Sexual Assault Reportedly Happened At Clarksville Church

The Clarksville Police Department has released a statement that this was *not* a random act and the teens knew each other. You owe it to the church to follow up on what turned out to be a complete fabrication.

Channel 5 interviews a registered sex offender for comments?

http://www.ticic.state.tn.us/sorinternet/sovu...

advocate for accuracy wrote:

The Clarksville Police Department has released a statement that this was *not* a random act and the teens knew each other. You owe it to the church to follow up on what turned out to be a complete fabrication.

That is not really even relevant. Most rapes are done by subjects who know their victim.

I posted this same thought in another forum...as it turns out, there was no crime committed at all.

This is why ALL cases (including ANY sexual assult cases) should be innocent until proven guilty; however, our society automatically convicts & sentences those accused of such crimes to death & banishment without a moments thought. I say this being a woman myself...When an accusation such as this is made by a woman (or child) nobody thinks about any possibility except to find someone to crucify when accusations like this are made.

On the flip side, people making such false accusations can seriously hamper ongoign investigations in which real victims exist. Then, people begin to wonder, is this persona victim or making false accusations?

The following is a quote from the article:

"You shouldn't have to think about that at church," Pilant (lives near church)said. "You shouldn't have to think about that."

This is exactly why sexual exploitation/abuse/assault within a religious context is rapidly being exposed as huge problem. The "Pedophile Priest" scandal of the RCC and the very similar (except most victims were girls) sexual abuse/cover-up of the JWs were the tip of the iceberg. In my small area of the Puget Sound region it was six small, unrelated and unaffiliated evangelical (fundamentalist) churches.
It isn't that the religion or the church or the congregations are "bad", it is that they "feel safe", giving automatic unconditional trust, respect and obedience to people they are convinced share their spiritual and moral values. Predators, "wolves in sheep's clothing" KNOW that the faithful feel safe in church and with people that can quote scripture, etc. That is why they find the faithful such easy prey.
Worse, the more patriarchal and/or fundamentalist the church, the more women and children are expected to respect male authority figures. And, the more the church is withdrawn from the "sinful, worldly" community that are not associated with their church, the more likely church members are to feel defensive and protective of their church and its members and clergy. They do not want to damage the reputation of their religion. They will also come under tremendous pressure to "work this out within our church family", instead of calling in law enforcement. This "working out" is all-too-likely to be intimidation/pressure for the complainer to recant, call it all a misunderstanding, or have it handled by "repentance, prayer, forgiveness". Most often a victim is simply not believed, or worst of all, the accuser is accused of seduction.