CONservative family values: the Republican *Christian* way.

The MASSIVE cognitive dissonance in US right-wing neo-CON politics lumbers on, like a huge prehistoric creature whose dysfunctional actions signal the ongoing extinction of its species.

First, this:

The son of Arizona's Senate president confessed that he and another counselor shoved broomsticks and flashlights into the rectums of 18 boys in at least 40 incidents at a youth camp in June.

Now Yavapai County prosecutors say they will drop all but one assault charge and likely recommend little or no jail time if 18-year-old Clifton Bennett agrees to plead guilty.

A similar agreement has been offered to co-defendant Kyle Wheeler, 19, who faces an additional assault charge for choking three of the boys until they passed out.

The plea agreements were first presented in court last week and could be completed at a hearing Monday.

Prosecuting attorney James Landis explained the plea agreement in court, saying the "broomsticking" was a hazing ritual and a punishment, not sexual assault.

But legal experts, sex-crimes prosecutors and victims'-rights lawyers say the acts clearly fit the definition of sexual assault.

The pleas, which describe the assault charge as "a non-dangerous, non-repetitive offense," have outraged parents who say their sons were victims of violent sexual attacks. The boys, who were 11 to 14 years old at the time, have had trouble going to the bathroom, sleep with clothes on, are afraid at night, and have undergone sexual-assault counseling. [...]

Lawyers for [Clifton] Bennett [...] described Bennett as an honor student and active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, planning to go on a mission in September. "A felony conviction for assault will make his desire to complete his mission impossible," they wrote.

The outcome:

A judge on Friday sentenced the son of Arizona Senate President Ken Bennett to 30 days in jail and his fellow counselor to 45 days for a series of hazings at a youth camp near Prescott last June.

Clifton Bennett, 18, and fellow counselor Kyle Wheeler, 19, admitted to abusing 18 boys ages 11 to 14 — who had been hand-picked for a weeklong leadership camp — by poking them in the rear end with broomsticks, a flashlight and a cane as a punishment or just because they were in a bad mood. [...]

More than a dozen victims' parents spoke, calling the hazing sexual assault and molestation despite findings by state experts that there was no sexual intent behind the "broomings."

Both sides of the case expressed disappointment with the sentence. Family members and victims called it too lenient and said Bennett got a deal because of his father's position, while Bennett's family said he was treated with more scrutiny because of his father.

Bennett and Wheeler had each been charged with 18 counts of kidnapping and 18 counts of aggravated assault. Bennett was allowed to plead guilty to one assault charge while Wheeler pleaded guilty to two charges. Prosecutors dropped the other charges.

Notice the change in language from one media report to the other. Actions that were violent, forced upon children, invasive of their bodies and caused them damage and harm, are now described as "a poke in the rear end".

Did Jerry Sandusky use similar innocuous words to defend his behaviour when (or more likely if) Penn State football coach Paterno questioned him?

Afterward, Bennett and his father left the courthouse from the back to avoid media attention.

When reporters caught up with them, the elder Bennett said his son had made an unfortunate decision.

When asked how he felt about the sentence, Bennett said: "How would you feel if your son were going to jail?"

The families will probably launch civil suits. Clearly none of them gravitate in the exalted, privileged circles of political and oligarchal power that the Bennetts do.

The above is a photograph of serial sexual abuser Clifton Bennett.

I fear this man will re-offend, and he'll use the considerable resources at his disposal to avoid any form of accountability. This experience has probably also taught him how not to get caught, next time. Leave no witnesses.

ADDED: The Daily KOS nails it.

[...] when your son brutally traumatizes a bunch of 11 to 14 year-olds, you don’t whine about the sentence. You are down on your hands and knees begging forgiveness from the victims, for maybe having failed to meet your obligations as a parent.

But the overlords of Happy Valley – whether it’s a college campus or the state of Arizona - never teach this kind of accountability to their children because they don’t face it themselves. Their money, their connections, their fame, their manipulation of the system mean never, ever having to say they’re sorry and actually mean it, let alone pay an appropriate price for what they do.

I don’t want these people anywhere in or near the White House. Because they are the kind of people who will steal your children’s clean water for their fracking profits. They will let your children go to bed hungry and come to school hungry, so they can get another $150,000 off their taxes. And they will send your children to die in Iraq, or Iran, or wherever the next trumped-up conflict is, so they can continue to profit from war.

Amen.

The Catholic Church Fades into . . . Lunacy?

As the Excited States continue their Swift Spiral into Stoopitude over abortion (I've got a doozy coming up from Nebraska and JJ reports on the recent cruel idiocy in Utah), here's some good news from Spain.

Spain on Wednesday approved a sweeping new law that eases restrictions on abortion, declaring the practice a woman's right and doing away with the threat of imprisonment, in part of a drive toward liberal policies that has angered conservatives and the Catholic Church.

The new law allows the procedure without restrictions up to 14 weeks and gives 16- and 17-year-olds the right to have abortions without parental consent. The senate's passage of the bill Wednesday gives it final approval.

The bill brings the country in line with its more secular neighbors in northern Europe is the latest of a series of bold social reforms undertaken by Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who first took office in 2004 and has ruffled feathers among many in the traditionally Catholic country.

While about 100,000 Spanish women a year have been getting around the law by using a mental health exception, technically they still faced prison.

The Catlick Church is really, really pissed, but won't take action against King Juan Carlos when he signs the new law.

From the above link, the story of how another weaselly monarch got out of a similar sticky wicket in Belgium in 1990.

Saying his [King Baudouin's] conscience and Catholic faith would not allow him to sign the [abortion] bill, he worked out an agreement with parliament allowing him to resign for less than 48 hours. During his temporary abdication, the country's council of ministers assumed the king's powers and signed the bill. Parliament then reinstated the king.

It seems people everywhere -- except the Excited States of course -- are blithely ignoring Christo-talibanny edicts and temper tantrums.

And here's another breath-taking demonstration of the Church's increasingly desperate efforts to hang on to power maintain its influence. It's hooking up with the Mormons.

Francis Eugene George is not just a cardinal. He is also president of the United States conference of catholic bishops and sets the tone and direction for church policy and position in the country. His comments, therefore, on the positive attributes of the Church of Latter-day Saints (LDS), more commonly known as Mormons, seem surprising given the enormous theological and demographic differences between the two groups. Or do his words herald a spirit of co-operation among disparate religious movements in the fight against secularism?

Last Tuesday, in a speech called Catholics and Latter-day Saints: partners in the defence of religious freedom, he told an audience that Catholics and Mormons must stand together as a "vital bulwark" against those who wanted to "reduce religion to a purely private reality". The LDS church has proved its mettle in contentious areas. Were it not for their involvement in Proposition 8, there is every chance the same-sex marriage ban in California would not have been passed. Noting their ability to mobilise member support around issues that also concern Catholics, Cardinal George praised Mormons for their work to protect the rights of those who did not want to participate in abortion or assisted suicide and to defend marriage as a heterosexual institution. "When the government fails to protect the consciences of its citizens, it falls to religious bodies to defend them," he said. He also claimed that Catholics and Mormons shared more than a common understanding of religious freedom: they enjoyed a common experience of growing from a small, sometimes persecuted, religious minority to larger communities of 67 million Catholics and about six million Mormons.

But it's disingenuous of George to play up the similarities. Catholicism has been part of the US landscape for a lot longer than the LDS church. Immigrant communities ensure that the religion, its values and institutions, survive and evolve. It is the majority Christian movement in the US, boasting a profile and privilege that other denominations do not. And then there's the church's 2007 statement, which reasserted the universal primacy of Roman Catholicism.

So why the cosying up? There is an increasingly secular mood in the US and religious groups are all too aware of it. The Roman Catholic hierarchy knows it cannot rely solely on its congregations to campaign on touchstone issues and a "vital bulwark" – in the shape of the devout, wealthy and organised LDS church – is just what's needed to help it.

Yes. An alliance with a virulently homophobic, misogynist cult is just what the Catlicks need. (Just for fun, I googled 'Mormon cult' and got over a million hits.)

Mormons and Catlicks, oh my. Who's next? Scientologists?