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Fri 7 May, 2004 05:00 pm
It was a Clinton sort of thing...
Quote:Ex-pastor tells jury affair was 'a Bill Clinton thing'
By ANDREW TILGHMAN
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle
A former pastor accused of sexually assaulting a church member denied wrongdoing Thursday, telling jurors he and the woman had a consensual affair that could be described as "a Bill Clinton thing."
"It was a mutual desire for each other. We were drawn to one another," said James Tucker, former pastor of Abundant Life Church in north Houston.
Tucker, 53, is charged under a 1995 state law that makes it a crime for "spiritual advisers" to exploit their followers' "emotional dependency" for sex.
He is accused of performing sexual acts on several occasions with a woman who sought marital counseling in his office in 1998.
The woman, who was 27 then, contends that she felt manipulated into their sexual relationship. If convicted, Tucker could be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison.
The former minister recalled a conversation in 1999 when the woman's husband confronted him about the sexual relationship. The husband said he understood the relationship to have been "like a Bill Clinton thing," which Tucker felt was an appropriate description, he testified.
Tucker said he interpreted the remark to mean the encounters had involved oral sex.
Tucker also denied allegations leveled by two women who testified Tuesday. They said he fondled them in the early 1980s when they were high school students and he was a youth minister at a church in Humble.
"What they said happened, didn't happen," he told jurors, explaining that he kissed the girls but did nothing more. "I would say how they characterized what happened is a lie."
One was about 14 years old when he kissed her, Tucker said.
Prosecutor Kelly Siegler showed jurors a letter that Tucker wrote to one of the women in 1984. In the letter, Tucker repeatedly apologized for his conduct, which he did not specify.
"I've gone through so much emotional agony over what happened because I caused you so much hurt and pain," he wrote to the woman when he was 32 and she was an 18-year-old college freshman.
Tucker denied Thursday that he had fondled the young woman.
"This letter is an apology for passionately kissing" her, he testified.
Tucker was the last witness called by defense attorney Dick DeGuerin. Jurors are expected to begin deliberating today.
Tucker was living in a Spring home valued at $350,000 at the time of his resignation from the church in February 2002, Siegler said.
The 12-year-old Abundant Life Church, at 713 East Airtex, disbanded after his resignation. He and his wife now live in Dallas.
The casual attitude among teens and preteens about oral sex is another Clinton legacy.
CEOs shouldn't have to worry about affairs with subordinates, either.
He DID change the rules.
Sofia, I was getting hummers in 8th grade, this was when Reagan was in ofice. Should I blame him for when the inexperienced girls bit me?
"The Unorthodox Church of William Clinton, and Latter Day Devils"
I just might check it out!
If Reagan got a blow job in the Oval Office, details of it were plastered all over the media for a year, he lied about it, then said It Wasn't Really Sex, he was heralded as a victim by women's groups and many politicians; he got away with it, kept his job, and the attitudes about it shifted appreciably in young people, who reported a phenomenal increase in thie particular activity--yes, you should blame Reagan.
Actually, I blamed her orthodontist.
Sofia wrote:If Reagan got a blow job in the Oval Office, details of it were plastered all over the media for a year, he lied about it, then said It Wasn't Really Sex, he was heralded as a victim by women's groups and many politicians; he got away with it, kept his job, and the attitudes about it shifted appreciably in young people, who reported a phenomenal increase in thie particular activity--yes, you should blame Reagan.
"Blame"?????
we should send everybody else to that school too!!!
Clinton increased the incidence of blow jobs?
I am laughing so hard I am going to blow something entirely different my very own self!
That article is hilarious, Hobit. Well, except the sexual predation on the kids, isn't, of course - but the desperate wiggling excuses are.
Reminds me of how the Victorian era became so very...well....Victorian - with dear Vicky trying to undo the image of the royal family as rampant sexual excessives.....all that hard work undone by the current generation, too!
I wonder if naughty Regency ministers tried to blame their behaviour on the Prince Regent? Could THIS be the explanation of close your eyes and think of England? It made you horny?
Hmmmm - who can I blame next time I get caught short......
<just making "feminist" point, not besmirching any actual small female version of BGW>
I thought the whole area of "heavy petting" was regarded by many generations of American high school students as "not really sex"? Until the pill changed mores, of course?
Actually - in a way the debate has moved on in the area of who is to blame for sexual lapses - it always used to be "the woman/child" (yes, lots of paedophiles blame the kid for being seductive) tempted me" to "President Clinton corrupted me"....hmmmmmmmm........
Do Australians consider 'heavy petting' to be sex?
The only reason I used the word 'blame' is that that is how a question was framed.
If you think oral sex is an appropriate behavior for middle school students, we simply disagree.
It ain't your father's Oldsmobile, but then perhaps that's why they don't make Oldsmobiles anymore. (I don't have kids, so talk is very cheap for me)
Trust me, dys, it makes a huge difference.
If the world was filled with adults, my views ON A LOT OF THINGS would change dramatically.
Sofia, I'm not sure that it really matters (at one level) whether or not oral sex at the middle school level (whatever that is) is appropriate. The thing is that very young people have been having all types of sex for generations and generations.
There was a small period in history, which we seem to just be coming out of, when it was just more hidden. Remember Chaucer? Shakespeare? all those lovely lads and lasses - they weren't just waving to each other.
Giving the credit, or blame, to Mr. Clinton, well, I think it's irrelevant. That return of more public discussion of sexual behaviour had already started. Kind of like smoking pot. It's been happening forever. And very openly for many years. The Reefer Madness generation tucked it under a leave for a while - but their parents had been doing it, and their kids and grandkids would do it.
<edited out an extra word>
I have no idea at what point "heavy petting" becomes sex in Oz - we don't use petting as a word, for starters - I was just of the belief that the US had a very codified and elaborate system of achieving orgasm while obeying the "rules" in the past amongst its teenyboppers.
I was weird - I saw no point in lots of carrying on unless I intended to have sex - so I didn't do much until I decided this was the fella I was gonna get rid if me virginity with.
I guess I feel very differently about it.
I think it is extremely inappropriate for such young people to get involved with sex, with as little information and maturity as a middle schooler--pre-teen and early teen. Some may find it laughable, and frankly, I think that they do is disgusting and irresponsible. These are real children, and this is not how to barter for a coke and chips at recess. The degradation will come later for them. I think it is serious.
I don't care what they do when they're older. I do care very much about them when they're young, and impressionable.
Possibly. But blaming Clinton for high school sex is the nadir of ridiculousness - which was, I believe, the point both Beth and I were making.
Who blamed Clinton for high school sex?
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