There is a subreddit I follow called Clown Arrested. It's exactly what you might think.

Vetted headlines about clowns being arrested with most headlines about child sex abuse.

Headlines like birthday clown charged with possession of child pornography or circus sued over coverup of alleged sex abuse abuse and former clown academy teacher accused of child rape.

You don't need any education, license, or certification to market yourself as a clown.

Most clown organizations are small businesses and many don't run background checks.

In the United States alone, there have been more than one of these clown abuse headlines every single day for years. This is an epidemic. Where is the outrage?

We should be putting down these companies, shutting them down, and passing strict regulations,

but we aren't. Why not? Well, the main reason is that one key thing I said was a lie. The subreddit I actually follow is called

Pastor arrested, not Clown Arrested. Everything else I said is true. I just substituted clown for

pastor and circus for church. Now, cute rhetorical flourishes aside, if abuse was found to be happening in circuses and among clowns

at anywhere near the same rate as it is in churches and among pastors, the nation would be furious.

We would demand immediate closure, boycotts, mass arrests, sweeping government investigations,

subpoenas, we would not tolerate it for a single moment.

But as Christopher Hitchens wisely observed, religion poisons everything.

Religion demands respect for authority whether it is earned or not.

Religion demands faith where evidence is lacking.

Religion demands, obedience, even where noncompliance is the moral choice.

Religion views what are now ritualized displays of contrition and submission to church dogma

as more important than conviction, incarceration, and rehabilitation. Most importantly,

religion creates a tribalistic us versus them mentality, while insisting that members protect the institution as the price of membership.

In other words, the reason this happens is because a lawmaker who tries to hold churches accountable will be attacked as being anti-religion.

It is the same reason Idaho legislatures year after year have consistently voted to keep allowing fanatical parents to kill their children by refusing basic medical care in the name of faith healing.

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