SEX CRIMES, LIES, AND VIDEOTAPES: V

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (4/18/06)

Many Republican politicians claim the newspapers and television stations have distorted the police reports about Clifton Bennett and Kyle Wheeler homosexually abusing boys at a summer camp designed to teach young boys civic responsibility and leadership. Not so. If anything the news media were kind. The police reports are worse, far worse. It is one more case of Republican deceits and cover-ups.

The media reported that Kyle Wheeler assaulted a few boys. Actually, he choked a several boys into unconsciousness while Clifton Bennett watched. This was vicious, perverse, and depraved behavior.

The media reported that the boys were “broomed.” The boys were held down while clothed and then broomsticks and other objects to stuck up with rectums. This behavior by Clifton Bennett and Kyle Wheeler is not “hazing.” It is vicious, perverse, and depraved, hardly the kind of behavior one would expect of a missionary. Anyone with small children would be well-advised to hide them if Clifton Bennett came by on his Mormon mission. He should probably be chased away with a broomstick.

These homosexual criminals are mean. They released the spray from an aerosol canister into the cabin of a boy with asthma. He had to return home.

The whole affair brings up the fact that Yavapai County is not a safe place for young boys, not because of Bennett and Wheeler, but because Sheila Polk, the County Attorney, won’t protect them when they are assault, abused, and humiliated. She said her purpose is to protect the elderly. Apparently, she lets the young fend for themselves.

Not only does the affair call into question the integrities of the Yavapai County Attorney and Prosecutor, but also the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints. Would it actually send someone as perverse as Clifton Bennett on a mission? When is it going to stand up to decry this behavior? At least the Roman Catholics finally owned up to molesting children and paid the price. Will the Mormons or will they protect their own with silence? As far as the Republican Party is concerned, they are so corrupt that no one expects them to stand up for anything worthwhile. For all of them there is eventually public outrage and God’s sure and certain judgment. Petrarch said that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who sat down when they should have stood up.

LEGALITY AND ETHICS

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (4/26/06)

A federal judge once said, “If politicians say their behavior is ‘perfectly legal,’ you know it’s immoral.” Rick Krug, Flagstaff’s perennial politico, ratchets up the rhetoric, saying that his recent furtive telephone campaign against Proposition 404 was “absolutely legal.” How about “absolutely immoral?”

It is hard to know what’s with Republican politicians. They just can’t seem to keep themselves clean. As with Brother Krug they are either skirting the edges of immorality, or as with Tom DeLay they are in the thick of corruption. In Yavapai County they like to tip the balances of justice in favor of the wealthy and influential, particularly the Republican wealthy and influential. In Phoenix Representative Rick Murphy (Republican-Glendale) wants to kill the clean elections law which means in effect that he advocates corrupt elections. By the way, he’s currently under investigation by the Clean Elections Commission.

The oil company executives in the White House, George Bush and Dick Cheney, with their oil policy of runaway prices at the pump and runaway profits for the oil syndicates suggest a conservation policy of “every little bit helps.”

In Flagstaff the Chamber of Commerce and the Northern Arizona Building Association agree with Brother Krug that the City Council should not have a hand in affordable housing. Small wonder. They’re the ones who profit from unaffordable housing. Remember that the NABA is the group that leaves all that hazardous junk and rubble in a yard after it builds a house. By defeating Proposition 404 they want to kill affordable housing.

SEX CRIMES, LIES, AND VIDEOTAPES: IV

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (4/9/06)

The pathos of Sheila Polk’s justice in Yavapai County is that Clifton Bennett and Kyle Wheeler, the perpetrators of the homosexual sodomy on 18 boys, will ironically become victims of their own sociopathic attitudes. Unless both of them get just punishment and extensive psychotherapy, they will likely continue their predatory lives, always preying on those more vulnerable than themselves, perhaps something they might’ve learned in Republican circles.

Apparently, Clifton Bennett when apprehended said he did not know that predatory homosexual sodomy was wrong until he was caught. If a young man is that morally dull, he needs long-term psychological therapy. Not only that, he needs profound religious and moral guidance.

The Yavapai County Attorney said that since the young men weren’t homosexuals, their crimes couldn’t be considered homosexual sodomized rapes. Whether or not they are homosexuals themselves isn’t the issue. The issue is that they chose a violent form of homosexual sodomy to punish boys at a summer camp designed to teach the boys civic responsibility. The predators’ behavior wasn’t a series of accidental incidents. It was customary and intended.

Expressing guilt and sorrow is not enough because that does not preclude repetition. Unless Sheila Polk and the judge seriously punish these two culprits and order long-term psychotherapy, they will get the message that they can repeat their sociopathic behavior without consequences.

Justice in Coconino County is far different. For the young man’s crime of voyeurism, he was sentenced to a year in jail, extensive psychotherapy, and several years probation. His prospect for the future is far better than the Yavapai predators because even though his punishment was more severe, it was more humane. Its ultimate purpose was rehabilitation. In Yavapai County justice was unbalanced with favoritism with the consequent lingering uneasiness that predatory homosexual sodomy is all right as long as heterosexuals are the perpetrators.

LOYALTY AND BETRAYAL

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (4/11/06)

Each new revelation about the White House and the Bush Administration seems worse than what’s gone before. Now, the worst, an undenied allegation that Bush and Cheney leaked the name of a covert CIA agent for political advantage. They betrayed a secret agent in time of war.

This is the behavior of a rat. It undercuts any sense of security other agents might have about the loyalty of their government. It wastes the career of an agent and any good that agent might do for the country in the future. It is one more example of the moral tawdriness of the Bush Administration.

While leaking the name of a covert CIA agent may not be treason, it is certainly a betrayal. First of all, George W. Bush betrayed himself. He claimed to be a man of his word, and now his word is no good. He said he was against leaks, and then he leaked the name of a secret agent.

He certainly betrayed Valerie Plame, the covert agent, and along with her everyone in the intelligence community. Now, everyone in that community cannot trust Bush’s loyalty. As a former Sgt/Maj, Special Troops, I would’ve certainly feared for my back if Bush were my captain.

All of which means George W. Bush betrayed all of us. Before, we knew him to lie, but all politicians lie. Now, the core of the man, not his mouth, has been exposed. As a man, he can’t be trusted. He’s a betrayer.

SEX CRIMES, LIES, AND VIDEOTAPES: III

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (4/07/06)

While predatory homosexual sodomized rape may not be a felony in Yavapai County according to the Yavapai County Attorney, Sheila Polk, one wonders what she would do if female counselors at a summer camp on youth leadership sodomized 18 girls with foreign objects against their will. She would be tarred and feathered and run out of office and the county on a rail if she didn’t file rape charges. She surely would not have dismissed them as hazing and youthful pranks.

What would she do with a heterosexual sodomized rape of an adult on a child? She would cry war and lead the charge. Sadly, in Republican circles it all depends upon whose ox is gored or sodomized. For them the issue is not law and order. It’s privilege. For Sheila Polk to maintain her position she must lie, claiming that sodomy is hazing, apparently unaware that sodomy is a vicious personal form of revenge amongst criminals in prisons. Next she must believe her own lie, calling sodomy “brooming” rather than homosexual sodomized rape. Andre Gide once pointed out that anyone who lies and believes his or her own lie is guilty of bad faith. Sheila Polk, as an administrator of justice, is guilty of bad faith.

Of course, the boys, 11-15, were from Tucson in Pima County. If they had come from Yavapai County, that would’ve been a horse of a different color. She couldn’t have so easily dismissed harm to her own constituents by slapping the wrists of the sociopathic perpetrators.

Eventually, there will be the court of public opinion. Those who’ve had a hand in this corruption of justice might not fare too well politically in the future. The Republican Party, as the party of corruption, is not doing too well right now, especially with Dubya betraying his secret agents in time of war. In Sheila Polk’s case the corruption isn’t venal, as in taking bribes, but mortal, as in the corruption of justice.

Amos, the 8th century Hebrew prophet, dealt with the corruption of justice. In Israel at the time the vulnerable were “turned aside” while the powerful gained favors. His answer was, “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.” Unless their righteousness is, as Saint Paul said, “filthy rags,” all people of faith should cry out for justice.

CORPORATE-THINK

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (4/1/06)

Most Americans think that America led by the Bush Administration is headed the wrong way. The middle-class is being wiped-out. President Bush deceived us into an unwinable war. Our government is corrupt. What is there about the Bush Administration that makes it so tawdry? Corporate-think!

Corporate-think wants to invest the least to get the most. We forget that Donald Rumsfeld at the Defense Department made his mark before Bush’s Iraqi War as a Republican functionary and drug company executive. Clues one and two. Against senior military advice, he used the least number of troops, forgetting General Nathan Bedford Forrest’s dictum, “I git thar firest with the mostest men.” It’s called “overwhelming force.” As with most corporate-thinkers, Rumsfeld cheaped out, skimping on armor and shorting the troops to do the job.

Corporate-think is behind the immigration crisis about which Bush done nothing for six years. Corporate-think wants low wages which means eliminating the middle-class, hiring illegal aliens at poverty wages, and reducing America to a third-world status. This means government inaction, porous borders, and national insecurity. Corporate-thinkers fight terrorism by letting down our guard, selling out our country for a buck.

With corporate-thinkers anything goes. They speak of the profit-motive which means greed and corruption. Third clue. They produce medicines that kill, make cars that guzzle and pollute, ill arm our soldiers, sell inferior products, profit by war, and so forth and so on. Exxon, Halliburton, Wal-Mart, Enron, etc. are sociopathic organizations, motivated by greed which inevitably leads to corruption.

Copyright © Dana Prom Smith 2006

SEX CRIMES, LIES, AND VIDEOTAPES: II

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D.


The sex crimes in Yavapai and Coconino Counties are similar in that both of them are homosexual. In Yavapai County the crimes were two young men sodomizing 14 boys with foreign objects, a clear power play by stronger males tyrannizing and abusing more vulnerable males in their care at a summer camp. In Coconino County it was one hapless, confused male videotaping men and boys urinating in rows of urinals at a mall restroom.

While both crimes were clearly homosexual, they were profoundly different. The two young men who were sodomizing boys were clearly predatory. The hapless young man in Coconino County was a lone voyeur. In Yavapai County the sociopathic predators, Clifton Bennett and Kyle Wheeler, are having most of their crimes set aside and prosecuted on only one and two crimes and that only as misdemeanors. The sorrow is that with predatory crimes there are victims who’ve suffered and been harmed by the predators. In voyeurism no one is physically harmed, especially in the case of one man watching other men and boys urinating.

Why would predatory homosexual crimes in Yavapai County be discounted with minimum punishment while voyeuristic homosexual crimes in Coconino County be seriously dealt with and punished? The County Attorney in Yavapai County, Sheila Polk, and her allies apparently cannot entertain the possibility that predatory homosexual sodomy is a crime because homosexuality in itself in her eyes is so unnatural that it cannot be acknowledged and is beyond the limits of the law. She had to call homosexual crimes something else, like hazing. Apparently, Terrence C. Hance, the Coconino County Attorney, believes that everyone, heterosexual or homosexual, as a human being merits the protection of the law. This is a lesson for all of Arizona. We are all God’s children.

SEX CRIMES, LIES, AND VIDEOTAPES: I

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (4/6/06)

Justice is Yavapai County is administered differently from justice in Coconino County. Clifton Bennett, son of Ken Bennett, President of the Arizona State Senate, along with his friend, Kyle Wheeler, were charged with sodomizing 18 boys with foreign objects. The Yavapai County Attorney reasoned that assault by sodomy isn’t a sexual crime which means that Sheila Polk is either willfully ignorant, profoundly uninformed, or unfair in the administration of justice. Perhaps, all three.

In Coconino County a young man was caught videotaping men and boys urinating in a mall restroom. As a result the young man must register as a sexual offender and undergo psychological treatment along with serving a year in jail and three years probation. He actually didn’t physical assault anyone. He just watched them and videotaped them surreptitiously. Clifton Bennett and Kyle Wheeler physically assaulted boys, ages 11 to 14, in a morbid sexual demonstration of power. The two Yavapai County culprits may get off with misdemeanors, no counseling for their perversions, and no jail time.

While the young man’s behavior in Coconino County was clearly bizarre, he wasn’t actually hurting anyone. He didn’t show the videotapes to anyone else. Bennett and Wheeler traumatized young boys and physically harmed them.

Sheila Polk will have a hard time explaining herself the next time she runs for re-election. If she loses her bid for re-election, perhaps she could get a job at Duke University as a legal affairs officer for its lacrosse team.