3 charged after rapes were reported at youth gathering
From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Briefly, three young men raped three young women at a youth conference at Issaquah Church Camp near Seattle, WA. Dave Ellingson, Congregational Ministries Coordinator, told Seattle Station KOMO-TV, "We all make mistakes, and this was a big mistake." Hel-lo-ooo? "A big mistake?" This is the worst crime that a man can commit against a woman, short of murder. It is the worst example of how youth programs say that they teach Christian values, and do not. I have identified several mistakes that my church's youth pastor would never make:

1. Why were these young people housed in a co-ed dorm, with men in one wing and women in the other? What is wrong with this picture? You tell me.


2. When an adult supervisor learned that the three boys and the three girls were about to meet unchaperoned in some of the rooms (accounts differ as to whose rooms they were in), why did he not put his foot down and tell them, "No!"?

In addition, the girls made one mistake that I would hope that no girls at my church would make: they agreed to meet with the boys at night in a room or rooms even though those boys had been sexually aggressive with them from the get-go.

This is a real sick-making case, and I list it as--::Submitted for your itching ears [2 Timothy 4:2-4] files.