The Rev. Grant Storms, the Christian fundamentalist known for his bullhorn protests of the Southern Decadence festival in the French Quarter, was arrested on a charge of masturbating at a Metairie park Friday afternoon.
Storms, 53, of 2304 Green Acres Road in Metairie, was taken into custody at Lafreniere Park after two women reported seeing him masturbating in the driver’s seat of his van, which was parked near the carousel and playground, a Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office report said.
The first woman told deputies she was taking her children to the playground and parked next to the van at about noon. As she was walking around her own vehicle, she noticed the van windows were down and the occupant was “looking at the playground area that contained children playing, with his zipper down…,” the report said. The woman noted that he was masturbating and quickly ushered her children out of her car.
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Well, at least he’s not gay.
It’s obviously the children’s fault for being so sexy… Right?
They should count themselves lucky there weren’t any bears around to punish them for their wickedness.
In other unsurprising news, water is wet…
Okay, in all seriousness, it amazes me how often this sort of stuff happens. And then people continue to support these purveyors of hate and hipocrisy.
That is indeed the shocking bit. “Religious” man caught with kiddie porn/ kiddie/ rent boy/ crystal meth/ all of these? Meh. But their congregation to keep sending in the donations? This I cannot get over.
Seems to me like once upon a time, people would surely be scandalized for their actions, and hushed so people wouldn’t know about it. Now that people can’t hide anymore, it’s more like, if the right person advises we forgive, people can’t think for themselves. They might be disgusted or incredulous, and when they’re manipulated to, they do not come with torches. Then again, in a civilized world, we’re not vigilantes, we want them locked up, public opinion in lieu of torches has no real effect on the justice system, but it’s the best we have.
These are the same people who get all bent out of shape over any other pedophile who isn’t at their church and has no one to manipulate their feelings to react calmly, single file, no emergency, the priest said he’s sorry, now can we please just get past that unpleasantness and move on? Why are we living in the past! Jesus said forgive…
That reminds me of that other thread with the Arizona bill thing re: “creeping Sharia law,” how is it that Catholic church personnel are still exempt from laws pertaining to criminal sexual acts? I’ve never heard actually of a priest going to prison, he’s always “dealt with” internally.
Ridiculous. A number of Catholic priests have gone to prison over sex charges and there have been humongous payouts on lawsuits, almost bankrupting some dioceses. In fact, there have been many prosecutions of abuse that happened years, even decades ago. To say the church and the authorities were not always responsive to the problem is accurate, but to claim that a sexual predator priest is getting a bye on the offense these days is an outright falsehood. If you’re going to comment on stuff maybe you should take the time to look things up on google first.
I think you’re missing the point. Congregations can and do tacitly protect and shelter their paedophile priests, and they can and do ostricise and blame the adolescent victims of priestly rape. A few minutes on Google is enough to crush any hope you might have had for humanity, I promise.
Chop it off…………… with an Axe…………… Then throw the freak in prison.
No arguments here.
10 Points for Griffyndor!
I love it the most vehement anti gay nut cases are freakos themselves. Also when caught with there pants down usually with some boy or a meth addicted male pro. They want forgiveness ” oh I have a problem with sin please be compassionate with me ” hatefull trolls where is that forgiveness and compassion at there anti gay demonstrations. Im proud I am no longer an evangelical fool.
I’m sorry, I’ll always be among the first to call these guys out on their hypocrisy and obvious bullshit, but…this, itself, seems to have a bit of that scent.
So—he’s in the van, obviously, because she’s looking through the windows. She’s walking, so she’s outside the van; she isn’t in a truck or another van, where she could be eye to eye, she’s walking. Let’s assume she’s within a few inches of the average height for an adult woman in the US; that’s 5 foot, 3 inches; give her a plus or minus of five; in this case, the plus is all that matters, that’s 5’8”.
Now, I’m six foot even, and standing outside a van, looking in, windows up or down, I can see from chest to head of a person sitting in the driver or passenger seat. I cannot see lower body, let alone a lowered zipper on the lower body.
Something is rotten in Denmark.
Leave Denmark alone!
Are you implying it’s a false accusation? Google the man’s name “Grant Storms” and see he’s already given a videotaped interview admitting to being in his car with his hands down his pants. He’s admitted to have a problem with porn. He admitted going to the park for a quiet place to, uh, release some tension. The only thing he vehemently denies is looking at the children while he sat there.
I’ve often noticed that those who make the most noise have the most to hide. Not always, but often.
I certainly don’t wish to defend this wretch, but it really annoys me that every report of this incident says he was masturbating ‘in front of’ children. This makes it seem as though he was forcing them to watch, which doesn’t seem to be true. That would be a very different sort of crime to the one he’s accused of.
The fact that he was apparently masturbating while watching children is sinister enough (and for some reason worse that he was doing it in a van). There’s no need to make it seem worse by making stuff up. And yet all the news sources seem to have gone with the ‘in front of children’ misinformation.
…. but I sure as hell hope the legal system castrates the hypocritical bastard. Religous zealots who spew venom in the name of their god should be dealt with equal under the law. But at the point where the judge is allowed to give leniency for community citizenship, I say throw the book away…. If you are a public figure who can and does influence followers, then the measure of the law should show your followers what will happen to people who think their moral beliefs outweigh public policy.
The next time someone stands before a congregation to spew hate messages, let him reflect he will burn in a prison cell before he ever gets to hell.
Oh, yes, let’s throw out the constitution, especially the first amendment, oh that pesky Freedom of Speech, why do we need it anyway?
Honestly, I don’t agree with what people say, or their opinions, I will defend their right to say it, because it’s a CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT. Read the First Amendment if you don’t believe me.