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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023

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but it remains a problem

The problem was blown out of proportion to an absurd extent. If you're bothered by what's going on in the Catholic church, you should be livid at what's going on in public schools.

I never claimed it was a bigger problem than what goes on in public schools or the BSA or whoever else.

The problem was blown out of proportion to an absurd extent.

Numerically, maybe. A bigger problem is that the offending priests were moved rather than removed. The corruption went pretty high in an organization meant to be better than that.

When someone says "rampant" I tend to think of the issue is indeed numeric in nature.

That's true. I do think "rampant" also has an emotional meaning though of just "much more frequent than it should be."

Do the public schools have a similar history of using institutional power and processes to protect chronic abusers, conceal abuse, and lean on victims to keep silent?

Yes.

This response made me laugh so hard (in agreement).

Might we share the joke?

There's not really a joke per se, but I found the directness and bluntness of the response to your (kinda gotcha) question amusing, and felt a bit like stating the obvious.

Yes, of course public school have used their institutional power to cover up scandals that occur within their institutions.

Eh, it as a genuine question. I hate the public school system and am entirely ready to believe accusations against them; I would like some evidence to base the belief on, though. I can totally believe that covering up molestation is something they'd do, but I've seen actual evidence of it for the Catholic Church, and I haven't seen any of the same scope for the public schools.

and I haven't seen any of the same scope for the public schools

Depends on whether or not you accept pushing weird sex stuff in classrooms and "don't worry, we'll help fix your sexuality so that your big, bad parents won't know" as being molestation.

Personally, if micro-aggression is how [the public schools and those that agree with the weird sex stuff] in aggregate want to judge the world, I fail to see how their actions don't count as micro-molestations.

Sort of?

Look, I'm not defending the Church here, I just think the focus this issue gets is ridiculously disproportionate.

The question was genuine, I have no idea what the correct answer is in the case of the schools, but it seems like a relevant question. Thanks for the info!