarrete was accused of Child Sex Abuse (CSA), that I finally came out publicly. Something snapped in me, and I bared my soul to Xitter and Facebook. My post garnered lots of attention, and so many women reached out to share their own stories of sexual abuse.

Some said that my post gave them the strength to finally talk about their abuse, which in some cases, happened over thirty years ago. But for many others, they weren’t ready to confront it (and maybe never will be ready), but were just so grateful to hear someone else share their trauma. You can read it here. 

Finding out that someone I considered a friend had abused children felt like a punch in the gut. The guilt and shame that so many survivors experience hit me, and the emotions overwhelmed me. I had worked in a school that was in his district, and I wondered if he hurt any of my students. Like so many others, I called for his immediate resignation, but that didn’t stop people from using terms like “groomer” and “pedophile” to describe me while they drudged up photos of the two of us together. 

Something changed in me when staunch supporters of the “Chief P*ssy Grabber” came at me. It was crazy-making. About a year later, when one of their candidates for Maricopa County Community Colleges, Randy Kaufman, was caught masturbating in front of a daycare on a campus he was running to serve, I figured, “OK. They’re going to come after him, right? They’re going to demand he drop out of the race, right?” 

Of course that didn’t happen, and on election day in 2022, I saw countless MAGA volunteers passing out voter guides with his name still on them. 

So let’s just cut the shit, evangelical extremists. 

You do not, and never have, cared about the safety of women and children. When I consider that your god is the product (and somehow also the perpetrator???) of rape, I guess this makes sense.

The authors of the bible did not have a high opinion of women, so when we get to the whole “Mary & the Immaculate Conception” story, it’s no wonder God didn’t ask for consent. 

The people who care so much about pRoTeCtiNg KiDs don’t even care that the main woman protagonist in their story was raped by, from what I can tell, a creepy old pedophile. 

So of course they support creepy old pedophiles whenever they have the chance!

I can’t believe I spent so many years trying to rationalize the double standard that seems to exist within the evangelical extremist circles in this country. It’s pretty clear at this point:

When your religion allows (and even demands) male dominance and female subservience, your society will be rife with abuse and the subjugation of women. Full stop.

Clearly, we are not a Christian, Judeo-Christian, or any other Abrahamic-dominant society. But the extremists want to pretend that we are. This means that women don’t matter. Eve defied the word of god, Mary Magdalene was a jezebel, and Mary of Nazareth was simply a receptacle for some rapist’s ejaculate. 

As a mother to daughters, I see women as so much more. 

All of this to say that when I hear these extremists speak about pRoTeCtiNg tHe cHiLdReN, and use scripture or purity culture nonsense to justify book bans, trans bans, abortion bans, etc., I call bullshit.

You don’t care about kids. You care about the authoritarian patriarchy/theocracy that you’ve been conditioned to uphold. 

Did anyone else read about the latest death of a pregnant mother that happened in Texas because of their extreme abortion ban? That’s not pro life, that’s pro patriarchy. 

This week I glanced at a couple of school board meetings in the East Valley, and there were speakers there who complained about the sExUaLiZaTiOn oF cHiLdReN they claim is happening because of…checks notes…award-winning literature. 

I thought that “free will” is like, a whole thing that the Christian god gave his/her/their followers, so I find it confusing when they want to impose their own free will on others. I don’t think that’s how “free will” works. 

I checked in on the Mesa Public Schools (MPS) and the Higley (HUSD) meetings very briefly this week just so I could see if the same knuckleheads are beating the dead horse of bigotry. And…lo! And behold! They are. I guess some people never get tired of hatred or something. 

They seem to thrive on hatred at the same time that we’re all fatigued by it, so this next bit of advice is gonna suck a little: 

We can’t back down.

In MPS, a Gays Against Groomers (like, GAG me with a spoon) representative opened by complaining about the “grooming, indoctrination, and sterilization” of MPS students that’s totally not happening. She also shared that she thought that discussing sex or reading books that deal with the horrors of sexual abuse will just make it easier for students to be targeted by groomers and pedophiles. 

I don’t know about my fellow survivors, but reading about the rape of Offred in The Handmaid’s Tale didn’t make me more susceptible to rape, but it DID give me a fictional (FOR NOW) scenario about how the patriarchy has the potential to control and degrade an entire group of people.

Reading about the horrific rape of Pecola in the novel The Bluest Eye did not make me seek out rapists, like these weirdo members of the public claim. It warned me about predatory behavior and that sexual assault is most likely to be perpetrated by someone we know - usually a trusted family member or friend.

Reading Farenheit 451 helped me understand that the people burning the books are the bad guys. 

In HUSD, a couple of speakers shared their obsession with the sexuality of children and one of them disparaged the award-winning work of Khalid Hosseni and his novel, The Kite Runner, claiming that it had no educational merit. She also pretended to care about the depiction of Muslims living in Afghanistan.

Another woman was “deeply troubled” that educational and literary experts choose diverse novels from diverse authors for their curriculum, and asserted that these novels teach “CRT” (read: BIPOC authors). I won’t assume the religious or political affiliation of these speakers, except I totally am going to do that. 

Whether they’re the I-go-to-church-every-Sunday kind of Christians or the I-don’t-know-anything-about-the-bible-unless-someone-else-tells me kind of Christians, one thing I do know is they’re not Christlike. I can only assume that they’ve never read their own favorite book since that thing is RIDDLED with rape, incest, murder, and violence WHILE they want to ban any other book that discusses the same topics. 

These self-proclaimed “protectors” of children advocate for opposing all the things that keep kids safe and protected. I’ve been screaming this from the mountaintops for a while now, so now is not the time to take our foot off the brakes. 

The extremists are voting for an adjudicated rapist. Sitting board members in Arizona post imagery implying that the Vice President of the United States got there by sleeping her way to the top.

When E. Jean Carroll and Dr. Christine Blasey Ford courageously spoke out about their abusers, the “Christians” (including their super-devout Orange Jesus) brought up their physical attraction to assert their innocence. 

And there are a whole bunch of women out there doing the patriarchy’s dirty work. In the name of their god, I guess? 

In less than a week, we’re all going to find out what kind of America we’re going to be. We’re already the America that protects, elevates, and even elects rapists, but we don’t have to be.

The choice is yours. Our mothers, grandmothers, daughters, nieces, and granddaughters deserve better.

Let’s kick the patriarchy to the curb next week, Secular Fam.