Another Anti-LGBTQIA+ Crusader Charged With Child Abuse Offences… And It’s A Pattern That’s Hard To Ignore
A former Cedarville University professor who wrote about “Christian sexual ethics” and warned against transgender visibility has been charged with eight child sex offences in Ohio, including two alleged counts of rape. John Kent Tarwater, 55, was arrested on 31 March 2026 and is the latest in a growing list of vocal anti-LGBTQIA+ figures who have been charged with, or convicted of, the very crimes they accuse queer people of committing.
Who is John Kent Tarwater?
Tarwater taught business administration and finance at Cedarville University, a Baptist institution in Ohio, from 2017 until his dismissal in October 2025. He co-authored Marriage As Covenant, a 2005 book that condemned what he called “feminist and homosexual attacks on the standards of sexual moral behaviour.” In 2021, he published a paper in the Journal Of Markets And Morality arguing that transgender visibility would have “devastating effects” on the church and society, as reported by Instinct Magazine.
Prosecutors allege the abuse occurred between August 2019 and July 2025. The victim was under 13 during part of the timeline and, according to court records obtained by the Dayton Daily News, is Tarwater’s own child. His bond was set at $1 million. He has pleaded not guilty, with a jury trial scheduled for 15 June 2026.
Tarwater’s case follows a string of high-profile anti-LGBTQIA+ figures facing serious allegations. Here are some of the most notable.
RJ May, South Carolina state representative
Former Republican state Rep. RJ May III, a founding member of his state’s Freedom Caucus, built a political brand on accusing drag queens and transgender people of harming children. Moms For Liberty, an organisation that has pushed for the removal of LGBTQIA+ books from schools, honoured him as their 2023 Legislator Of The Year, according to LGBTQ Nation.
In January 2026, May was sentenced to 17-and-a-half years in federal prison after pleading guilty to five counts of distributing child sexual abuse material. Prosecutors said he sent 220 files of alleged abuse material in just five days using the messaging app Kik, distributing them to users in 18 states and six countries, as reported by the SC Daily Gazette. The sentencing judge said the material was “more severe” than any she had previously seen.
Robert Morris, Texas megachurch pastor
Robert Morris founded Gateway Church in Southlake, Texas, one of the largest megachurches in the United States. In 2017, he urged his congregation to pressure state lawmakers to pass the so-called “Bathroom Bill,” arguing that allowing transgender people to use their preferred bathrooms would put children at risk of sexual abuse, as CBS Texas reported at the time. He also served on Donald Trump’s evangelical advisory board.
In October 2025, Morris pleaded guilty to five counts of lewd or indecent acts with a child in Oklahoma. The alleged abuse began in 1982, when the victim was 12 years old, and continued for four years, according to the Texas Tribune. He received a 10-year suspended sentence with six months in jail and was released on 31 March 2026, the same day Tarwater was arrested, as CNN confirmed. He must register as a sex offender.
Joshua David Kemper, California youth pastor
Kemper, 47, was arrested in October 2025 on 14 counts related to the alleged sexual abuse of a 15-year-old girl at his church in Coarsegold, California. Investigators alleged the abuse occurred between March and July 2025 and involved digital grooming, explicit messages, and encounters at the church, the victim’s home, and Kemper’s vehicle, according to KMPH.
During the same period he was allegedly committing the abuse, Kemper shared a Facebook post implying that LGBTQIA+ people in churches make women feel unsafe, as LGBTQ Nation reported.
Steven Anderson, New Independent Fundamentalist Baptist pastor
Anderson has spent more than a decade calling for the execution of gay people from the pulpit, rhetoric so extreme that he has been banned from entering more than 30 countries. In September 2024, several of his adult children came forward alleging years of physical abuse, including beatings with an electrical cord. His son described being kicked and stomped, alleging Anderson said he was going to kill him. The Southern Poverty Law Center and Protestia both covered the allegations in detail.
It should be noted that the allegations against Anderson involve physical and domestic abuse rather than sexual offences. He has not been criminally charged.
Dennis Hastert, former Speaker of the US House
In 2016, Dennis Hastert, a Republican who served as Speaker of the US House of Representatives from 1999 to 2007, admitted in court to sexually abusing boys he had coached as a high school wrestling teacher in Illinois decades earlier. As NPR reported, he was sentenced to 15 months in prison for financial offences related to hush money payments.
Hastert’s congressional voting record was consistently anti-LGBTQIA+. He supported a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, backed the Marriage Protection Act, and voted against the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. According to Raw Story, his office maintained a legislative file titled “Homosexuals” filled with policy statements from groups like the Traditional Values Coalition.
Journalist Evan Hurst, who maintains a running tracker of such cases, documented 188 separate instances in 2025 alone of Christian pastors, priests, youth leaders, and teachers arrested, charged, or convicted of child abuse. As LGBTQ Nation reported, Hurst noted that accusations against drag queens and trans people for such offences are “virtually non-existent” by comparison.
None of this means that anti-LGBTQIA+ views cause someone to commit abuse. But when so many people who loudly campaign against queer people as threats to children are themselves alleged or convicted abusers, the hypocrisy is worth reporting. At DNA, we think these cases speak for themselves.
