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How hard is it to find a conservative Christian pastor who isn’t problematic?
Recently, at a campaign event, North Carolina Republican Senate candidate Michael Whatley had Pastor Daimon L. King deliver the opening prayer. The prayer itself was predictably hypocritical, with King calling for “integrity and honesty” in a room full of voters who don’t care about either one.
But that’s not why the event made news. After the event, the Associated Press’ Brian Slodysko pointed out that King was a registered child sex offender who’s gone to prison two separate times for his crimes.
While there’s no video of the campaign event, Whatley posted a video from the event in which King could be seen giving a double thumbs-up behind Whatley and Dr. Mehmet Oz.
So what did King do that everyone organizing the event decided to ignore?
Some 30 years ago, King was a marching band assistant at a high school outside Raleigh when he was charged with statutory rape and indecent liberties with a 15-year-old student, The News & Observer reported at the time. King, then 31, was convicted in 1998 and served nearly five years in prison before being paroled, according to state department of corrections records.
In 2010, he pleaded guilty to having sex with an underage female relative and served close to three years in prison, state records show.
King is required under North Carolina law to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.
Nothing like a sex predator to tell Republicans about honor and integrity…
It’s not like any of this was a secret, though! This is information organizers could have discovered via an online search, but all of that was ignored, perhaps because King leads New Beginnings Celebration church, served as precinct chairman in the Craven County Republican Party (which put together this event), and is a Black MAGA shill. They thought the optics would work to their benefit. Now it’s backfired for an obvious reason: A guy who constantly talks about Jesus turned out to be someone you can’t leave your children with.
King’s church posted about the event the next day, saying the “atmosphere was charged with prayer and patriotism” and that “We fully support and are behind our US candidates, [House candidate] Col. [Laurie] Buckhout and Mr. Whatley.”
With supporters like that…
Whatley’s campaign denies having anything to do with selecting King to speak at the event, blaming everything on the Craven County organizers. But it doesn’t help that Whatley is already trying to distance himself from a different incident in which he was tied to a sex predator. When he served as head of the North Carolina GOP, one of his key leaders was Harvey L. West Jr., a congressional district committee chair, who had previously pleaded guilty to “five counts of indecent liberties with a child and served six years in prison.” He continued to be involved with the state’s Republican Party until they finally passed a rule banning convicted sex offenders from their leadership roles. Which is a rule they somehow needed to pass.
Ironically, West of all people says he raised red flags about the party having any kind of working relationship with King:
West also said he was familiar with King’s convictions and warned others in the party about associating with the pastor when he was considered for a GOP position. “I just said, ‘Hey, y’all might want to take a look at this,’” said West.
So a convicted sex offender warned Republicans against working with another convicted sex offender in order to help out the guy who downplayed his connections to the first convicted sex offender. All to help out the party that’s covered up the Epstein files.
All of this is another self-inflicted disaster for Whatley, who’s running to keep a Senate seat in Republican control. Democrat Roy Cooper, the state’s former governor, has a sizable polling lead over Whatley in what’s supposed to be a very close race.
It also raises a question of why voters should trust a party that cares this little about the safety of children. It seems that if you have a R(ev) before your name or an R after it, everything else can slide.
These are the people whom the overwhelming majority of white evangelicals Christians support.
But God's forgiveness yadda yadda bucks & votes something quantum redo from start.
I will keep saying this until it becomes popularized: you CANNOT support (or vote for) authoritarian power structures without also supporting (and voting for) abuse, including sexual abuse.
Authoritarian power structures, including hierarchies built on money, power, race, gender, religion, or any other factor, are the perfect environment in which abuse can thrive. Unearned power, trust, and authority, people taught obedience and respect for authority, people dehumanized and objectified, cult-like structures to control people... you are begging for predators and malignant personalities to come in and abuse people.
Once otherwise decent people commit to supporting authoritarianism, they have compromised with evil and will find themselves crossing lines to justify their support, often engaging in victim blaming rather than admitting that they were wrong.