I don't think sex offenders should be banned from church, but they should be carefully monitored.

Here are some reasons why they should be allowed:
> WWJD (What would Jesus do) - Jesus would want them to be loved, not excluded!
> Churches are there to care for those on the edges of society
> A number of churches will have trained counselors in this area and/or associations with charitable/governmental organizations in the field
> The offender may be cured for good through attending a church
> Everybody deserves to be given a chance
> The offender will have probably already paid a debt to society

Under no circumstances thogh should an offender be left in a 1:1 situation with anybody, particularly children.

The rights of children and their parents to attend church without worrying about the danger of being stalked or abused by known sex offenders trump whatever minimal rights that "rehabilitated" sex offenders might retain. Once an adult has sexually abused someone, they give up most of their rights as far as this parent is concerned, and what rights they do have are secondary to the rights of those who have never sexually abused anyone.

I don't know of any parents who would offer up their children as guinea pigs to see if sex offenders are truly rehabilitated. Most parents are aware that the rate of recidivism is quite high among sex offenders.

As far as I can tell, nobody has said sex offenders can't go to church. In fact, the offender in the article is attending twice a day and three times on Sunday, at a Church that does not supply child care. In other words, if children do come, they remain safely in the custody of their parents.

Sex offenders have REDUCED rights, not complete absence of rights. They are allowed to attend church, just not EVERY church. They are not allowed to attend churches that separate children from their parents and put them under the diluted supervision of one or two adults in charge of watching a number of children. Consider this scenario: a volunteer nursery worker turns her back on one child to care for a screaming toddler that got his fingers pinched. When she turns back, a sex offender has scooped up a child and is gone. Sex offenders do not have the right to create the possibility of that scenario. The fact that they are demanding their rights instead of quietly dealing with what should be an almost overwhelming sense of shame is enough to make me wonder where their focus is centered.