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Claiming Trans People Are Sex Offenders, Pastors' Spokesperson Turns Out To Be Serial Rapist
http://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/davidbadash/convicted_serial_rapist_is_spokesperson_for_pastors_fighting_lgbt_nondiscrimination_billEureka Springs, Arkansas has a population of just 2073. One of the area's local businesses, a passion play recreating the last support and the crucifixion of Jesus, has a theater that seats twice that number. The area is known for its reputed healing springs, its religious extremists, and its LGBT community.
It's not surprising that the town council passed a bill to protect its LGBT citizens from discrimination, and it's not surprising that local pastors and conservatives teamed up to fight the ordinance as if it were the battle of Jericho. They also claim the bill would dissuade Christians from visiting the town, harming its tourism industry....
But the group that released the video included a local pastor who, as the Arkansas Times first reported today, "is a convicted serial rapist."
"Acra Lee Turner, 60, currently serves as a pastor of Penn Memorial Baptist Church in Eureka Springs," David Koon at the Arkansas Times reports today. "In an interview with the Times, he confirmed that he is the same Acra Lee Turner who, as a 22-year-old man, was convicted of three counts of rape in Stephens County near Lawton, Okla. In April 1977, he was sent to prison for three concurrent sentences of 30 to 60 years for those crimes, including — according to this story from an Oklahoma newspaper — the rape of an 80-year old woman who was beaten so badly that she was almost unrecognizable."
It's not surprising that the town council passed a bill to protect its LGBT citizens from discrimination, and it's not surprising that local pastors and conservatives teamed up to fight the ordinance as if it were the battle of Jericho. They also claim the bill would dissuade Christians from visiting the town, harming its tourism industry....
But the group that released the video included a local pastor who, as the Arkansas Times first reported today, "is a convicted serial rapist."
"Acra Lee Turner, 60, currently serves as a pastor of Penn Memorial Baptist Church in Eureka Springs," David Koon at the Arkansas Times reports today. "In an interview with the Times, he confirmed that he is the same Acra Lee Turner who, as a 22-year-old man, was convicted of three counts of rape in Stephens County near Lawton, Okla. In April 1977, he was sent to prison for three concurrent sentences of 30 to 60 years for those crimes, including — according to this story from an Oklahoma newspaper — the rape of an 80-year old woman who was beaten so badly that she was almost unrecognizable."
The odd thing is, he's African American. When I used to spend summers in Eureka back in the '70s and '80s, the AA population of Carroll County, of which Eureka is the co-seat, was one -- a mixed-race boy who lived with his mom. Now they have a black pastor, even if he is a bigot.
