You may have seen this picture over the past couple of days. It’s a bunch of young white boys wearing “Team Mitch” shirts holding up a cardboard cutout of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez… while pretending to choke her and kiss her. It’s pretend assault… which these boys think is hilarious.

Hey @senatemajldr – these young men look like they work for you. Just wanted to clarify: are you paying for young men to practice groping & choking members of Congress w/ your payroll, or is this just the standard culture of #TeamMitch? Thanks. https://t.co/ysRJuwonUx — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) August 6, 2019

In the least shocking news ever, some of those boys attend Lexington Christian Academy, a private religious school whose mission is to “glorify Christ.” That doesn’t seem to include any discussion of morality or decency or how to treat women.

The school’s leaders aren’t much better, offering a response that’s the equivalent of shrugging it off entirely:

Lexington Christian Academy released a statement on the incident, “Lexington Christian Academy officials are aware of a photo circulating on social media which includes LCA students attending a recent, non-school event. This matter has been addressed with the students and families involved.”

Is that supposed to make us feel better? If they addressed the issue the same way they teach these boys anything, then it’s safe to assume nothing happened. The school wants to ignore the substance of the image as much as the McConnell campaign, which pretended to be more upset at AOC for tweeting the photo than the boys wearing McConnell shirts.

One of the boys apparently apologized in a now-deleted Instagram post, and included the name of “St. Jerome Parish” in his apology — the entire Fancy Farm Picnic where this took place was a fundraiser for St. Jerome Catholic Church — but a priest at the church said none of those boys attend his parish. Make of that what you will.

The whole incident is just another reminder that sending your kids to a religious school doesn’t mean they’ll become better people. If anything, they’ll grow up thinking they can get away with anything because they have the halo of religion surrounding their reputations.

(Thanks to Dan for the link)

