According to the Associated Press, new laws passed in the state of North Carolina last year made it illegal for a convicted sex offender named James Nichols to attend worship services at his Baptist church due to the presence of a daycare facility on the grounds. On March 28, 2009, he was arrested at his home for having been to church the previous Sunday. The state law which allowed Mr. Nichols to be taken into custody is quite clear. It mandates that sex offenders are barred from coming within 300 feet of any place intended for the use, care, or supervision of children. Moncure Baptist Church in Moncure, North Carolina fits neatly into that description…along with thousands of other houses of worship, sanctuaries, colleges, work places, etc.
Argument in support of such an all-encompassing and strict law is pretty straight forward. Our society’s children need to be protected from any possibility of abuse. Children in churches (and in general, for the most part) unquestioningly trust adults that they come into contact with. How can parents or ecclesiastical leaders be expected to have to tell their kids that, even in church, they must be wary of grownups? It’s not even enough these days to caution young people not to talk to strangers…as a family member or friend could just as easily be a threat. These uncertainties are compounded within the trusting family unit that tends to develop among church goers. Sex offenders are already prohibited from living within a certain distance from schools or daycares in most states. They are not allowed to spend time at locations where minors are known to congregate (arcades, parks, etc.). Why, then, should it be such a leap to keep them out of congregations? These criminals chose to put their rights in jeopardy when they perpetrated crimes against children. One contemplative pastor commented to the press, “The Bible talks about wolves coming in sheep’s clothing, so, I have to be watchful over everyone coming into my church.”
Is there a limit, though, to how many laws we are willing to pass which seemingly infringe upon the constitutional rights of convicted felons and, in particular, sex offenders? Arguably, even the registry laws bend and skew the traditional views on justice in this country. Forcing individuals to endure the shame and crippling public scrutiny of offender websites for years after their sentences and probation requirements have been fulfilled runs in the same vein as these new exclusive legislations which take presumably reformable citizens and deprive them every opportunity to lead any sort of a normal life. This issue also raises the question of how the general public goes about justifying new blanket laws and policies. Is there any evidence to suggest that convicted and registered sex offenders pose more of a threat to kids at church than the pedophiles and perverts among clergy or even church membership that haven’t been discovered yet? Being aware of a convicted sex criminal attending your religious institution would arguably make him less of a threat than the hundreds of other folks about whom you know absolutely nothing . Much has been written on this site about the Idaho teacher Kari Atkinson. If she were to show up at my church tomorrow, I know that she would be embraced and cared for. Make no mistake, however, that eyes would be on her at every moment. No gesture, glance, or comment toward a young boy would go unnoticed.
Americans value justice for all. We seek fairness and equality in all things. While there is convincing argument which, at first glance, justifies passing laws that would ban sex offenders from their churches and places of worship, I have to ask if the possibility doesn’t exist that people are trying to take the easy way out. I worry that there may be a widespread consensus that it is okay to tamper with the equality and human rights of a few societal outcasts as long as it is for the greater good. In my opinion that logic is categorically wrong. It opens the door for infringements on the rights of each and every one of us. Laws can be just and effective at the same time. I am in favor of laws which require offenders to disclose their status to church leaders before being allowed to attend. Individuals who are required to register should be divided into categories that let parents know whether they are dealing with someone convicted of stat rape with a teen, inappropriate fondling of a child, or kidnapping and forcible rape. If there are to be stricter laws, there should be a specific code indicating which restrictions apply to which offenders. It wouldn’t be right to say that anyone convicted of driving under the influence could never drive again. Anyone with sense will acknowledge that such a blanket punishment would constitute a miscarriage of justice each time it was imposed. The same punishment, on the other hand, could be fairly applied to someone convicted of multiple DUIs and vehicular manslaughter. The easy way out of social dilemmas is to sign bills into law which provide people with a sense of revenge and require no effort from members of the community to participate in the rehabilitation of the convicted. Like it or not, as members of a society, we all have a responsibility to each other. If I see a crime being committed and don’t report it, I break the law. That’s because I have a responsibility to the victim simply because I am a member of the community and the society. There is a fine line being walked in our nation, and, if we aren’t careful, we run the risk of turning our sex offenders into victims. The government and voters have an obligation to protect victims. That means that the hysteria and instances of hyper-punishment surrounding these people will eventually have the opposite effect on sex crime legislation than the hard nosed “lock ‘em up and throw away the key” proponents are fighting for.
What do you think, I.F.? Is it okay to ban sex offenders from their churches and places of worship?
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Interesting article. My opinion? Absolutly it’s ok to ban sex offenders from A-N-Y-W-H-E-R-E they might be a danger to those around them.
To ban someone from church, or other places, I don’t think it’s right to place all sexual offenders in the same boat. There are 1) violent sex offenders, 2) child molesters, and then you have 3) those in the realm of consensual “statutory rape”.
#1 and #2 I think grant them a quick ban on where they can be! and be liberal with the banning. If there are children nearby or at risk, those children should be protected from these convicted offenders.
But what about those in the 3rd group? should they be in the same bucket as the others?
Something to think about.
An Open Letter to Oklahoma’s Churchs and Ministers A Home Missions Project http://tinyurl.com/ylg2gvp
Maybe sex offenders aught to start their own church? I’m sure a few or more pastors would be willing to take turns on alternate Sundays leading them in prayers and teachings of the good Lord.
Good comment IFHS Alum.
I think you are right on in the way you are looking at the situation. Each and every one of these cases has to be in front of a judge at some point. That means that it shouldn’t be a stretch to asses each offender on a case by case basis and issue restrictions accordingly. Also, restrictions can be adjusted as time goes by based on an offender’s behavior and the evaluation of a psychiatrist (or psychologist, or whoever does that sort of thing).
I guess my biggest beef with the whole “banned from chruch” idea is my belief that God can help ANYONE. Of all the places we should ever consider as being off limits for ANY group of people…churches should be last. Maybe the Christian principles that I have learned are different from those of other people, but I’ve been taught that Christ calls for all the heavy laden to come to him for comfort and renewal. That changing power is expressed through the members of his church.
It’s a pretty bleak outlook if a person’s not even welcome in church anymore because of his or her past. That kind of isolation and rejection, in my opinion, will just make people who already have some social adjustment and impulse control disorders even worse. And, what’s next? Are we going to ban anyone that’s ever sold drugs to a child from church? How about people who have stolen before? Maybe it should apply to anyone who has been convicted of child abuse, child endangerment, child neglect, drug use, kidnapping, murder, assault, aggravated assault in the presence of a child, forgery…..get my point?
That’s a good idea. Better yet, let’s ship them all off to an isolated corner of Nevada. They can live in camps, have their own churches, establish their own government, and be prohibited from having children.
How about just recognizing that these are people who are just as deserving of a warm fellowshipping church family as any other sinner? Maybe it would require a bit more vigilance and alertness from members to keep track of where their kids are and who they are with… isn’t that how church goers are supposed to be? Is anyone willing to go just a little bit out of their way to help a soul in need? I don’t want to be the guy that leaves the beaten Jew on the side of the road between Jericho and Jerusalem.
I disagree with your reasoning. #1 and #2 offenders are dangerous. very dangerous, with EXTREMELY SERIOUS consequence to the victims. those types of offenders can have chemical or hormone issues that never get addressed, and can cause them to re-commit those heinous crimes – destroying additional lives.
The examples you gave of “child abuse, child endangerment, child neglect” are seldom done to other’s children, and less likely to be repeat offenders. Other crimes such as drug use are not “against” someone else and sometimes only impact the individual using. And murder, assault, and forgery most often times have a motive. What are the chances the motives will be existent in church? If there is a good chance it would spark a repeat-motive and repeat offense, then I think they should be banned as well.
For the #1 and #2 putting them in a situation that may entice them to re-commit their crime is a dangerous situation. And protecting the children should come first and foremost.
And I think that most who have ever had children that they love would agree with me.
IF someone is deemed unable to attend their normal church (which I support), I don’t think that should prohibit them from receiving religious guidance.
Possibilities
1) Creating a church for them – not a bad idea. (though I don’t know if that’s practical, but maybe it is.)
2) Find or set up a training/instruction for adults only. (I believe there are churches that have adult-only meetings)
3) They could ask for the pastor to give them individual instruction.
4) attend a radio/video church service
5) Personal study. There’s no reason someone cannot dive into the bible (or whatever scriptures they follow) and gain testimony, insight, etc. It might even be more healing/inspirational than listening to a sermon.
There are options. If someone has been deemed a danger to children, they should not be allowed around children!
And we all know that down the line someone can submit for that restriction to be removed if over time they’ve proven they are no longer a threat.
Naw, the do Church by video or telephone won’t work; even if it is LIVE. When you go to Church, you don’t just go to worship the Lord and look good, you go for the interaction.
Most importantly for the interaction.
You can’t interact in person by phone or video. Even sex offenders neeed interaction. They especially need Church and the Lord.
You want the sex offender to rehabilitate? Put him or/and her among healthy people, in a healthy environment. So they can’t be in a church with children. Help them create their own church. Help them rehabilitate.
Help them become the useful, productive human beings they want to be.
Should churches or our federal government be held libel for the murder of sex offenders?
Sex laws have been built on misconceptions and myth.
The Supreme Court just ruled on sex offender laws where some factions of our government think by some inert reasoning that sex offender should be quarantined like some virus steaming from Draconian/Islamic radical view that sex offenders should be executed. I have seen for myself, video taken in another country where a sex offender was placed on a pole much like the Catholics use to use a pyramid shaped object and have them sit on it and spin, the pole travels through the body looking for the throat but if not found its ok because the sharpened end of the pole will come out somewhere to the delight of these very strange people who think such sad thoughts. The heritage of the act is in its self a brutal throwback to violent uneducated people who are so obsessed with any sex they can find & the only way to deal with this kind of “hierarchy” of historic hysteria. A word taken from hysterectomy, hysteria is tied to castration used to make animals less threatening which clearly explains the atmosphere we have made for our selves.
Anyway we are supposed to be the most advanced nation and we still have a death penalty when the rest of the world except for some nations we are still warring with, selling weapons too, {think!} while other nations went home our weapons dealers and torture lovers delighting in support for the death of people they don’t know or want to simply because they don’t know how to get money with out taking it from someone by force. Is that supposed to include mutilations? In my humble opinion that alone are terrorist activities as much as severed hands, ears, heads, or making a case with nothing more than an obsession justified by lies.
The truth about the sex offender registry will come out soon enough. When it does, People will see how the use of the registry was created, and by exactly who and why and the devastation it has created and the worthlessness of the use of it. It’s origin in the Jim Crow hanging laws that brought disgrace to our nation allowing thieves and murderous societal bigots who have trashed any shot at making good of a program in its design to make money destroying our nation and its people. We can not play god and we can not survive using this behavior model because we are compounding the problem since the numbers increasing to include the children they purport to protect.
It’s a ruse designed by people who are getting rich off the doctoring, castration/hysterectomy/health care/physic care of people through sex laws that have gone wild. What about the people who are being used by the Medicare programs that requires these mutilations for both men and woman after they take their means of support? Digging around in someone’s genitalia because you want what a weaker nation? Can’t you see? You have created the model and it is worthless! Why don’t we just indiscriminately kill people we don’t know? That is statically the next sex offender, because over 90% of all new offences are committed by someone “not” on the sex offender registry and the numbers are increasing not decreasing so as a behavior model this is really worthless.
So what is the use of such laws as the sex offender registry other than to terrorize people? With the murder of so many sex offenders and the continued disregard for life by the use of the registry it will be no time at all before the federal government will be held liable for their deaths through federal court.
In a nation where a statement may have a double or triple meaning and our entire linage can be traced through mud, guts, and beer it’s nice once in a while to get the picture of what is meant instead of what some thinks someone may have implied being translated by greed. So it is from the trenches to the hill. Remember the game where someone says something in someone’s ear then passes it the same way to the next; the person advocating such destructive laws are the ones who need to be section 8 by simple brake down of the issue not the sex offenders.
I agree. Putting people with the same kinds of problems together is counterproductive if you are looking for rehabilitation. Surround a struggling individual with healthy well adjusted folks and he’ll feel compelled to change.
In the navy we always used to put the slowest and weakest runner in the front of the formation when we were out for physical training. That’s ’cause the stronger sailors who were in better shape would spur him on and in short order he’d improve. If we had placed him in the back he’d have been easily forgotten and left behind. Why did it matter whether or not that one sailor was in good shape? At sea you never knew who might end up holding your life in his hands.
A 7 year old child was just found dead a couple of days ago in Florida after she’d gone missing when walking home from school. A 9 year old child was found dead in the woods after walking home from a neighbor’s home in Missouri just yesterday or the day before. Our children are being killed by violent sexual predators.
If we don’t protect them no one else will.
it’s not the ones you know of wendy that are dangerous, it is the ones you dont know of are the most dangerous!
and one more thing, is it better for children to be murdered by american military who have set up camp in your country? is that more noble?
yep, oh those kids were killed by americans bombers flying over, but that’s ok, better that than any by anyone else.
So, they weren’t killed by non-violent sex offenders who were trying to put their lives back in order and get closer to God by attending church…right?
I am getting so fed up with this new American political scheme of trying to scare the crap out of people in order to manipulate them into taking a rash and foolish course of action. You wanna know who else uses that tactic? Look at the government run media in extremist Islamic countries.
One crazy person who decides to rape and kill a child does not justify classifying everyone that’s ever committed a crime against a child as a kid killing rapist. Just like one person being convicted of DUI does not mean that every person who drinks and is licensed to drive a car is drunk driver.
Try being logical.
As far as defenseless children go, they are all pretty much dangerous, tweety.
i am disgusted by your answer!! That appears to be a bigoted and racially and ethnically biased comment.
Hey, tweets, you be disgusted all you want. You bare the responsibilities of your self-imposed, shouldered disgust. Meanwhile? I choose to keep pedophiles away from my, and all children. Because the creeps can’t be rehabilitated. I’m not willing to take the chance on any child’s life to give any one of them a chance at rehabilitation. The trade off just isn’t worth it.
it appeared you were talking about the defenseless children of countries that are being bombed by america as dangerous
Why in the world would anyone make such a ridiculous statement?
That is pretty much what you said Wendyjo. I don’t think thats what you meant but if you read your comment right after Tweeties it appears your saying that all Iraqi children are dangerous.
My soon to be born, first grandchild, a little girl, will be an Iraqi American. That’s right. Her mother, my daughter, is a caucasian born and raised in the good ol’ U.S. of A. all American girl. Her father is an Iraqi refugee who’s father and brother was killed by saddamit. He’s also a business man who’s been able to buy his own restaurant and home in Ada County. He hired my daughter to work for him during her first year of college; that’s how they met.
Repeat of history? Sort of. While in college, and about ten years before marrying my daughter’s father, I met, fell in love with and married a young man from Iran. His very wealthy family sent him to America to get his education and get him out of the violence that had infected their entire Country. Why the U.S.A. and especially, why Idaho?
His father was a successful physician in Iran. His mother has a brother in Utah who was a physician that was married to a morman woman. The brother’s wife recommened that they send Bijan and his junior high aged sister to Pocatello, Idaho because ISU had a great ALA (American Language Academy). Bijan and Mojdeh would learn English and their education would only further prosper.
Mojdeh was initially sent to live with her uncle in Utah. She was miserable. Several months after she and her brother has arrived in America and learned to speak English, Bijan and I had met, fell in love and were living together. So Bijan and Mojdeh’s parent’s sent her to live with us.
Happy happy joy joy.
I was like 20 and in my 2nd year of college. What the he11 was I gonna do with a hormonal 14 year old? Apparently live with her. And I did, for more than a year.
So I watched Mojdeh fight with her big brother, Bijan on nearly a daily basis. I refused to take a side. I didn’t know the language. The only thing Mojdeh could tell me is that she needed “money in her pockets.” Okay then, give the child an allowance. I happened to know that their parents had sent more than $100,000.00 to the U.S. of A. for their care and that Bijan had bought a brand new sports car with some of the money.
Make no mistake, he also had a job. Thanks to me he had a green card and we both had student jobs at the university. Still, his little sister needed “pocket money.” For whatever reason their arguments continued and she went to live with her best friend and that girl’s family.
Mojdeh’s parents, supposedly strict Muslims(?), allowed her to go live with Tom and Sandy what’s their names, Catlins, I think?. Their oldest daughter was the best friend of Mojdeh. Their yongest, and only other child/daughter also loved Mojdeh. Tom and Sandy loved Mojdeh too.
The Catlins were all about love. Tom Catlin was all about love. He was a local Pastor of a, a, or heck, it was a presperterian or baptist church. I don’t remember which one. Their church was located on the West side of Pocatello and when their oldest daughter asked if Mojdeh could live with them they didn’t hesitate when saying yes. They really are good people.
I became pregnant with a baby boy but due to an incompetent cervix couldn’t “hold him in” for nine months. I lost him at about six months. Pastor Tom helped me bury my baby boy.
By then Bijan and I were in the middle of divorce proceedings. He didn’t show up for the funeral and burial.
Oh, well.
That was also about the time Mojdeh had graduated from HS and her parents, who still lived in Iran, shipped her off to a different state in the USA to marry a Iranian man she’d never men. They wanted to “save her” from making terrible mistakes that would destroy her.
Like what? Sending her child away at the age of 14, and moving from place to place because she’s hurt and confused?
Today Mojdeh is divorced and lives alone in Germany. She speaks three languages and works for the German Government as her Father’s sister did.
Bijan is an aeronautical engineer, works for NASA and is married to a brilliant oncologist who is a leader in the advances against cancer.
I’m gonna be a grandma.
Let me just say that I know where all of the registered sex offenders live around me, and I know about the ones that are registered that go to church with me. I watch them and my children like a hawk. But what scares me are the ones that I don’t know about. We have done our best to teach our children about child/adult relationships, and what is appropriate and what isn’t. But I do know that as children, they aren’t totally capable of being able to read situations. Evil is disguised very easily. Thankfully, our church does not allow only one adult in a room with children. Like the Boy Scouts, the two deep rule is followed very closely. For children it is very hard when someone who they thought was a friend, an adult that they could trust, hurts them. It is confusing, embarrassing, and just plain awful.
Yes, we need to take precautions, but I do not think that refusing admittance to known pedophiles is the answer. Both my husband and I discuss this subject often. We want to protect our children, but we also want them to have a normal childhood. I think that being more aware of our surroundings and who is in it, will help more than anything.
The days of sending our kids off by themselves to a neighbor’s house to play are over. So many children get kidnapped or hurt when they are by themselves, even if it is just down the street. We have to stop being lazy parents and take the time to either walk or drive them to their friends’ house. We as adults must be the adults.