Police said that they had received a number of complaints about Gonzalez’s business, accusing him of using social network services and email to contact underage girls for his websites and sexual purposes.

Gonzalez admitted to police that he knew the ages of the 16 and 17-year-old victims before he made deals. He was arrested on suspicion of sexual exploitation involving minors, furnishing obscene material to minors, sexual misconduct with minors and sexual abuse.

Harrassed

Gonzalez, as multiple sources have confirmed to Phoenix’s New Times, is the main recruiter for the website Backroom Casting Couch, one of the websites which Gonzalez tried to lure underage girls into appearing on, and its ‘star’, herpe-plagued Eric Whitaker,

According to court documents obtained by New Times, in April of 2010, Gonzalez invited a 17-year-old girl to his house at 8854 South Grandview Drive in Tempe, Arizona, to pose for photographs she could use in a portfolio.

During the shoot, Gonzalez tried to pull the girl’s skirt down and asked her take some nude photos. The girl declined, but that didn’t stop ‘Gonzo’. Despite the girl shooting down his advances, Gonzalez pulled her onto his lap and tried to untie the bikini top she was wearing. She again told him she wasn’t interested, yet after getting shot down twice by the girl, Gonzalez, court documents state, ‘forced the girl’s hand onto his erect penis.’

The girl again told him she wasn’t interested in anything sexual. Gonzalez responded by taking the girl to his computer and showing her photos of him having sex with a girl the victim knew to be under 19. In fact, it turns out the girl in the photos having sex with Gonzalez was only 16 at the time

Google Search Results

 
Tricked
Another victim of Gonzalez and Whitaker’s is Elizabeth Hawkenson, who  agreed to do some modeling so she could pay for school at Arizona State University, but was hounded about how much more money she could make if she made a ‘reality’ porn film with Whitaker.

Hawkenson finally agreed — on the condition that the video would only appear on the part of the website people had to pay to see, with the assumption that not too many people would ever see it, but the video of Whitaker having sex with Hawkenson was submitted to free, highly trafficked porn sites.

The humiliation, she says, was so embarrassing that she dropped out of school after only a few weeks and left Arizona for good. Her video, however, lives on at the Backroom Casting Couch website.

Infected

Eric Whitaker, the ‘star’ of Backrooom Casting Couch, posted on his Twitter page last month the results of his STD test, revealing that he tested positive for herpes simplex I — the more common of the two types of the virus.

Knowingly transmitting an STD — in most states — is illegal, and anyone who does so can be criminally charged with battery, negligence, or the intentional inflection of emotional distress.

Arizona is not one of those states. However, ‘courts may consider the intentional transmission of an STD to be an aggravated assault’ in states like Arizona, and have done so recently in Texas.

This post was sourced from adult industry news site xbiz.com and http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com. It is noticably missing from major news outlets.

It’s a wonderful, prophetic call to love the prostitute, and to recognise our own part in her situation. Though he writes regarding the prostitute, it equally refers to all sex workers, including porns ‘stars’

‘It is not the prostitute who is unthinkable. She is only the tragic figure in the centre of a devil’s drama. It is society’s attitude to her that is unthinkable. By men she is used for their pleasure then despised and scorned. By women, she is held an outcast, and yet she is the main buttress of the immunity of ordinary women from danger and temptation. She is the creation of men who traffic in lust and yet is held shameless by her patrons. She is the product of the social sins for which we are all ‘responsible, and yet is considered the most sinful of us all.

…

‘And she exists because men say they must indulge their passions and women believe it. She is the incarnation not of her own but of society’s shame. She is the scapegoat for thousands who live on in careless comfort. Every man who touches her pushes her farther down, and our hollow pretence of social morality is built upon her quivering body.

‘Will you men who read this please think about her? Think till you are horrified, disgusted and ashamed. Think till you realise this unthinkable thing. And then remember that she exists only because of us. We as a sex have created this infamy. We as a sex still continue to condone it.

And there is only one cure for it. It is that we should stop uttering or even believing the lie that we must indulge our passions, and should act upon the truth that continence outside marriage is perfectly possible, and that we owe it to women, to ourselves, and to God to achieve it.’

Much has been written and said concerning the ‘missionary message for today’. Varied opinions have been expressed as to what ‘approach’ should be made to win the non-Christian world to Christ. Some of the opinions have been offered by swivel-chair missionaries in offices in New York, or professors in American theological seminaries. Sometimes we are told that the approach must be through social uplift, sometime through agricultural improvement, sometimes by cultural exchange, sometimes by loving service. All these efforts have their values and their influences. But nearly forty years of close acquaintance with the Christians of Korea, living in their mud-walled homes, eating at their tables, often wearing their style of clothing, worshipping with them, praying with them, conducting thousands of ‘examinations’ for baptism, teaching them the Word in their own tongue and watching their faces, hearing them sing their favourite hymns, hearing them pour out their souls in their daybreak prayer meetings, have convinced me that the message that really grips the heart, that sends them to prisons, to beatings with joyfulness, to death or to witness to their fellow countrymen, to build their thatched-roofed and beer-can-roofed churches, is the message that gripped Suh, the same message that gripped the great heart of Paul. ‘He loved me, and gave Himself for me.’

No.

No more.

We will not be dragged backwards. We will not let the good name of our Province be used as a byword for terrorism no more. We will not stand idle while bastards try to rip down our peace, we will not simply watch as they indoctrinate children and rape this country of its fragile unity. We will not be known as the generation who allowed this to return

Nor will we retaliate.

We will let these cowards know that there is no home here for their attitudes, no refuge for their methods.

Key points

- 38% of respondents identified themselves as neither Unionist or Nationalist (49% in the 16-34 age group)

- NI has a lower level of political activists (9%) than GB (11%)

- Only 40% are interested in The Assembly and only 25% know a fair bit about it.  40% couldn’t name one of their local MLAs

- Only around half say that they are very likely to vote in the next election

There is an unsurprising disparity in terms of age:

- 23% of 16-34 year olds said they were fairly or very interested in The Assembly, compared with 50% of over 45s

- 15% of 16-34 year olds said they know a fair amount about The Assembly compared with 34% for over 55s

- 13% of 16-34 year olds have contacted an MLA since the 2007 elections, compared with 20% of over 35s

So, it seems that in Northern Ireland, we’re disinterested in mainstream politics, and that our young adults are even more so.

But are we ignoring ‘Big P’ Politics (party politics) in favour of ‘small p’ politics (protests, petitions and facebook groups)?

Are we apathetic? Or alienated?

Today’s bold headline in the Daily Mail lambasts George Osborne’s decision in yesterday’s Comprehensive Spending Review to hit the UN target of 0.7% of Britain’s national income to Foreign Aid.

Among all the stories of job losses, pupil premiums, the pension age and police funding, this is what the Mail decided to headline with.

Criticising the decision to honour the UN’s goal and to help other countries who really know what poverty is, is pathetic.  The tone is playground stuff, wailing ‘Why should other people benefit while we suffer? It’s not fair!’

Let’s not forget why many of these countries are underdeveloped.  A people colonised, abused, manipulated and traded as slaves, then left largely to look after themselves.  Sorry, you mentioned something about fair?

The Coalition have got this one right and I applaud them for it

Indeed, a true bigot would surely want the system to stay the same with Catholic children educated in Catholic schools and Protestant children educated in state (but by default Protestant) schools.

There are a number of problems with the current system.  Robinson has correctly pointed out, as I have been harping on about for years, that the current system creates segregated education which, as he terms it ‘benign apartheid’.  I’ve always wondered if we would believe America was past racism if children of different colour were educated in different schools, and yet in NI we expect to transcend sectarianism while children of different religious backgrounds are educated separately.

Indeed it isn’t until a child is 16 and entering the workplace, or 18 and entering third level education, that they are exposed to significant numbers of the religious community which they have had minimal contact with.  By that time the opinions of their peers and their parents have taken root, and, if not sectarianism then certainly suspicion has taken root.  I’ve seen it, I’ve been a part of it, and I want nothing to do with a system which educates children separately based on their religion.

It is especially dangerous for this generation who are not offered the same opportunities for cross community projects that children were ten years ago.

There’s also the problem of what is being taught – I remember a teacher in my state/protestant school teaching Irish history with a certain bias, knowing she had a certain audience.

Robinson has said the right thing, and whilst it holds power coming from the First Minister, the Catholic community need to hear it from one of their own, otherwise it might justbe spun by nationalists as a bigoted diatribe or a hypocritical ideal (like here, for example)

The SDLP need to really think about their beliefs on this one.  SF won’t back it, but Ritchie et al need to reflect the ethos of a party that did so much for NI in moving towards a shared community.

I’m not sure what I’ll call this blog post, but I’m sure I’ll think of something profound by the end of it. These past six months I’ve been struck by the Bible’s attitude to sin, which seems to call for us not to focus on defeating sin, but to focus on God, which will in turn, sour the seduction of sin.

Let’s see.

Galatians 5: 16-24

So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature … if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.

The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.  But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

Romans 6: 11-13

Count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus … Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness.

2 Timothy 2: 22

Flee the evil desires of youth, and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.

Romans 12: 2 & 21

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind / Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Romans 13: 12-14

So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature

1 Corinthians 6: 16-18

Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.” But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit.

Ephesians 5: 18

Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit

And so…

And so, time after time after time, God is saying through His Word, don’t simply strive not to sin, but seek the Spirit.

Don’t settle for purity, don’t settle for anything less than the fullness of God’s goodness.

Don’t preach morality, tell them of life in the Spirit.

Don’t offer yourselves to sin, offer yourselves to God

Don’t flee only to fail again, flee to God and to His paths!

Live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.

So what is sin?

Is it bad stuff? Wrong stuff?

Well, yes.  But are these verses saying it’s more than that?

That sin is something that is chosen over God, and not alongside him?

That sin is when we exchange the opportunity to fellowship with the Holy Spirit for what our sinful nature wants?

Have we simplified sin to breaking God’s moral code?

What about the bit about the broken relationship with him?

What about the moment where we choose to call an old girlfriend instead of going home to our wives, i.e. when we follow our old self, and do not choose to live in our new, true identity.

What is it not to sin?

By implication of these verses, we’re not simply to not sin, to merely obey God’s moral code.

We are to live in His Spirit, to walk with His Spirit and to clothes ourselves in Christ.

It’s the difference between living and being alive.

See also: Colossians 3, 1 Thessalonians 4

History is neither a whore nor, indeed, a goddess. Clio can make no promises and take no bribes. She merely records modestly and reluctantly what crimes are committed in her name – E.H. Gombrich (1970)

I found this a while ago, but thought I would share it. For me it is a wonderful encapsulation of how History ought to be treated, with respect and not manipulation.

How does it affect the ceremony?

Should there be more praise songs?  Should there be a space for people to lay hands on the couple and pray for them? Should there be more of a focus on God?

How does it affect the reception?

Should you have one?  Is it justifiable to spend that amount of money?  Jesus enjoyed feasts and parties, but what about his teaching on humility? If you decide to be more humble in it, how do you do that in such a way that people don’t think the people paying for it are tight, or that you’re tacky? Should you care? What about cars, photographers, videographers, disco-ographers?

How does affect your wedding list?

What is the theology of wedding lists?  Is it right to have a list of presents and ask people to buy them for you?  Should you ask people to donate to charity instead?  A mixture of charity and presents?

Interestingly, most people, whether of faith or not seem to begin their wedding journey with a strong desire that their wedding be different, or better, than others they have attended. However, the set up of it all seems to be geared towards a mould, a very workable enjoyable mould, but dare you step out of that? Is it wise? Is it more hassle?

Where are the discussions going on on this?