“You may carve it into marble if you wish, because it is not going to change anytime soon. You get more of what you subsidize and less of what you penalize. This means that if you start to fund Centers for the Empowerment of Deaf Alcoholics, you are going to get more of them.” Douglas Wilson

Pastor Douglas Wilson of Christ Church, Moscow, articulates the law of subsidies and penalties in our epigraph. He applies the rule to a fictitious “Centers for the Empowerment of Deaf Alcoholics” and concludes the obvious — if you don’t want more deaf alcoholics, then you shouldn’t finance them. Mr. Wilson doesn’t finish the thought but we may infer it. You shouldn’t only not fund deaf alcoholics — you should punish them.

In 2005, Pastor Douglas Wilson of Christ Church, Moscow, discovered that two men had been raping members of the Kirk for the past several years. One rapist — Steven Sitler — is a serial pedophile who committed abominations on children in Washington, Idaho, and Virginia. He arrived in Moscow in August 2003 to attend New Saint Andrews College. He lived in a home affiliated with the Christ Church network of illegal boarding houses. And he immediately began predations upon his arrival.

According to public records, Mr. Wilson responded to the news that a predator had been molesting Kirk children for the previous 18 months by scheduling an appointment to see the victims’ parents the next day, “after lunch.” The timeline of events makes clear that Mr. Wilson’s overnight delay, along with the parents following his counsel by permitting Sitler to sleep in their home that night, enabled Sitler to elude the authorities by crossing state lines the next day, before lunch.

Furthermore, the victims’ father misled the sheriff’s department by telling them that Sitler lived in their home in order to attend the University of Idaho, even though he knew Sitler attended New St. Andrews College, not the UI. Mr. Wilson rewarded this man for his team play by promoting him to church office. Likewise, Steven Sitler’s father — Dave Sitler — enjoyed a similar promotion in his CREC church, despite his apparent resolve to keep a sexual predator on the streets.

Mr. Wilson, in agreement with Dave Sitler’s vision for his son, wrote a letter to Judge Stegner to “urge” a limited sentence. Five years later Mr. Wilson helped procure a bride for the pedophile despite Sitler’s publicly stated desire for a family. Mr. Wilson officiated at the marriage ceremony, which itself was a grand affair — they rolled out the red carpet. The Best Western University Inn, which is the finest hotel on the Paoluse, lit its marquis with the words WELCOME SITLER WEDDING PARTY. And following the ceremony, Steven Sitler and his bride rode across town to the reception in a horse-drawn carriage, just like Charles & Diane, which brings us back to the law of subsidies and penalties.

Pastor Doug Wilson of Christ Church, Moscow, declared, “You may carve it into marble if you wish. . . You get more of what you subsidize and less of what you penalize.” And so he will.

Because to the extent that Mr. Wilson labored diligently to subsidize the freedom of a serial pedophile, pandering to his whims at every turn, we may conclude that he wants more sexual predators to roam free among his congregation.

And you may carve this fact into marble if you wish.