Posted June 5th, 2012 by John M. Becker
Another anti-gay religious leader has been caught with his pants down, so to speak.
Joel W. Hochmuth, 52, was sentenced yesterday to one year in jail with work release privileges and 10 years probation for the possession of child pornography.
At the time of his arrest, Hochmuth was the communications director for the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, a conservative, virulently anti-gay branch of Lutheranism that, with 389,364 members in the United States, is the country’s third largest Lutheran denomination.
I grew up in a W.E.L.S. church in Northern California (another hint as to my secret identity). My grandparents attended a WELS church in the San Jose area, and their minister was named Robert Hochmuth. So unless Hochmuth is a much more common name than I think it is, I'm fairly sure this is his son.
(yep, according to this bio, he is Robert Hochmuth's son)
This brings to three the number of WELS-affiliated sex offenders I have personally met in my relatively short life.
I went to high school with this guy.
I'm not neccessarily drawing any conclusions from this, but I would suggest that if you are in the market for a church, you look elsewhere than the WELS.
It's so creepy when someone you know turns out to be into child porn, isn't it? I've had that experience too.
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