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Cliché: Anti-Gay Preacher Arrested for Masturbating in Van Watching Kids

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Larry Craig. Ted Haggard. Paul Barnes. Lonnie Latham. Coy Privette. Joe Barron. George Rekers. Mark Foley. Eddie Long. All of these men were prominent religious or political figures, all of them have preaching in one form or another about how you should be living your life, about whom you can love.

And all of them are tragic hypocrites, exposed publicly as fallible, as prone to temptation, as wired for flaw. As human. Just like the men and women whose lives they sought to control.

While these men failed their congregants and constituents on subjects like living with dignity and expressing God-given sexuality in its healthiest forms, they lived secret lives that led to humiliating downfalls. Most of those listed were felled by their repressed homosexual desires, but not all. There’s room in this hypocrisy shamefest for those whose heterosexual closet skeletons emerged.

Now we can add another moralist leader to the comically growing list: Reverend Grant Storms, a Christian fundamentalist pastor with a porn star’s name, is in for some rough weather ahead.

The 53-year-old Bible-thumper made his name in the region after a 2003 protest of Southern Decadence, the French Quarter’s three-day gay festival held over Labor Day weekend. Storms on Friday was arrested for allegedly masturbating while watching children at a park in Metairie, Louisiana, according to The Times-Picayune:

Storms told deputies that he was merely having lunch at Lafreniere Park, 3000 Downs Blvd., in his van when he decided to relieve himself using a bottle instead of using the restroom, an incident report said.

But two witnesses said they saw Storms through the open windows of his van masturbating himself while watching children on the playground, the report said.

The two women flagged down a park employee who notified the Sheriff’s Office. The employee also detained Storms until deputies arrived.

Storms was charged with obscenity.

In 2003, Rev. Storms led his protest of the event by saying, “This year Decadence will not be as nasty or depraved as last year’s.” You could stumble upon a 72-man orgy in the streets of New Orleans and it’d be hard to find it more “nasty or depraved” than the act of masturbating to children playing in a park…while sitting in a van. A van, Reverend? Do you have to be such a cliché, Reverend?

To research his protest, Storms at 2002’s festival videotaped public sex acts on Bourbon Street and made the tape available to state legislators. What’s more “nasty and depraved”: Consenting adults engaging in light debauchery on a holiday weekend or filming such acts without consent and handing over those amateur porn shorts to others for their own “research” purposes?

Then there’s the ultimate mortal sin: murder. In 2003, Wisconsin Christians United invited Rev. Storms to speak at the International Conference on Homo-Fascism in Milwaukee. You might think that absurd conference were a joke out of a Christopher Guest mockumentary, but it was a real event at which Rev. Storms allegedly advocated the murder of gays, according to Madison.com:

Action Wisconsin obtained an audio recording of his speech and publicized remarks it said incited violence against gays. The group issued a press release saying Storms made sounds like gunfire, as if he were shooting gay people, and said, “God has delivered them into our hands. Boom boom boom … there’s twenty! Ca-ching! Glory, glory to god.”

Storms’ 2005 defamation lawsuit was dismissed, and after a state court of appeals reversed the ruling, the Wisconsin Supreme Court in 2008 ruled the lawsuit frivolous, ordering “Storms’ attorney James Donohoo to pay more than $87,000 in court costs and fees because the court said he should have known the lawsuit was frivolous.” With interest, that came out to about $120,000.

There’s something inherently sad about men of God telling others they’re sinning while secretly lusting after gay men. But there’s something inherently disgusting about men of God telling others they’re sinning while allegedly lusting after children. It appears Storms’ hypocrisy knows no bounds.

UPDATE: In a tearful press conference on Tuesday, Storms “admitted that he was in the park in a work van, that he had his seat reclined with pants open and that he had his hand in his underwear, but he said he was not masturbating,” according to WWL-TV. “Weeping, he then went on to apologize to family and friends. He even apologized to those that he once railed against, including members of the gay community and organizers of Decadence Festival.” Watch him speak here:

Is that enough for your forgiveness?