about the expense of lawyers following the revelations in the Guidepost report and asked whether their legal funding was ade- quate for the long term. Joe Knott, committee member and law- yer, said he was terrified about this entire endeavor and was worried about the ex- pense of lawyers and feared the SBC might have to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to potential victims. “I guarantee you women and children are going to be victimized no matter how much we spend, and that is going to make us po- tentially targets of great class action law- suits,” Knott said. “[It] could be the end of the Southern Baptist Convention.” He said the SBC’s mission is to fight sin, not individual’s sins, and when the SBC starts targeting individual sins “to protect a certain class” and inevitably fails, it could be devastating to their entire mission. Slade said he believes they need to do ev- Baptist Press Unfair Park from p6 be heard when decisions are made at the Legislature and in school districts. They’re the ones that must implement what is put in place. Their voices must be the first to pro- vide input. They also need to be fairly com- pensated for the jobs they do. Education should be collaborative, but the competition put into evaluations and laws make it a hor- rible atmosphere to work in.” Walsh doesn’t believe enough has been done to protect her or her students, and also has a hard time understanding where Ab- bott is coming from with some of his recent statements. “I watched some press conference re- cently where Abbott said it could have been worse, and I’m infuriated,” Walsh said, hold- ing back tears. “What does he mean could have been worse? How? How could it have possibly been any worse?” Walsh has heard the promises from poli- ticians before. “I don’t need smoke blown up my ass,” said Walsh. “I need change.” ▼ SEXUAL ABUSE THE PRICE OF REPENTANCE T 8 8 “It can’t be about the dollars. It’s got to be about the people,” Rolland Slade, SBC executive committee chairman, said about the organization’s response to revelations it covered up reports of sexual abuse for decades. Since the release of Guidepost Solutions report on the abuse, the SBC has created a hotline number for victims as well as friend and family members to report abuse. It also published a list of alleged abusers. Willie McLaurin, interim president/CEO of the SBC Executive Committee, said that the hotline is being provided to care for any- one calling the various Baptist entities and Guidepost to report abuse. “The SBC Executive Committee is com- mitted to ensuring each and every individual impacted by sexual abuse within the SBC has a place to process their story, report their abuse, and have access to care and car- ing resources,” McLaurin said. The SBC has also published the names of the abusers that was provided to Guidepost Solutions in their inquiries by a former SBC Executive Committee member. “This list is being made public for the THE SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION CREATES A HOTLINE FOR ABUSE VICTIMS AND PUBLISHES A LIST OF SOME OF THEIR ABUSERS AFTER A REPORT DETAILING YEARS OF COVER UPS. BY KATE PEZZULLI he Southern Baptist Convention has been trying to find a path to clarity in its churches and a way to best aid vic- tims after being accused of covering up de- cades of sexual abuse. A published report by Guidepost Solu- tions, an independent third party, found many instances of cover-ups of abuse and victim blaming by the SBC Executive Com- mittee for over 20 years, and the SBC has been making efforts to, if not make up for decades of harm, at least move forward to try to make it easier for victims to report abuse as well as make the names of the abus- ers public. first time as an initial, but important, step to- wards addressing the scourge of sexual abuse and implementing reform in the Con- vention,” Rolland Slade, SBC executive com- mittee chairman, and McLaurin wrote in a joint statement. “Each entry in this list re- minds us of the devastation and destruction brought about by sexual abuse. Our prayer is that the survivors of these heinous acts find hope and healing, and that churches will uti- lize this list proactively to protect and care for the most vulnerable among us.” The list will have some redactions, in- cluding entries regarding victims and survi- vors as well as individuals who were not related to an abuse case. Names of people connected to unsubstantiated claims and those who were acquitted were also re- dacted. The redactions do not include any name that has been verified to be connected with a guilty plea, conviction, judgment, sentence or inclusion on a sex offender registry. In a special online SBC board meeting last week, some members had comments erything possible for victims and anyone else who is vulnerable. “I don’t want us to say, well, we didn’t have enough money, and so therefore we didn’t protect a little one that was vulnera- ble, or that was in the line of being hurt,” Slade said. “It can’t be about the dollars. It’s got to be about the people, and relationships matter and people matter.” The confidential hotline for reporting abuse by pastors, staff members, or members of an SBC church is 202-864-5578 or it can be reached by emailing SBChotline@guidepost- solutions.com. ▼ RACISM NEARLY 7 IN 10 REPUBLICANS BELIEVE IN GREAT REPLACEMENT THEORY, POLL SHOWS BY SIMONE CARTER ‘ABSOLUTELY HORRIFYING’ W hite nationalist conspiracy theo- ries are starting to seep into the political mainstream. In a poll released last week, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) announced that nearly 70% of Republicans nationwide be- lieve in central tenets of the “great replace- ment” theory, which posits that white people are being replaced by those who are foreign and nonwhite. Mass shooters have referenced the conspiracy in manifestos, in- cluding the suspects behind 2019’s El Paso Walmart massacre and last month’s Buffalo supermarket slaying. The SPLC went on to note that more than a third of Democrats (35%) agree that changes to the country’s demographics are being motivated by “liberal leaders ac- tively trying to leverage political power by replacing more conservative white voters.” The poll illustrates that hate and extrem- ism are jeopardizing the nation’s education system, communities and democratic foun- dation, said Susan Corke, director of the SPLC’s Intelligence Project. It also found that more than 50% of Republicans and nearly 40% of Democrats think a civil war could soon erupt. “Just in the past week, we have again seen firsthand the deadly impact of white nation- alist propaganda being mainstreamed,” she said in a statement. “What is even more dis- turbing is that we see an embrace of violence — particularly on the right — as a political tactic that is buttressed by a belief that we could be heading toward a civil war in the near future.” Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, called the poll’s results “absolutely horrifying.” Over the years, the great replacement theory has been pushed by former President Don- ald Trump and other powerful players in the conservative movement, such as FOX host Tucker Carlson. It’s disturbing because the idea has been directly related to multiple mass ter- rorist attacks, including those targeting Jews, Muslims and Black people, Beirich said. The fact that it’s been mainstreamed to this extent is “almost beyond compre- hension.” Meanwhile, certain Texas politicians have publicly expressed similar views. In April, Congressman Pete Sessions tweeted that the current presidential administration wants to change America’s demographic makeup, purposefully opening the border so the country can be “overrun by illegal immi- grants.” >> p10 Hatred and extremism are seeping into American institutions. Markus Spiske/Unsplash MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2014 JUNE 9–15, 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.comdallasobserver.com
