An Overwhelmingly Republican Christian Problem
Not drag queens. Not LGBTQ+ people. Not the 'woke.' It's Republicans. It's conservative Christians. It's conservative Christian Republicans.
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It also helps support projects like these, where I’m keeping track of all the Christian pastors and youth group leaders accused of/arrested for/convicted of sexually abusing/grooming children.
Because it really never is drag queens or LGBTQ+ people, is it?
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I wasn’t planning on having the August update of the conservative Christian pastors/youth group leaders abusing kids tracking project today (or yesterday, as these usually come out Fridays instead of Saturdays). The July/mid-year update, the one where I tallied up all the stories of the year so far, to see which conservative Christian denominations appear the most dangerous for kids right now, was just three weeks ago. (In the lead, surprise! It’s the Southern Baptists. Maybe don’t leave your child alone at a Southern Baptist church, not if you love them?)
But then I saw some posts on Bluesky and a story they were responding to, and decided that yep, it’s time for another post! Plus, I already had 13 new stories for the tracking project, bringing us to a grand total of 138 individual stories this year about conservative Christian pastors and youth group leaders abusing/exploiting kids. (Not drag queens!)
Thirteen new stories in three weeks about conservative Christian pastors/youth group leaders/teachers, etc., accused/convicted of sexually abusing kids in one way or another, that’s newsworthy, yes?
Josh Marshall from Talking Points Memo wrote:
From a 30,000-foot view, it’s entirely a story about Republicans. It just so happens that the great supermajority of faith leaders who sexually abuse kids are conservative Christian, therefore most of them are also Republicans.
A writer named Ken Burnside chimed in on Josh’s post to tell him/us what he learned when he tracked such things in 2023. Whereas this site tracks specifically Christian leaders in some position of power — even if that power is only over one classroom, church youth group, or Jesus camp cabin — Burnside apparently tracked every story of child sex abuse that made the news for half of 2023, and stopped at 543 stories after six months (a number he admits is probably super-low). Of those he was able to find political affiliations for?
Well if that isn’t a snapshot that smells of reality, I don’t know what is. Almost half of the abusers were religious leaders, an almost equal amount were cops, and the teachers were teachers at religious schools. And my God, look at that supermajority of Republicans.
Click through to Bluesky for an interesting discussion about the overlapping tendencies and proclivities of these groups, the authoritarian throughline they all share, why they both are magnets for society’s worst perverts, and how they do their part to contribute new perverts to society. Know how we talk about people with severe Daddy issues and masculine insecurity issues a whole bunch? Yeah well, look at those statistics.
But in short, it’s Republicans and the authoritarian-cosplaying pigs who vote for them. It’s Republicans, it’s Republicans, it’s Republicans. (Not drag queens! Not trans folk or the rest of the LGB rainbow!)
I don’t usually include offenders on my tracking list who are just Republican celebrities or politicians, because that’s not the question I’m trying to answer in my tracking. Also the list would have to be twice as long.
But this week I’ll note a couple of stories of Republican perverts abusing kids, because it seems the past few weeks they’ve been coming out every five seconds. Recently, GOP Sen. Ted Cruz claimed that Democrats want “more child molesters” in America, which struck me as weird. Are Republicans not contributing their fair share?
Let’s look at the story of Jason Yates, the former CEO of My Faith Votes, who has just pleaded guilty on child porn charges. (Pictured above.) He’s one of those types who would fit on anybody’s list, no matter what they were tracking — Republican child abusers, conservative Christian child abusers, and so on. He’s one of the fascist white Christian leaders turning religious fervor into votes for the Nazi I Mean Republican Party.
Yates was originally arrested last year on eight counts of possession of CSAM, but made a deal to plead guilty on just two of them. Surprise, he told investigators that he had a previous conviction of a similar nature, which had been expunged. Why? Dunno.
And what kinds of upright conservative Christians does this creep pal around with? Well, Ben Carson was an honorary chairman of his group, and Christian fascist sicko Mike Huckabee, current ambassador to Israel, is the current honorary chair. (You can read more about all their unsavory Republican and Trumpy MAGA connections here.)
Surprise, on the My Faith Votes website, it says “secular progressives” are what’s to blame for, you know, everything. The wingnut Washington Times has removed an op-ed Yates wrote just a few weeks before the cops found all his kiddie porn, but you can read an archived version. Yates wrote that “Our children are being programmed to believe sexually deviant behavior,” and whined that at an event he took his middle-school-aged son to at the University of Minnesota, they were trying to brainwash his son into becoming transgender. He wrote, “People wanted to sell him the lie that he could be perfected by swapping out the right parts.”
“This infernal programming is being downloaded into our children, and it becomes far easier when it finds no resistance in our public square — when it is allowed to fill the void left by the absence of our faith,” Yates wrote.
And then they found dad’s kiddie porn.
How often can you say the same thing about any conservative Christian writing or preaching a hateful message against LGBTQ+ people? Pretty fucking often, it turns out.
All! These! Republicans!
As I said, it’s been a big few weeks for straight-up Republican politicians being caught abusing children, and I’m not even talking about Donald Trump’s best pedophile friend Jeffrey Epstein and his famous files.
These are people who, again, wouldn’t normally make The Moral High Ground’s list, because they’re not explicitly religious leaders.
There’s Scott Soucek, who’s married to a well-known Republican operative in Wisconsin named Stephanie Soucek. He’s been arrested on child porn charges, after posting on Facebook lat year that he was voting for Trump “to fight against human/child trafficking,” which is pretty wild considering all the latest news about both Trump and Soucek. He also posted a meme last year accusing Joe Biden of improperly touching kids.
Because projection is a huge part of this.
There’s also Republican Fort Pierce City Commissioner James Taylor out of Florida, who has also been arrested on charges of soliciting child porn, “harmful communication with a minor,” and more. The alleged victim was only 12 when it began, over Snapchat.
And then there’s this adultery/abortion scandal in Texas involving Republican state Rep. Giovanni Capriglione, the details of which all involve adults for once. (It’s an abortion scandal because the very anti-abortion Caprigilione — the most extreme kind, who wrote Texas’s “trigger” abortion ban — is accused of paying for a number of abortions! He denies it, of course.)
I only bring that one up because the woman he reportedly had a 17-year affair with — Alex Grace, an exotic dancer, the one who says he paid for all the abortions — also says he told her a bunch of gross fantasies he had:
In one of the interview's most explosive claims, Grace described becoming uncomfortable when Capriglione mentioned wanting to ejaculate into batter for cookies that would be sold at his daughter's bake sale. In the video interview, Grace stated that Capriglione said he enjoyed the thought of children — particularly young girls — consuming his semen.
Uhhhhh.
Anyway, again, he denies all of this, take that as you will.
Republicans, Republicans, Republicans!
And conservative Christians, conservative Christians, conservative Christians!
(The Venn Diagram of which isn’t quite a concentric circle, but they’re closely intertwined.)
In other news of Republicans, Donald Trump is reportedly considering pardoning Diddy. Obviously we know he wants to pardon sick child trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, and his DOJ just moved her to a cushy prison camp in Texas. Of course we all know how close he was with Jeffrey Epstein. Maybe Trump just has a certain affinity for people who touch minors.
Circling back to what Ted Cruz said at the top about Democrats wanting more child molesters in the USA, I don’t think you could find one Democrat in the country right now who really wishes there were more Republicans and/or conservative Christians in America. And haven’t we established that if you a scratch a child molester or other child predator in the US, you’re most likely to find a Republican and/or a conservative Christian? Especially if they are elected officials or in positions of spiritual leadership?
Shut the fuck up, Ted Cruz.
Which brings us to this week’s update of The Pastors/Youth Leaders List.
HOUSEKEEPING NOTES: I will no longer be reproducing the entire list in every update. Why? Because before today’s update, there were 125 entries for the year, and the word count on the previous update was 11,709. Today brings the list to a total of 138 for the year. So I’m in the process of making a page that will house all of it and be updated. (Also, if you have reached out about helping create a database, I have not forgotten! I have just been busy.)
So for now, here is the link to last month’s update — AKA the first 125 entries — and below, the new entries:
UPDATE, AUGUST 2, 2025
Franklin, Tennessee. (One of the Beverly Hills suburbs of Nashville, full of country singers, contemporary Christian artists and other celebs.) Juan Carlos Garcia Mendoza, a former Catholic priest at the St. Philip Catholic Church of Franklin, pleaded guilty to a number of sexual misconduct charges, of both the adult and child variety. One of those charges was continuous sexual abuse of a child. Four of them were sexual battery by an authority figure. He’s been sentenced to seven years in prison.
Peculiar, Missouri. (Really. It’s just south of Kansas City.) Andrew Lovisone, age 30, resident of Greenwood, Missouri (a Kansas City suburb), pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 10 years on charges of promoting child pornography. He was an ordained pastor at the First Baptist Church of Peculiar. (If there is ever one of these updates that does not include Baptist churches, please assume I fell asleep in the middle and forgot to finish writing the post.) First Baptist is affiliated with the Blue River Kansas City Baptist Association and its website does not make a big deal of it, but it is part of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Number 128 is reserved for Jason Yates, whose story I just told you up top. No special reason, that’s just the line where his name ended up in my planning. I have not run across what church he attends or attended, but he is from Hutchinson, Minnesota, a little town off to the west of the Twin Cities.
Gambrills, Maryland. William Jones, 58, facing child sex abuse charges. Jones is a two-fer: he was a pastor at the Jessup Baptist Church in Jessup, and also taught at Elvaton Christian Academy in Millersville. Wait, a three-fer. He’s affiliated with a global mission group called Mission Fields International. There are reportedly five victims, including under age 14. Jessup Baptist is, surprise, Southern Baptist. Elvaton Christian Academy is affiliated with the Elvaton Baptist Church, which is, again surprise, Southern Baptist.
Kissimmee, Florida. Ezequiel Rodriguez, 22 of St. Cloud, arrested on child pornography charges. Rodriguez was a youth pastor at Kingdom Conquerors Church, where his dad is the pastor. (Not the first time that scenario has shown up on this list, or the second. Maybe the fifth time?) Kingdom Conquerers is a bilingual church that ministers to the Latino community, and its website is broken. (Not the first time that’s happened either in reporting these stories.) Their Instagram has gone private. So it’s hard to find any specific affiliations on the church, but it appears to be at least endorsed by Kingdom Nights, which looks like a network of Latino churches and ministries in Central Florida.
Mesa, Arizona. Stanley Jay, 61, stands accused of molesting a 16-year-old in his congregation. You see, she was meeting with the pastor for grief counseling because her brother died. His behavior reportedly escalated, and he started sending her graphic texts. He was the pastor at the Worship Life Center Church, and oh golly, their website, Facebook and Instagram are down too. Oh golly. Google calls the church “non-demoninational,” so we’ll just call it “some kind of non-denominational evangelical shit.”
Richmond County, Virginia. David Lawrence Schneider pleaded guilty to child sex crimes and has been sentenced to five years in prison. The latest news article says Schneider was “a youth counselor who worked at several different churches and schools throughout Richmond County,” but earlier reporting explains that he formerly served as the lead pastor of Fairport Baptist Church in Reedville, Virginia. (Southern Baptist.) The Roys Report is much more detailed on the original charges, and hoo boy. They were “19 counts of sexual abuse, including 10 counts of forcible sodomy and eight counts of indecent liberties with a child while in a custodial role.” This news report explains that the little boy he abused is autistic. He went to Liberty University — big fuckin’ surprise there — and was also previously a youth pastor at Nomini Baptist Church (also Southern Baptist) in Montross, Virginia.
Greenville, South Carolina. Stephen Kopp, who was the director of a camp for kids on the campus of Bob Jones University (that freakish sicko racist fascist evangelical Christian place), was arrested last year on charges of criminal sexual misconduct with a 15-year-old victim, but the local news only just now got ahold of the warrant with real information in it. The warrant says Kopp was the “custodial guardian” for the child during the months of the alleged abuse. Bob Jones is very Thoughts And Prayers about it and emphasizes that none of it happened on campus or had anything to do with his employment, but seriously, Thoughts And Prayers! Not sure why you’d expect anything better from them.
McGregor, Texas. (Near Waco.) Garrett English, 25, charged with child pornography possession with intent to promote. He previously worked with the Pastoral Care team at the Harris Creek Baptist Church in McGregor. The Preacher Boys Pod explains that English has attended Liberty University, where he studied church planting, and that before that, but after he graduated from Clemson, he was a preschool teacher. (A church-affiliated preschool, obviously.) Harris Creek Baptist is a big ugly megachurch-looking monstrosity on the highway between McGregor and Waco. According to its bylaws, it’s not affiliated with any larger denominational entity, so I guess we’ll just call it non-denominational and Baptist.
Weston, West Virginia. We’ll let the local news type this one: “John Radcliff, II, 58, of Nettie, has been indicted for sexually abusing multiple young girls when they were just 3 and 4 years old until they were around 12 years old — many of whom are his nieces.” He was originally arrested on 191 charges, but ended up indicted on just 47 felony charges. His wife Kathy has been indicted on one count of “principal,” AKA accessory, AKA she knew. The Preacher Boys Pod explains that in the original charges, there was one more for Kathy: “One of the most disturbing aspects revealed in the story is the reason for Kathy Radcliff’s original charge of displaying obscene matter to a minor. Allegedly, she had two victims come into her and John’s bedroom and watch porn with them, while John and Kathy performed sexual acts on one another.” Reports say Radcliff was a longtime youth pastor who worked at at least four churches in and around Lewis County, West Virginia, but we don’t see any church names listed in the articles we’ve looked at. Anyway, this one is especially fucking sick, and we didn’t want to read any more about this bastard.
Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Sarah Huggins Logan, 35, a woman and a former teacher at the North River Christian Academy, arrested for alleged sexual misconduct with a student. She taught second grade, but it’s not clear what age the female victim is. The Roys Report explains that North River Christian Academy was started by the Open Door Baptist Church, originally as a daycare. It’s now listed as a ministry of New Beginning Family Worship Center, which describes itself on its website as an “independent, full gospel, and charismatic church.” Yeah, one of those.
Wichita Falls, Texas. Paul Andrew Coleman, 69, a former pentecostal pastor, pleaded guilty to three of the child sex crimes he was under indictment for, as part of a plea deal. He was sentenced to two 30-year sentences and a 20-year one, all running concurrently. His victims were preteen girls at his church, Good Samaritan Outreach Ministries, which he founded and pastored. The church hasn’t even taken his big smiling picture off its Facebook page.
The Roys Report has the story of a lawsuit against The Dwelling Place megachurch in Anaheim, California, arising from allegations that “church officials enabled and concealed years of child sex abuse from a youth leader.” Isaiah Valdez filed the lawsuit against The Dwelling Place and also Vineyard USA, the evangelical network the church was previously affiliated with, claiming former youth group leader Ryan Doezie groomed and abused him over a period of years between 2006 and 2011. He says it happened to others too, and that he believes the organizations knew it. It’s a detailed lawsuit if you want to read it, and it goes through Vineyard USA’s history of scandals like these. “This problem is not just centralized in California but is rather a nationwide epidemic. […] Vineyard USA has faced significant scrutiny over its handling of childhood sexual abuse and leadership misconduct within its network of churches.” That’s under the sub-headline “Vineyard USA’s Sordid History.” Of note, Vineyard USA featured in the very first edition of this tracking project, back in January.
UPDATE OVER.
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-Evan
Evan, thank you for all the work you put in on this. It must be nightmare-inducing and I hope you take care of yourself. 💙
Just FYI using the words child pornography is outdated. The term now is child abuse material. Pornography is considered consensual. Children can’t consent.