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	Jacquielynn Floyd: Pastor Aimed Low; Victims Rose above The Dallas Morning News [Fort Worth TX] September 1, 2006 http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/localnews/columnists/ jfloyd/stories/DN-floyd_01met.ART.North.Edition1.3e83a99.html As the prison door slams shut on Terry Lee Hornbuckle, powerhouse-preacher-turned-serial-rapist, an absurd schoolyard jingle keeps ringing in my head. It's that timeworn counter-taunt meant to convince hecklers and bullies that you're impervious to their insults: I'm rubber, and you're glue! It bounces off me and sticks to you! Which is pretty much what happened during the courtroom showdown between the powerful, famous, rich minister and his comparatively obscure accusers. It was an ugly trial, but there's a grim justice in the fact that every vile epithet the defense team used to discredit the victims boomeranged back onto their client. Well, the lawyers were using conventional strategy. The axiom that "the best defense is a strong offense" required them to "impeach" the witnesses, a polite term for what, in this case, was trashing the victims. They also used what famed jurist Racehorse Haynes called "The ABC Defense" (A. My dog didn't bite you. B. My dog doesn't bite. and C. I don't have a dog). In Mr. Hornbuckle's case, this translated to an insistence that the victims consented to sex, and if they didn't – well, the drugs made him do it. He's not the first defendant to walk into a courtroom and claim either that his accusers are a bunch of liars or that a mean drug habit was the real culprit. But something about the blistering insults these women faced in the courtroom gave me the willies. They were pilloried as mercenary sluts, predatory good-time girls trying to cash in on a rich man's fame. "Don't be mad at me. It's real," defense attorney Leon Haley told jurors after he called one of Mr. Hornbuckle's victims "Ms. Five Times" for the number of times she and the defendant had sex. Another accuser, who admitted she smoked methamphetamine with Mr. Hornbuckle, was branded as a "meth ho." Perhaps saddest of all was the first victim to testify, a college athlete who disclosed on the witness stand that she is a lesbian who had never had sex with a man. Not, that is, until her famous celebrity pastor took her to his hideaway apartment, where he drugged and raped her. Making much of the fact that this accuser has a friend who works as a topless dancer, the defense characterized this victim as being "on the hustle with her stripper girlfriend." Ouch. Lawyers, of course, often have to cope with seemingly damning facts. Mr. Hornbuckle faced shocking accusations, for which his attorneys struggled to offer explanations that would keep him out of the big house. Their version of events was that their client was a "playboy" with a "drug problem," an errant soul who liked the good life and the pretty ladies a little too much. And "playboy" doesn't sound so bad, does it? It certainly sounds nicer than "meth ho." The jury did not, in the end, buy the "playboy" theory. They convicted Mr. Hornbuckle on all three counts and handed him a 15-year prison sentence. Through all of this, Mr. Hornbuckle not only failed to display any visible signs of remorse – he didn't even look embarrassed. After all, he didn't have to take the stand and describe lurid sexual scenarios; didn't have to disclose his most personal secrets to a courtroom full of strangers. Nobody called him a whore. But that's what he is. Mr. Hornbuckle wasn't a "playboy." He was a sex-obsessed slut, a predatory pig who got a sick, psycho pleasure out of drugging women and forcing sex on them while they couldn't fight back. I don't buy the argument that a brutal cross-examination is as traumatic as a "second rape," but it sure doesn't look like much fun. In the end, though, they were the rubber and he was the glue – all the nastiest insults returned to Mr. Hornbuckle and roosted there like homing pigeons. So we can shut the book now on Terry Hornbuckle, one of whose employees testified that her ex-boss ordered her to lie when the grand jury heard his case. He told her to describe him as a decent, religious family man. The woman said he delivered the order like this: "You had better sell me like the M.F. I am." In the end, she didn't have to. He sold himself. E-mail jfloyd@dallasnews.com
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