Commentary

Pastor hires two prostitutes and takes them to a hotel room – what happens next?

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This post has some mature subject matter. Reader discretion is advised.

This story is from Christian Today.

Here’s the setup:

Last weekend I hired some prostitutes for the first time in my life – two young ladies for the whole night.

Because I’m a preacher and didn’t want people to know what I was doing, I asked a trusted friend, Cossette, to hire these women and bring them to a hotel where I would join them. I also didn’t want an absurdly inflated price because of being white, so she could hopefully negotiate ahead of time a more reasonable fee. Neither of us really knew how these things worked, and we were both a little nervous. What on earth is the going rate? Would anyone spot us?

If I were exposed, caught with them, then my whole credibility and reputation would be destroyed in this country where I’ve invested 16 years…

Cossette and I had our plan lined up. She met them in Bwiza, a few miles away, and brought them over by taxi to our part of town, Kinindo – as far as I know, prostitutes don’t operate in our more respectable suburb. She called me when they had arrived and checked in at the hotel nearby, and after reading bedtime stories and putting my kids to bed I went down to meet them.

I joined them at the table in the restaurant. They were fashionably dressed and wore lots of make-up. One was on the skinny side, the other more chunky, both pretty. They were definitely nervous but were trying hard to look relaxed. Divine and Arlette, 21 and 22 years old respectively.

Their mechanical smiles broke my heart. I sat down and introduced myself. I told them how I wanted them to have the night off. They could order whatever they wanted, enjoy a hot shower, and then have a night of deep rest. The only rule was not to solicit any of the hotel guests. I would be back in the morning to pay them, and after breakfast together, they could go.

I lay in bed that night next to my wife and couldn’t stop thinking about Divine and Arlette, and of the thousands of women within a few miles of us who right at that moment would be enduring some random customer having sex with them. I hate the sex trade with a passion, in no small part because I have a mother, a sister, a wife, a daughter, and each one of them would probably have ended up doing the same thing had they been dealt the same hand in life as Divine and Arlette, and countless others.

Morning came and we met over breakfast. I’d kept the previous night’s conversation short because they would obviously have found it totally weird and been full of distrust. But at least now their guards were somewhat down. I didn’t want to probe too much, and told them they didn’t have to answer any of my questions if they didn’t want to. I said I thought that as little girls they didn’t dream that one day they’d grow up to be prostitutes. Sometimes terrible things happen in life, and you’re forced into difficult choices. But maybe things could change – if they wanted to.

Read the whole thing, because my comments have spoilers!

This part deserves a comment:

I asked them what their dreams were. They said they wanted to run a small business, or maybe go into marketing. I told them we had prayed that God would lead Cossette to the right ladies to help. Of the thousands of prostitutes out there, she’d come across the two of them. Maybe it was a coincidence, or maybe God was in it. I imagined out loud how, if they made good choices from now on, that in ten years – who knows – they could be running a healthy business at the market, happily married with a few kids. Divine’s eyes lit up at the thought. Dared she believe…?

I think it’s an excellent idea to listen to the stories of people who have made mistakes in their lives, to see if they are at the point where they are willing to listen to an alternative and talk about it. I actually worry that he could get into trouble, but I think he did this in a very careful way, with witnesses. Another part I liked is that he sat down and made a financial plan with them to figure out how they were going to move forward.

I think this BBC story is a useful foil. It talks about rape in India, where poor women are devalued.

It says:

One of the men I interviewed, Gaurav, had raped a five-year-old girl. I spent three hours filming his interview as he recounted in explicit detail how he had muffled her screams with his big hand.

He was sitting throughout the interview and had a half-smile playing on his lips throughout – his nervousness in the presence of a camera, perhaps. At one point I asked him to tell me how tall she was. He stood up, and with his eerie half-smile indicated a height around his knees.

When I asked him how he could cross the line from imagining what he wanted to do, to actually doing it – given her height, her eyes, her screams – he looked at me as though I was crazy for even asking the question and said: “She was beggar girl. Her life was of no value.”

No Christian could ever say those things or act like that. Christianity teaches that everyone was made to know God and has value because they are made in God’s image, and for that special purpose. No one is too unimportant to achieve that purpose – everyone has equal value with respect to that purpose. Christians take seriously the obligation not to act towards another person in any way that would dissuade them from that intended relationship with God.

Podcasts

Can atheists be moral? Sean McDowell and James Corbett debate

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I got the audio for this debate from Apologetics 315, linked below.

Here is the MP3 file.

Sean’s case is similar to the one I make, but he only has 3 minimal requirements for morality.

First, he explains the difference between objective and subjective truth claims, and points out that statements of a moral nature are meaningless unless morality is objective. Then he states 3 things that are needed in order to ground objective morality.

  1. an objective moral standard
  2. free will
  3. objective moral value of humans

The question of the foundations of morality is without a doubt the easiest issue for beginning apologists to discuss with their neighbor. If you’re new, then you need to at least listen to his opening speech. He’s an excellent speaker, and his rebuttals are very, very smooth. The citations of atheist philosophers like Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, e.g. – to show that “religious” wars had nothing to do with religion, really hurt his opponent. He seems to cite prominent atheists like Thomas Nagel, Richard Taylor, Michael Shermer, etc., constantly in order to get support for his assertions. That took preparation. McDowell was very calm in this debate. It’s very hard to stay calm when someone is disagreeing with you in front of a crowd, but McDowell did a great job at that. He also seemed to be really prepared, because his rebuttals were crisp and concise.

For those of you who want to understand how these things work, listen to the debate. There is a period of cross-examination if you like that sort of thing. I do!

News

Could Hillary Clinton be sent to prison because of her secret e-mail server?

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Your puny laws don't apply to Queen Hillary!
Your puny laws don’t apply to Queen Hillary!

The first way is in the Washington Times.

Excerpt:

The Obama administration will soon find itself in court having to explain to federal judges why it never told anyone former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton used a secret email address, potentially spoiling dozens of open records requests, experts said Wednesday.

And Mrs. Clinton could face up to three years in prison per message if she is found to have broken her word and handled classified information on the secret account, one open records expert told The Washington Times.

The legal challenges have already begun, with The Associated Press filing a federal lawsuit saying the State Department has foiled five years’ worth of requests for Mrs. Clinton’s emails, but never told them or the court that she kept her own server — meaning that her emails weren’t being searched.

The article points out that because Clinton had a secret, personal e-mail server, it will be difficult to prove that she handled classified information unless someone on the other end of one the e-mails shows up.

The State Department itself could face sanctions for refusing to own up to the existence of Hillary’s personal e-mail server when processing Freedom of Information Act requests:

Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, which for years has battled for access to State Department records, said they are already preparing to ask several federal courts to review whether the Obama administration was skirting the law by not including Mrs. Clinton’s email server in its searches for documents.

“We had hundreds of requests. The State Department knew from the beginning these records weren’t being searched, and no one told us about it, no one told the courts about it,” Mr. Fitton said.

[…]The Associated Press filed a lawsuit Wednesday that could test the limits of the government’s ability to go after emails. Despite five years of questions, the State Department never said it didn’t have control over Mrs. Clinton’s emails, the AP said, suggesting that officials were breaking the spirit of open records when they said they were conducting searches for records.

“State’s failure to ensure that Secretary Clinton’s governmental emails were retained and preserved by the agency, and its failure timely to seek out and search those emails in response to AP’s requests, indicate at the very least that State has not engaged in the diligent, good-faith search that FOIA requires,” the news organization said in its lawsuit, filed in federal district court in Washington, D.C.

The second way that Hillary Clinton could go to prison is described at Fox News:

A former Justice Department lawyer says Hillary Clinton, despite her claims that she broke no rules or laws, may have committed a violation in leaving the State Department without turning over all official emails and records.

Shannen Coffin, a senior lawyer under the George W. Bush administration, pointed to a “separation” form that he said officials are supposed to sign upon leaving the department.

His argument: If she signed the form, she probably gave a false statement and broke the law; if she didn’t, she ran afoul of department policy.

The form — OF109 — certifies that the person who signs it has turned over all “classified or administratively controlled” materials, as well as all “unclassified documents and papers” relating to official government business.

It’s unclear whether Clinton indeed signed that document. But Coffin told Fox News, “If that’s the case, there’s no question [she broke the law].”

“Making a false statement in this context,  knowingly and willfully — which I can’t imagine anything more knowing and willful than knowing you have 55,000 records sitting in your home — if you do that, it is a felony,” he told Fox News’ “The Kelly File.”

The form cites “criminal penalties” for knowingly falsifying or concealing information.

“Every employee at the State Department has to sign this little piece of paper when they leave,” Coffin said. And if Clinton did not sign that document, he added, “why not?”

Here’s the video:

National Review reports that the State Department spokeswoman declined to produce the form:

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki couldn’t tell reporters on Thursday if Hillary Clinton signed an official records form presented to all employees as they leave the department — a crucial question in determining whether the former Secretary of State committed a felony by failing to turn over government e-mail records.

[…]“A former DOJ attorney has asked if, under department policy, Secretary Clinton — like all officials here in this building, when they depart or separate from this office, has to sign something called a form OF-109,” a reporter asked Psaki on Thursday. “It’s a separation statement declaring that when you leave office, you turn over not just classified materials, but any documents for official purposes. Did she sign –”

“I think this has been asked,” Psaki interrupted. “It was more than two years ago. I don’t have an update on that specific question at this point.”

Here’s the video:

Select Committee chair Trey Gowdy is continuing his Benghazi investigation, and the chair of the National Security Subcommittee of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Ron DeSantis is thinking of starting his own investigation of Hillary.

He said this on the Hugh Hewitt show:

HH: I want the audience to know Congressman DeSantis is a Harvard Law grad as well as a veteran of the Armed Services, and knows of which he speaks when it comes to national security. And I believe you were on the National Security Subcommittee of Government Oversight, are you not?

RD: I’m the chairman, Hugh, so this is right up our alley. And we’re definitely going to pursue the security aspect of this, because, and I think it’s been written up pretty well in some of the blogs, the State Department has been hacked before. And they have a lot of resources that they put into to maintaining the integrity of that system. If she used Google or Microsoft or one of those, they put in some resources, too. She set up her own system, and so the question is did she invest any of her personal resources to make sure that this had integrity and was not susceptible to being hacked? And those are answers that we’re going to find out.

HH: How are you going to go about pursuing that, Congressman DeSantis, because I know Trey Gowdy’s got the Select Committee. But their scope begins really with our invasion of Libya, or our intervention in Libya. And the scope of her breaking of official norms begins the day she enters into office if not before with this private email server.

RD: No doubt about it, and I think we’re going to defer for the Libya stuff to Chairman Gowdy. He’s been working on that. But I’m going to urge our chairman, Jason Chaffetz, to use the full committee and as well as my subcommittee to look at all of what she did for her four year period, because we need to know whether there was any type of compromise of sensitive military. You see, in the military, if you send something over unclassified channels that is classified, it does not matter whether somebody actually intercepted. You assume that there’s been a security breach, and you change your affairs accordingly. And I find it hard to believe that she would have had four years as Secretary of State and not discussed sensitive matters over that email. And I think the American people deserve answers to those questions.

Defense analyst Frank Gaffney says that there is no way that Hillary’s claim that she never sent or received classified information is true. So we have to wait for those investigations to find them, then we can hold her accountable.