Julie Hoover, 39, a now former teacher at the Point of Grace Christian School in Perry, Florida, was arrested last week and charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor and being an authority figure soliciting or engaging in lewd conduct with a student. That sounds grim.
Last April, at the school prom, she allegedly twerked on a student and forced an alcoholic drink on him by trying to jam the straw of her cocktail into his mouth. At least two people attempted to stop her, even forcing themselves between the sex-crazed teacher and her hapless victim. Which raises the question, if there were witnesses, why did it take five months to arrest her? Somebody was running interference. Was it the school? I do not know. Perhaps the investigation will reveal the truth.
As with many sex abusers, her crime was not a one-off. She was also arrested and jailed in June for sexting an 18-year-old high school senior. The student’s mother reported the misconduct to deputies after she found the messages on the teen’s phone, which allegedly included a plan to sneak the student into Hoover’s home while her husband was at work.
I do not know if people associated with religion are more like to commit sex crimes and other offenses than non-believers. Or if they do it at the same rate. But the disinterested observer must conclude that incidents like this prove that people who claim morality springs from God are deluded or lying.
As noted above, I do not know whether this school attempted to cover up the crime. But the largest branch of the world’s largest religion, Roman Catholicism, systemically tolerated pedophilia and pederasty. It shunted Priests around with no concern for the children of the parishioners. Why this immoral organization still exists is beyond me. The fact that five of the six conservative Justices on the Supreme Court are Catholic probably has nothing to do with it — but you never know.
Let me be clear. I do not hold any person of faith accountable for the sins of Church management. I respect people’s choice to embrace whatever religion they want, including ‘none’. And many individual churches are a boon to their community. But to think that any religion makes people more moral is unsupported by the facts.
The top five least religious US states are NH, MA, VT, ME, and CT. These states are respectively #1, #2, #6, #3 and #13 least criminal. The trend holds if you break the US down into regions. The North East, the least religious area of the country, is the lowest in both violent and property crime. The South, the infamous Bible Belt, is highest in both.
Utah is an exception to the trend in that it is a religious state with a low crime rate — especially if you ignore the persistence of polygamy and child rape in some branches of the religion.
The only ‘morality’ that conservative religion in America seems to excel at is gay hate. But how an act that does not hurt another is immoral, I do not know. And by that measure calling homosexuality — or any LGBTQ+ behavior — a sin is merely an exercise in prejudice. What other people do is none of my business. And the church should not butt in.
If you are against gay sex, do not have it. And if someone else’s marriage offends you, keep it to yourself. If you must work yourself into a lather, get upset by wife-beaters. And if you must insist on using the Bible as your guide, complain about fornicators and adulterers. Especially the hypocrites who tell others what to do while cheating on their spouses.
As Jesus said, let him without stone cast the first sin.