"If the world's press gives in to demands, backed by threats of violence, not to print a political cartoon today--what freedom will we give up tomorrow to keep the peace?  It is imbecilic to believe that such a success in the use of violence and threats of violence does not encourage such behavior.

McCullough recently rose to national prominence as a media consultant to the parents of Terri Schiavo, whose feeding tube removal begat a hurricane of hyperbole over a husband's right to carry out his wife's end-of-life choices without undue government interference.

Less well known is the fact that McCullough previously served as a publicist, apologist, and funding conduit for the unapologetically pro-violence wing of the anti-abortion movement. For example, he was the principal of Prisoners of Christ, a group that provided financial aid and other support for antiabortion activists who been convicted of crimes including murder, arson, bombings, and kidnapping. Frederick Clarkson has noted in a 2002 article for Salon.com that some of the convicts were members of the violent, antiabortion Army of God.

In addition, McCullough served as a media advisor for Paul J. Hill's Defensive Action group, a network of anti-abortion zealots that got behind Michael Griffin, who murdered Dr. David Gunn at a Florida women's clinic in March 1993. Defensive Action published a statement declaring that the murder of abortion providers is "justifiable homicide."

McCullough listed himself as "media consultant" on the declaration, printed on Defensive Action letterhead, which stated:

"We, the undersigned, declare the justice of taking all godly action necessary to defend innocent human life including the use of force. We proclaim that whatever force is legitimate to defend the life of a born child is legitimate to defend the life of an unborn child.

"We assert that if Michael Griffin did in fact kill David Gunn, his use of lethal force was justifiable provided it was carried out for the purpose of defending the lives of unborn children. Therefore he ought to be acquitted of the charges against him."

During Griffin's trial, McCullough penned an article in the May 1993 issue of the anti-abortion journal Life Advocate, in which he characterized Griffin as "a hero, though I doubt this generation will recognize him as such." McCullough added, "In America we have failed to protect the preborn infants. When violence comes it will be justified." And, lest anyone miss his acclamation of Dr. Gunn's murderer, McCullough's article is titled, "Griffin Is a Hero!"

Hill went on to commit two murders himself on July 29, 1994, when he shotgunned Dr. Gunn's replacement, Dr. John Bayard Britton, and his escort James H. Barrett as they entered a women's clinic. He was executed for his crimes in 2003.

When confronted by Tom Burghardt of the Bay Area Coalition for Our Reproductive Rights during an interview with northern California NBC affiliate KNTV in 1995, McCullough stated, "Paul Hill is my friend. No, I won't denounce his actions."

McCullough founded the CCN in 1989 - the same year he went to work as a media consultant for the militant, underground Operation Rescue. CCN's mailing address is 2020 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, in Washington, DC., which is a private mailbox at an office operated by Mailboxes Etc./UPS.

CCN is paid to distribute press releases by conservative groups, including Christian right organizations. CCN's clients include the crackpot anti-gay researcher Paul Cameron, PhD, founder of the Family Research Institute, whom the Southern Poverty Law Center has called "one of the most thoroughly discredited researchers in America."

Cameron has been ejected from two legitimate professional organizations -- American Psychological Association and the American Sociological Association (ASA) -- for his junk science in support of anti-gay propaganda. "Dr. Cameron has consistently misinterpreted and misrepresented sociological research on sexuality, homosexuality, and lesbianism," stated the ASA.

Other clients include the Society for Truth and Justice, headed by Operation Rescue founder Randall A. Terry, who has called for Christians to rise up in bloody revolution in his 1995 book The Sword: The Blessing of Righteous Government and the Overthrow of Tyrants. In sermons and writings, Terry makes clear that he's calling for a revolution styled after the American Revolution, when "real men fired real bullets at other real men who shed blood, died excruciating, real deaths, and left behind real grieving widows and orphans on both sides of the war."

On February 5, the same day that CCN posted the Mohammed cartoons, it also distributed an editorial by Terry, "The Mohammed Cartoons, Courage, and Freedom," in which he again calls Christians to combat in a cultural war that looks more and more like a "real bullets" kind of war. "[W]e should mark those media outlets in America who fade into the grey twilight; those who claim to be defenders of liberty, yet quickly withdraw from the battle of ideologies as non-combatants, and refuse to show the cartoons," writes Terry.

Terry concludes:

"In our war with Islamic Terrorism, perhaps our most valuable assets are Truth and Courage. We must not succumb to fear; we must not tip-toe around those who are committed to destroying our liberties. We must declare the Truth about Mohammed's role in assassinating those who satirized him. As the horror of the last century proves, appeasement does not abate the appetite of the aggressor -- it merely invites him to devour more victims and liberties -- one bite at a time."

When Terry speaks of warfare in the name of Christ, he means not only a metaphorical war, but a real one, with real bullets and real grieving widows. One such widow is June Barrett, widow of U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel James H. Barrett who was buried with military honors after Paul Hill murdered him on July 29, 1994, as he escorted Dr. Britton into a women's clinic in Pensacola, Florida. June was wounded in the shotgun blast that took her husband's life.

While condemning violence in the name of Islam, and claiming to care about American civil rights and civil liberties, McCullough and Terry have dedicated their careers to the demolition of American civil rights and civil liberties, not through satirical words or caricatures, but through words and deeds that seek to inspire and justify violence in the name of their own religion. And theocrats who condone violence cannot be appeased, lest their ungodly followers devour more victims and liberties -- one bite, one bomb, one bullet at a time.

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