| UNFAIR PARK | Gun Rift Beto O’Rourke inter- rupted Gov. Greg Ab- bott’s press conference about Uvalde school. BY SIMONE CARTER previous day’s shooting at Robb Elementary School, which left at least 21 people dead, 19 of them children. After Abbott wrapped remarks, the Dem- S ocratic gubernatorial candidate moved to- ward the stage to confront his opponent. “You are doing nothing. You are offering up nothing,” O’Rourke said. “You said this was not predictable. This was totally predict- able when you choose not to do anything.” The Uvalde school massacre has exposed the rapid deterioration of Texas’ political fabric. Tensions are palpable as lawmakers pay tribute to the dead on social media and constituents demand gun reform. It’s personal for O’Rourke, whose home- town was struck by gun violence in 2019 in what’s come to be known as the El Paso Walmart massacre, which left 23 people dead. Sen. Ted Cruz told his one-time oppo- nent to sit down and drop the “stunt.” The mayor of Uvalde, Don McLaughlin, slammed O’Rourke as a “sick son of a bitch.” Yet while Republicans are attacking the Democratic candidate over his approach, many liberals see a man who’s standing up for Texas families. Kathleen Thompson, communications director for the Dallas County Democrats, said her organization is proud of O’Rourke. “Every Texan deserves answers to why Governor Abbott keeps saying ‘thoughts and prayers,’” she said. “They have it in their power to safeguard Texans at schools and churches and grocery stores and concerts, and they don’t.” But conservatives view O’Rourke’s inter- ruption as highly inappropriate. Dallas County Republican Party Chairwoman Jen- nifer Stoddard-Hajdu said it wasn’t the time or place to argue politics about firearms. Last Wednesday’s press conference was meant to give the public information and comfort grieving families, Stoddard-Hajdu said. There needs to be more effort to protect our schools, she argued, adding that the $40 billion Congress approved to help Ukraine’s fight against Russia would have been better spent on improving school safety. “We should be able to take steps to make 44 sure that our children are as secure in their schools as we are in an airport,” she said. Many Texas Republican lawmakers ac- cept substantial financial contributions from gun rights groups. Cruz has raked in the most funds out of the entire 117th Congress with more than $442,000, according to OpenSecrets.org. Sen. John Cornyn came in third, having accepted more than $340,000. Congressmen Pete Ses- sions and Dan Crenshaw rank in the Top 20. In April, NPR reported that the No. 1 cause of death among kids in 2020 was guns. Firearm fatalities spiked nearly 30% for young people ages 1 to 19. Following the massacre, political groups were quick to cast blame. Ed Espinoza, pres- ident of Progress Texas, issued a statement condemning what he views as state lawmak- ers’ inaction. “If Gov. Abbott wants to make the 2022 election about crime, perhaps he can start by addressing gun crime,” he said. “Kids are dead again because Republicans in Texas and across the nation refuse to take action to protect them. Nothing will change until those in power do.”. ▼ CHURCH ABUSE OF POWER T NEW REPORT SAYS THE SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION CONCEALED DECADES OF SEXUAL ABUSE BY MINISTERS AND OTHER LEADERS. BY KATE PEZZULLI he Southern Baptist Convention is coming under scrutiny for allegedly covering up decades of sexual abuse within the church. The SBC is a collection of Christian churches and has the largest Protestant rep- resentation in the United States. For de- cades, victims of sexual abuse reported the problems to church leaders on the denomi- nation’s Executive Committee but were continually ignored or met with resistance, according to a new report. Last year at a convention in Nashville, the number of accusations led to a vote by the Messengers, who are specially selected repre- ordan Vonderhaar/Getty Images Beto O’Rourke interrupts a press conference held by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott sentatives of up to 12 members per attending church, to create a task force to look into the allegations. They hired Guidepost Solutions to conduct the investigation. The investigative report was published on May 15 and made public on May 22. It in- cludes Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano and the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, among others. According to the report, abuse survivors and other concerned Southern Baptists had been contacting the SBC and their Executive Committee to report alleged child molesters and other abusers employed by the church or on the pulpit for over two decades. “They made phone calls, mailed letters, sent emails, appeared at SBC and EC meet- ings, held rallies, and contacted the press … only to be met, time and time again, with re- sistance, stonewalling, and even outright hostility from some within the EC,” it reads. The SBC leaders in the Executive Com- mittee and their legal council controlled the response to the allegations and “were singu- larly focused on avoiding liability for the SBC,” according to the report. Some of the accused abusers even contin- ued to preach as congregations were never notified of the allegations. The investigation looked at more than two decades of allegations from Jan. 1, 2000, through June 14, 2021, and conducted upward of 300 interviews, finding mishandling of alle- gations by the EC, a pattern of intimidation of victims and their advocates, resistance to re- form initiatives and mistreatment of victims. “Stories of abuse were minimized, and survivors were ignored or even vilified,” the report reads. “Rather than focusing on these accused ministers, some EC leaders turned against the very people trying to shine a light on sexual abuse. The survivors … were deni- grated as ‘opportunistic,’ having a ‘hidden agenda of lawsuits,’ wanting to ‘burn things eated in the high school audito- rium in Uvalde last Wednesday, Beto O’Rourke was fuming. Gov. Greg Abbott had delivered a press conference about the to the ground,’ and acting as a ‘professional victim.’” One senior staff member, D. August “Augie” Boto, the EC general counsel and at one point interim president, said in an internal email that the sexual abuse was the work of the devil. He wrote, “It is a satanic scheme to com- pletely distract us from evangelism. It is not the gospel. It is not even a part of the gospel. It is a misdirection play. … This is the devil being temporarily successful.” The report also alleges that Prestonwood’s Jack Graham, who was a member of former President Donald Trump’s Religious Advi- sory Council, “allowed an accused abuser of young boys to be dismissed quietly in 1989 without reporting the abuse to police.” Years later, in 2011, that same music di- rector and alleged abuser, John Langworthy, was charged and pleaded guilty in Missis- sippi to abusing young boys. In a statement provided to media outlets, Prestonwood denied the allegations and said the church had “never protected or supported abusers, in 1989 or since.” The report also said that Paige Patterson, who was once the president of Fort Worth’s Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, told a student to refrain from reporting a rape in 2003. Patterson was fired in 2018. In a statement to the Observer, Jon Wilke, the director of media relations for the SBC, said the convention’s executive committee would like to address statements previously made by Boto in which he states that a “con- tinued discourse between us [the Executive Committee and survivor advocates] will not be positive or fruitful.” “The SBC Executive Committee rejects this sentiment in its entirety and seeks to publicly repent for its failure to rectify this position and wholeheartedly listen to survi- vors,” Wilke continued. “Today, in the im- mediate aftermath of the report’s release, the SBC Executive Committee seeks to make clear that it views engaging with sur- vivors as a critical step toward healing our Convention from the scourge of sexual abuse and working to avoid its continued impact on our loved ones, their families, and our network of churches.” The SBC’s next scheduled annual meet- ing is set for June 14-15 in Anaheim, Califor- nia. They have set aside one hour on the convention agenda to discuss the sexual abuse task force. ▼ CRIME CATTLE CALL fewer than five dozen people. But the 71-year- old county judge was arrested last month for allegedly committing a crime that we’re kind of surprised still exists: cattle rustling. Late last month, Jones was arrested and hit with three counts of livestock S >> p6 A JUDGE IN LOVING COUNTY HAS BEEN ACCUSED OF CATTLE RUSTLING. BY SIMONE CARTER keet Lee Jones is one of the preeminent lawmen of Loving County, located on the New Mexico border and home to MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2014 JUNE 2–8, 2022 DALLAS OBSERVER DALLAS OBSERVER | CLASSIFIED | MUSIC | DISH | MOVIES | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | FEATURE | SCHUTZE | UNFAIR PARK | CONTENTS | CLASSIFIED | MUSIC | DISH | CULTURE | UNFAIR PARK | CONTENTS dallasobserver.com dallasobserver.com
