Two Christians who ran a gay “conversion” camp have been arrested on charges that they were trafficking little boys.
In other news, the sky is blue.
Gary and Meghann Wiggins used to run the Joshua Home, a Texas “conversion therapy” camp where belts were used on boys to beat the “[gay] demon” out of them. But last summer, eight boys were removed from the camp after allegations of “abuse, neglect, labor violations, fraud, licensing violations and human trafficking.” While the boys didn’t make any allegations about the couple that led to criminal charges, the raid led investigators to continue looking into the pair. Now, according to the affidavit, they’ve been charged with “knowingly” trafficking four boys and making them “engage in forced labor or services” for a lawn care company they also owned. (It’s not clear if those four are among the eight taken from the facilities last year.)
The Wigginses have a history of moving around and setting up these Christian torture camps for kids.
Before the Wigginses set up the home in Missouri [which they ran before moving to Texas], they ran the Blessed Hope Boys Academy in Robertsdale, Ala., where Wiggins was referred to as Brother Gary. The shuttered school was the subject of a 20/20 investigation in which boys who’d been sent there spoke out against the abuse that included forced exercise, solitary confinement, withholding food, and various conversion therapy tactics.
“He took off his belt and started swinging,” Lucas Greenfield whose mother sent him to Blessed Hope because he is gay, told 20/20 in 2017.
“I’m going to get the demon out of you and make you straight,” Gary Wiggins told the boys he terrorized, Greenfield told police in 2016.
If those accusations are true, they’ve been able to get away with this for many years, in many locations. They may have been arrested for human trafficking, but they very well could have been charged with physical abuse under the Christian delusion that being gay is just a Satanic opinion some people choose to adopt.
Hopefully, they won’t be allowed to hurt kids anymore.
(Thanks to Brian for the link)