Operation Rescue's Backers -- Not a Secret Anymore
Last January, egged on by Bill O'Reilly's promotion of Phill Kline's Ahab-like vendetta against Dr. Tiller, Troy Newman's Operation Rescue held an event billed as A Cry for Justice.
Bill O'Reilly didn't brave a Kansas blizzard to follow his own advice, of course. ... But no such event can be considered a complete failure when it unites such ostensibly disparate opponents of reproductive freedom as the Center for Reclaiming America -- the political arm of Dr. D. James Kennedy's Coral Ridge Ministries -- the Christian Defense Coalition, the hardline Survivors and an ever-present mascot of the domestic terrorists who call themselves the Army of God. Both Patrick Mahoney (above, left) and Cass, along with Jeff White (above, right) and Cheryl Conrad of Survivors, threatened Sedgwick County District Attorney Nola Foulston with a federal investigation of her office unless she acceded to their demand that she prosecute Dr. Tiller. As Cass once said, "If they don't vote our way, we'll change their view one way or another." Since Cass' appearance with Troy Newman last winter, the Center for Reclaiming America has entered a "collaborative relationship" with Tony Perkins' Family Research Council -- itself an offshoot of James Dobson's Focus on the Family. So Operation Rescue was already enjoying some highly influential support. But this month's guest star line-up is even more impressive [links added].
The desire of this emerging generation is to see the Holy Spirit bring a dramatic spiritual shift across America, which will produce cultural reformation and radical change. (See theCall.com) Immediately after the event, hundreds of young people will join a caravan that will travel across country to San Francisco. Dr. George Tiller, the primary target of Kline's investigation, has an impressive and enviable list of medical and public service credentials. But that's not the point; despite decades of unrelenting threats and harassment from anti-choice activists, despite being shot twice by the Army of God's "Hero of the Faith" Shelley Shannon -- and despite years of persecution by Phill Kline -- Dr. Tiller continues to provide women with skilled and conscientious abortion care. That fact alone has kept Dr. George Tiller in the crosshairs of Operation Rescue, and will put him there again this week. Prior to beginning its trek to Wichita, The Call convened over 100,000 true believers in a Nashville stadium on Saturday, including musician Ricky Skaggs and Sen. Sam Brownback.
Country music superstar Ricky Skaggs helped kick off The Call by blowing a shofar, an ancient Jewish custom that signifies the start of an important ceremony or a call to battle. Along with the caravan from Nashville and the usual suspects -- veteran activists such as Jeff White, Rob Schenck and Pat Mahoney -- this year's slate of attractions includes Concerned Women for America (CWA) President Wendy Wright (right). CWA is recognized as a United States NGO delegate to the United Nations, and Wright -- together with Janice Crouse of the CWA's Beverly LaHaye Institute, who was herself an official delegate to the UN in 2003-2004 -- frequently appears as a public spokesperson in that capacity. Their primary mission consists of opposing any move by the UN that might expand the rights of women either at home or abroad. Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust is more than just "a group of young activists." Survivors has a long record of collaboration with Army of God operatives such as Jonathan O'Toole and the late Robert Ferguson -- who is, like murderers Michael Griffin, John Salvi, Paul Hill and James Kopp, an AOG Anti-Abortion Hero of the Faith. O'Toole (right) -- who defined the AOG as "an amorphous, autonomous eruption of rage on the part of individuals pushed to the point by legalized abortion that they're not willing to take it anymore, and will use what's at their disposal to stop it, which tends to be bombs and rifles" -- is also an official member of Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust. Like Flip Benham's OSA and other anti-abortion groups, Troy Newman's Operation Rescue draws support from both the politically acceptable face and the radical, and sometimes violent, underbelly of the Christian Right. This year, that mainstream socially acceptable support has come all the way out into the open. And on Sunday, July 15, Wendy Wright -- whose more accustomed milieu is Bill O'Reilly's studio or the halls of the United Nations -- will lead Troy Newman's motley crew in a prayer vigil outside Dr. Tiller's clinic. Operation Rescue "prayer vigils" at Dr. Tiller's clinic tend to degenerate into much more lively events than what most of us would consider a religious service to be.
It's a shame that Ricky Skaggs won't be part of the caravan from Nashville. If things should get too rowdy this time out, maybe Wendy Wright could have called on him to blow his shofar and call the crowd to order before the Survivors had to step in and settle things their way.
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Operation Rescue's Backers -- Not a Secret Anymore | 1 comment (1 topical, 0 hidden)
Operation Rescue's Backers -- Not a Secret Anymore | 1 comment (1 topical, 0 hidden)
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