Now that you mention it, I wonder what the verdict might have been if Jackson were a man of the cloth, instead of a sequined man-thing of the closet.
Now that you mention it, I wonder what the verdict might have been if Jackson were a man of the cloth, instead of a sequined man-thing of the closet.
If Jackson was a Catholic Preist we would see Canadian militant sods conflicted in reaction…they want to attack the church but this would be too great an opportunity to promote stage II of the sod agenda…”see; even men of the cloth sleep with boys” “let’s get cracking at lowering the age of consent so we don’t have to hassel these holey men.. It’s disgusting how their own church persecutes them”
Well, I say that given exactly the same evidence, he’d have been found guilty.
No doubt….but how would the sod spin machine message the act?
Provided he continued to fill the collection plate and keep his mouth shut, they would have transferred him.
The standard of evidence was a “reasonable doubt” not what someone happens to feel. While we are relying on pretty sensational reports to determine the evidence in this case, it would seem that reasonable doubt was in play. I am trying to recall a similar instance with regard to the clergy and none come to mind. Perhaps there were a few victims who jumped on the wagon in Mount Cashel,or elsewhere, but there was no reasonable doubt as to the guilt of the men of the cloth.
The standard of evidence was a “reasonable doubt” not what someone happens to feel. While we are relying on pretty sensational reports to determine the evidence in this case, it would seem that reasonable doubt was in play. I am trying to recall a similar instance with regard to the clergy and none come to mind. Perhaps there were a few victims who jumped on the wagon in Mount Cashel,or elsewhere, but there was no reasonable doubt as to the guilt of the men of the cloth. At least in the cases of which I am aware.
It took far more hard evidence to convict the priests in the Boston Archdioscese than was presented at the Michael Jackson trial. Hundreds of boys had nearly identical stories of being sodomized, and their accusations were corroborated by other boys who testified about the procedural proclivities of these priests vis-a-vis young boys.
It took years for any charges to be laid, largely because the church and it’s community shunned and cast aspersions on the victims and their families, saying that the accusations were an attack on the holy by the unholy, and even that Satan was a force behind the victim’s complaints.
In the case of Michael Jackson it’s hard to believe that he is completely innocent, but the fact that the case relied on the word of demonstrable grifters sure didn’t help the prosecution.
I haven’t followed the US priest scandals very closely, but it seems to me that Father Shanley was convicted on flimsier evidence than was presented in the Jackson case.
Now, Shanley is credibly said to have had sex with many teenaged boys under his care and probably deserves to be in jail, but the specific accusations at his trial involved a prepubescent boy and molestation scenarios that were right out of the Satanic-abuse-at-the-local-daycare panics of the 1980s. He allegedly pulled this kid out of confirmation class, molested him in ways that have little to do with adult sexuality, but which a child might readily imagine, and returned him to class with no-one noticing anything odd. It rings false to me.
I seem to recall that the family had already gotten a settlement from the diocese before the criminal prosecution took place. If this was in fact a shake-down, you can imagine that they felt obliged to cooperate with the DA in order to preserve their credibility.
As I said, I’m no expert, and I stand to be corrected on any of this.