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To Jerry Falwell Jr Hiring a Coach Who Allegedly Condoned and Covered Up Brutal Gang Rape is Fine

To Jerry Falwell Jr Hiring a Coach Who Allegedly Condoned and Covered Up Brutal Gang Rape is Fine

Last updated on: December 3, 2016 at 12:44 pm by Frank Schaeffer

To Jerry Falwell Jr Hiring a Coach Who Allegedly Condoned and Covered Up Brutal Gang Rape is Fine 2016-12-03T12:44:00-07:00 Frank Schaeffer

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The Rape of the Sabine Women, Piazza della Signoria, Florence (Photo Wikipedia)

When a Liberty student penned an editorial critical of Trump for the campus newspaper, Falwell censored it. Now that Falwell has hired a new football coach —Ian McCaw–accused of covering up gang rape of women at Baylor U, Liberty U’s Facebook page is filled with enraged comments.

Falwell offered “explanations” on the university’s website. Liberty had conducted an “investigation,” he claimed. He’d found that McCaw was a fine and wonderful Christian man, not a protector of of brutal gang rapists. Far from being pushed out of Baylor for condoning rape, women molesting and multiple crimes allegedly committed by his players, Falwell said, McCaw’s “decision to resign was his own choice.”

Falwell’s claim flies in the face of media reports and the views of Baylor. It appears to be a Trumpian lie. In fact the way Jerry Falwell Jr is talking about how he went about hiring McCaw puts him into Trump’s p—y grabbing league of wink-wink-nod-nod, boys will be boys rape “locker room” culture. It also makes him a Trump-sized prevaricator.

Trump and Falwell: one bragged about criminally assaulting women, the other hired someone who likes winning football games more than protecting women from gang rape. To Trump assaulting women is okay if you are famous. To Falwell it’s apparently okay if it wins football games for … the cause of Christ.

Baylor regents told The Wall Street Journal that 17 women had reported domestic violence or sexual assaults that involved 19 football players since 2011, including four gang rapes, and told The Dallas Morning News that the school was reviewing about 125 cases of sexual assault or harassment campus-wide.

Art Briles was fired in May, and McCaw “resigned.” The scandal also led to the demotion of school president Kenneth Starr, who later resigned.

Most Americans now know Falwell Jr has hit rock bottom. This is the man who talked his students into carrying loaded weapons in case “the Muslims come here.” This is the evangelical leader who led the gullible and frankly stupid to the Trump tower of lies and abuse. Now Falwell is standing up proudly … with a campus rape-culture facilitator.

I remember preaching from his dad’s pulpit. Jerry Sr. lent me his jet when I was in the religious right back in the 1970s and early 80s. Even Jerry Sr — former segregationist and fundraising shill notwithstanding — would have paused before endorsing the lying sociopath showman and international conman Trump and positively thrown up at the idea of condoning gang rape by hiring someone who apparently did just that.. for football!

As the New York Times reported in “At Liberty University, All Sins Are Forgiven on the Altar of Greed” (MICHAEL POWELL DEC. 3, 2016) Liberty University just announced that it hired Ian McCaw, a “godly man of excellent character,” as its athletic director. The Times continues:

Liberty, which bills itself as the world’s largest Christian university, has large appetites, and it desires to vault into the big time. And McCaw, a man with the angular build and cobalt blue-eyed intensity of an ultramarathon runner, has achieved much success in his three decades in college sports.

“My vision for Liberty is to position it as a pre-eminent Christian athletic program in America,” McCaw said during a news conference in Lynchburg.

McCaw is well acquainted with Christian athletics. In May, he left his job as the athletic director at Baylor, another eminent Christian university. His departure followed a devastating investigation that found that the leaders of the football team and the athletic department had looked away when told of multiple gang rapes and sexual assault….

…Liberty plays football in Division I’s second rung. The university is run by Jerry Falwell Jr., a godly sort who understands the need for occasional accommodation with the secular world. Earlier this year he strolled around the Republican National Convention with his candidate, Donald J. Trump, a thrice-married man whom numerous women have accused of sexually harassing them.

This did not please Liberty’s students, who are expected to abide by the Liberty Way, which sets strict personal guidelines including, but not limited to, no NC-17 movies, no face piercings, no naughty music, and absolutely no canoodling, such as hanging out alone with a person of the opposite sex. Getting caught in a “state of undress” with the opposite sex is good for a $250 fine and 18 hours of community service.

“If he made any mistakes at Baylor,” Falwell said — let us pause here to appreciate his use of the conditional — “they appear to be technical and unintentional.”

As the Times points out, at this point, it’s worth recalling the summary that Baylor provided about its confidential investigation. The law firm Pepper Hamilton, which oversaw the inquiry, said it had found that the “the choices made by football staff and athletics leadership, in some instances, posed a risk to campus safety and the integrity of the University.”Sign Up

The football team existed in the same hermetic world found at too many top college programs. This, the report found, “reinforces the perception” — and, of course, the reality — “that rules applicable to other students are not applicable to football players.”

McCaw, who had spoken of his hand-in-glove working relationship with Briles, oversaw all of this! When Briles chose to bring in Sam Ukwuachu, a talented defensive end who transferred from Boise State, all involved should have known his background.

According to the Times, at 6 feet 4 and 220 pounds, Ukwuachu was a terror to opposing quarterbacks, “and to women with the misfortune to make his acquaintance.”

At Boise State, he was found to have beaten a former girlfriend. He was nonetheless welcomed at Baylor! While forgoing football for the year required of athletic transfers, he sexually assaulted a freshman soccer player.

According to Texas Monthly, Baylor officials made a few not-so-pointed inquiries and then… cleared Ukwuachu!

The Times sports writer continues:

As my colleague Joe Nocera has pointed out, reporters the next year asked why Ukwuachu was still sitting out during games. A university spokesman mumbled something about issues.

Ukwuachu was later sentenced to six months in jail and 10 years’ probation.

No good actors can be divined here. Our two Christian universities cannot even settle on a single narrative. Falwell claimed that McCaw had been beloved at Baylor and that his departure “was in no way a forced resignation or firing.”

Baylor’s interim president, David E. Garland, told a very different story to USA Today last month than Falwell tells. Garland is clear: he removed the coach. Garland said “When you remove the president, the athletic director, and a successful and beloved football coach, I think there’s incredible accountability.”

In other words Baylor it seems thinks they fired the rape-condoning coach Jerry Jr loves. No matter, Falwell’s greed to play in the big time football world means that for Jesus’ team to win certain Trump-style lies seem if not godly then necessary to God’s greater glory.

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Frank Schaeffer is a writer. His latest book —WHY I AM AN ATHEIST WHO BELIEVES IN GOD: How to give love, create beauty and find peace

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Please read about my journey through then out of the religious right and Republican Party.

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