The TX GOP cover up of grooming and gay pedophilia by SBC deacon and former Texas 14th circuit appeals court judge Paul Pressler is darned disturbing, too.
Although the details are confidential, it’s a good bet that Duane Rollins received a large settlement after allegedly suffering nearly 25 years of rape, beginning when he was 14, by Pressler, a former Texas Court of Appeals judge and Southern Baptist Convention leader. The SBC and Jared Woodfill, current candidate for the Texas House, former Harris County GOP chair and Pressler’s longtime law partner are also defendants.
The Texas Tribune has the details of these anti-LGBTQ “family values” hypocrites, all of whom are Republicans, none of whom seem to be drag queens:
Woodfill is currently running for a Texas House seat against incumbent Rep. Lacey Hull, R-Houston, and has been endorsed by Attorney General Ken Paxton and Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller.
Pressler, 93, is one of the most influential evangelical figures of the last half-century, and is considered the co-architect of the SBC’s “conservative resurgence” that began in the late 1970s and prompted the faith group to adopt literal interpretations of the Bible, align more closely with the Republican Party, ban women from preaching and strongly condemn homosexuality.
Pressler — who formerly represented Houston in the Texas House and served for 14 years as a state appeals court judge — is also an influential figure in GOP politics. His endorsement has for years been sought by conservative evangelical politicians, including U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. In 1989, Pressler was nominated to lead the Office of Government Ethics under President George H.W. Bush, though the bid was later withdrawn; and Pressler is a founding member of Council for National Policy, a secretive network of conservative judges, politicians, media figures, megadonors and wealthy business owners that is currently led by Tony Perkins, head of the anti-LGBTQ+ Family Research Council.
The case, which was filed in 2017, also spurred a major victory for sexual abuse victims when the Texas Supreme Court allowed it to go forward despite the passage of the statute of limitations.
Not surprisingly, the lawsuit also revealed decades of sexual molestation of young men by Pressler – that his conservative Christian, Republican cronies covered up, despite obsessing about such behavior in others. For example, in 2004, when Pressler was a deacon at the megachurch First Baptist Church of Houston, he was accused of having undressed and groped a young man. Church leaders condemned Pressler’s behavior but kept it quiet.
More from The Tribune:
The same year that First Baptist was made aware of those allegations, Rollins filed a lawsuit for non-sexual assault against Pressler that was quickly settled for $450,000. Woodfill, who represented Pressler in the matter, said under oath last year that he was told by Rollins’ attorney at the time that Pressler had sexually abused Rollins as a child. Despite that, Woodfill continued to lean on Pressler’s conservative reputation, connections and influence to bolster their law firm, providing him with young, male personal assistants despite Pressler doing almost no work.
…
Woodfill similarly downplayed sexual misconduct allegations in 2016, after a 25-year-old lawyer at his firm alerted Woodfill that Pressler had told him “lewd stories about being naked on beaches with young men” and then invited him to skinny-dip at his ranch, court records show. The attorney said he addressed the incident with a longtime employee of Woodfill’s law firm, who made it clear that this was not the first time he’d heard such allegations.
“I discovered that this was not unusual behavior for Pressler, and that he had a long history of lecherous behavior towards young men. Even going as far as bringing scantily clad men and parading them through the office,” the attorney wrote in an affidavit that was filed as part of Rollins’ lawsuit.
Woodfill — who’d just played a key role defeating an equal rights ordinance for LGBTQ Houstonians — responded to the young man’s request for help with shock. “This 85-year-old man has never made any inappropriate comments or actions toward me or any one I know of,” he responded, court records show.
But wait, there’s more: It turns out there’s a law school in Louisiana named after Pressler that opened in 2009. Its first dean was none other than Speaker of the House to be, Mike Johnson.
