And that raises the question: In a time of fast-growing embrace of gay rights, when more of their fellow Christians are insisting there’s room for debate on the issue, can conservatives maintain their vision of orthodoxy? (Just last week, Land suggested on a radio show that homosexuality is caused by childhood sexual abuse.) Many Southern Baptists, like other mainstream evangelicals, have given up talk of reparative therapy for gays in favor of love, grace and “peacemaking.” At this week’s summit, Florida pastor Jimmy Scroggins called for an end to “redneck theology” and said, “We have to stop telling ‘Adam and Steve’ jokes.”īut the event was also a setting where the word “fornicators” was used without irony and gay people were referred to as “homosexuals.” The meeting - with sessions such as The Gospel and Homosexuality - made clear that these evangelicals are not wavering in their stance on certain issues: Marriage is between a man and a woman, homosexual behavior is a sin, and church leaders must not condone it. The group’s president, Russell Moore, took a gentler, less combative approach than his predecessor, Richard Land, who was known to make incendiary comments. Everyone spent the week tweeting - the summit attracted much attention from the Christian blogosphere - and one speaker jokingly asked people to “turn on their Bibles,” a nod to the popularity of e-books and Bible apps. Younger attendees at the event, a meeting of the country’s largest Protestant denomination, sported beards, stylish plaid and the occasional NPR tote bag.
Speakers tackled topics including pornography, hookup culture, premarital sex, the decline of marriage, sexual abuse, divorce and - arguably the most contentious - homosexuality. The Southern Baptist Convention’s ethics and religious liberty commission (ERLC) was hosting its first leadership summit, which its new leader said he hoped would provoke a “frank conversation” on sexual ethics. Prominent evangelical Christian leaders met here this week to discuss a topic that’s typically taboo in Sunday church: sexuality. However, Deputy Public Prosecutor Gabriel Lim asked for a sentence of 18 months as a general deterrence against such crimes involving children who were vulnerable to sexual exploitation.įor engaging in a sexual act with a person under the age of 14, Aslam could have been jailed for up to 20 years and fined or caned.NASHVILLE, Tenn. Mr Yeo also told the court that the victim had initiated the second meeting and had told Aslam that he needed money again and gave him a discount of $30 from the initial price. "This was the second time the victim misrepresented his age and my client had no reason to suspect he was under 16 or even under 14," said Mr Yeo, asking the court for a sentence of 12 months' jail for his client. He said Aslam also tried to verify the victim's age by asking him how old he was, and the victim replied that he was 17. The victim had indicated on his profile in the app that he was 18.
#GAY SEX PORN TEEN VERIFICATION#
Mr Yeo added that the app has age verification safeguards in place, where users have to verify and confirm they are above 18 when registering for an account. In his mitigation, Aslam's lawyer Nichol Yeo said that his client had believed that the victim was at least 17 years old. The boy did not know he was caught on video. This time, Aslam used his mobile phone to film the act. They met about a week later at Aslam's home where he again had sex with the boy.
They undressed and sniffed "poppers", which is an illicit psychoactive drug used to relax muscles, and Aslam had sex with the boy while wearing a condom. The boy had a small stature and youthful look, but Aslam made no attempt to verify his age. On Jan 30, 2018, they met for the first time when the victim went to Aslam's home. This was the only time he asked the boy his age. The boy's father reported the matter to the police last February when he learnt that his son had engaged in sexual activities.Ĭourt documents showed that before they met, Aslam had asked the victim for his age and the latter claimed he was 17. The court heard that some time in mid-January last year, Aslam sent the victim a message via the app requesting sex.Īfter an exchange of messages discussing the price for the act, it was agreed that Aslam would pay the boy, who cannot be named due to a gag order, $130. On Friday (July 26), the former horse racing jockey with the Singapore Turf Club was jailed for 18 months for engaging in a sexual act with a person under the age of 14. He looked too small and young to be a 17-year-old but Malik Erasmus Aslam, now 41, did little to verify his age before he proceeded to have sex with the boy he had met on gay dating mobile application Grindr.Īslam also admitted to making an obscene film of their sex act when they met a second time.