Anti-Gay Youth Pastor Gets 10 Years For Molesting Boys

July 19, 2022 Christianists, Crime

Huntsville’s CBS affiliate reports:

A former Florence pastor who admitted to having inappropriate relationships with young boys in a pulpit confession has been sentenced, according to the Lauderdale District Attorney’s Office.

John Thomas Martin pleaded guilty to three counts of first-degree sexual abuse on June 23, 2022. He was sentenced to serve 10 years in the Department of Corrections on each count.

News 19 also learned Martin was under investigation for similar allegations in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, where Martin may have acted inappropriately while serving as a youth pastor at Bellwood Baptist Church in 2004.

From my 2019 report on Martin’s arrest:



The Lighthouse Baptist Church in Florence is an extremely socially conservative church, according to its website, that encourages men to “dress in shirts and ties, while our ladies wear modest skirts and dresses.” The church has also a very negative view of same-sex relationships.

“We believe that God has commanded that no intimate sexual activity be engaged in outside of a marriage between a man and a woman. We believe that any form of homosexuality, lesbianism, bisexuality, bestiality, incest, fornication, adultery, and pornography are sinful perversions of God’s gift of sex.”

A picture on the church’s website shows the pastor with what appears to be his family: his wife, two young daughters and three sons.

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