Christian morality crusader pleads guilty to vile crimes involving kids (again!)
Jason Yates defended "traditional family values"—until investigators found out what was on his hard drive
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Jason Yates was, most recently, the CEO of My Faith Votes, a non-profit group “focused on empowering people of faith to vote in every election.” That organization, while non-partisan, pushed a conservative agenda, claiming that “secular progressives have actively sought to implement a counterfeit worldview at every level of government.” It blamed those secular progressives for “devastating moral decay” and “the erosion of traditional family values.” Hell, Mike Huckabee was the group’s “Honorary National Chairman” before he became Donald Trump’s Ambassador to Israel.
Last July, Yates even wrote an essay for the conservative Washington Times about how children were “being programmed to believe sexually deviant behavior.” He based this on a recent visit to the University of Minnesota for his son’s robotics competition:
We were immediately confronted with posters encouraging children to embrace strange new sexual horizons. They were handing out literature with an agenda to teach him to doubt the link between his mind and body — his self, and his self-image. They offered Levi a rainbow button to wear, encouraging him to declare his gender preferences. Wasn’t this supposed to be a robotics competition?
So… he saw pride merch on a college campus and jumped to the conclusion that The Gays were trying to recruit his son? (These guys will never beat the “weird” charges.)
Anyway, whenever Christians pretend their religion and morality are linked together and that anyone outside the middle of that Venn diagram is inherently immoral, you know how the story turns out.
Last November, Yates was charged with a slew of vile crimes involving children.
According to MinistryWatch:
[Yates] has been charged with eight felony counts of possession of child pornography.
Each of the eight charges, filed in McLeod County, MN, carry a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a fine of $10,000. They note that Yates has a prior conviction and is a registered predatory offender.
That prior conviction, also related to child sexual abuse material (CSAM), had been expunged for reasons that are not apparent.
Court documents revealed a devastating story about how all this was discovered.
A relative was in Yates’ home office looking for a way to store some files. That person came across a portable hard drive in Yates’ dresser and plugged it into their computer… only to realize it contained over 100 “sexually explicit images of children.” After speaking to a trusted friend, that hard drive was turned over to law enforcement. (The document went in sickening, but legally necessary, depth when describing the images and videos. It also mentioned that the victims were allegedly between the ages of 5 and 7.)
At the time, Yates was forbidden from having any contact with anyone under the age of 18. That presumably included his “daughter’s lacrosse team,” which he coached.
Religion News Service got a statement from My Faith Votes shortly after the arrest. The group distanced itself from Yates but failed to note the obvious hypocrisy:
“In early August 2024, the My Faith Votes board of directors separated Jason Yates from My Faith Votes and board member Chris Sadler assumed the position of Acting CEO. Over the last three months Chris has been working with the dedicated My Faith Votes team to encourage millions of Christians to vote, pray and think biblically about this election in America,” a spokesperson for My Faith Votes told RNS in an email.
What about the idea that the head of a Christian organization treating secular progressives as moral degenerates was himself hoarding illicit content involving children? There was no comment on that.
RNS also noted that Yates’ initial hearing occurred shortly before My Faith Votes “held an online pre-election prayer event, urging listeners to vote for candidates who support Christian values.”
The same people who were elevating a lying, racist, sex predator for president were fresh off of being led by an alleged child sex predator.
And now, to no one’s surprise, Yates has accepted a guilty plea on two of the charges.
According to the legal filing, Yates agreed to plead guilty to two counts of “Possession of Pornographic Work Involving Minors - Under 14.” By doing that, the others six (identical) charges would be dismissed. That would allow him to spend a total of 240 days in jail—no more—with supervised probation for up to five years. He would not be allowed to view any adult content online and software would be installed on his computer to make sure that doesn’t happen. He promised to undergo a “psychosexual evaluation.” He would also be a registered sex offender and forbidden from having contact with girls under the age of 14. Finally, he would pay a bond of $100,000.
If he didn’t take that plea deal, the 56-year-old Yates faced a possible prison sentence of up to 10 years.
Yates is neither a drag queen nor a trans person. Which you knew but it’s still important to point that out.
A day after Yates filed his guilty plea, My Faith Votes published an article urging Christians to contact lawmakers to vote against the Equality Act, which they (falsely) claimed would “allow pedophiles to become a ‘protected class.’”
I can’t tell if that’s the result of a giant lack of self-awareness… or a desire to pretend their former leader isn’t a Christian sex predator who’s far more dangerous than law-abiding LGBTQ people.
At what point will any of these Christian organizations reckon with the fact that the biggest threats to children are often in positions of power within religious organizations and not in the crowd of people fighting for civil rights and social justice, or reading books to children in libraries, or flying rainbow flags?
Yates will be formally sentenced on Sept. 29.
(Portions of this article were published earlier)
People worry about drag queens having access to children for the very public story hour but then they let their kids see the priest in private. When can they get it through their heads that the person you need to watch, to be suspicious of, is someone who 𝑣𝑜𝑙𝑢𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑒𝑟𝑠 to 'counsel' children privately? Not someone who reads to kids publicly.
“Each of the eight charges, filed in McLeod County, MN, carry a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a fine of $10,000. They note that Yates has a prior conviction and is a registered predatory offender.”
See, this 👆🏼is the problem right here. A MAXIMUM sentence of 10 years in prison. First of all, this is a joke, as evidenced by the fact that he is already a registered sex offender that has done no time. If they would throw these skeevy muthafucka’s in jail forever, after their initial crime, we might see a reduction in predatory behavior towards our children. But noooooooo!