I'm pretty sure that's the 11th Commandment. I think I saw it in one of those hotel Bibles.
A friend forwarded this story, from the Albany Times Union, about some particularly dimwitted abortion protestors (I know that sounds redundant, but bear with me):
Parents of a newborn were erroneously targeted Wednesday by about 50 abortion protesters who raised posters of mutilated fetuses and called "Evil dwells here" through a bullhorn.
The problem is they had the wrong house, said Tricia Lehra, who was on the receiving end. The group apparently thought Lehra's Washington Road home belonged to a doctor who performs abortions. Lehra, who has a 2-month-old daughter, is a Shenendehowa Central Schools counselor; her husband, August, is an electrical engineer. The target of the misplaced protest was a neighbor, Paul Drisgula, an executive of Planned Parenthood Mohawk Hudson.
"I feel terrorized," said Lehra, who was not home when the group arrived.
Still, later that evening two teens bicycled past her house and screamed "No
abortion," she said. "They do not have their facts straight," she said of the protesters. "They took pictures. Is my house going to end up on their Web site? I feel victimized in my own home."
This would be funny if it wasn't so repulsive. Oh wait, no it wouldn't. Having an assemblage of underemployed nutbars randomly descend upon your house can't be anything but unnerving, especially if you have no idea why they've decided to visit.
I didn't see any pictures of their house on either the ScriptureWall or Operation Rescue web site, but it's a valid question, considering OR links to the Nuremberg Files, which posts "wanted" posters of doctors and other such examples of Christian love and tolerance.
The 90-minute parade angered some neighbors on the quiet, maple-lined street, drawing them to the sidewalks at around 2:30 p.m.
"I heard them yelling, 'A murderer lives on your street,' " said Brian Whitter, who lives up the block from the Lehras and was getting ready for work when he saw the parade shortly after 2 p.m. "They were shouting about homosexuals. It was really offensive."
"The police told us to go inside because we were arguing with them," Amy
Cremo said. "My 8-year-old came in and asked, 'What's abol-chion?' I couldn't let my kids outside. They're coming to a residential area with these disgusting signs, saying 'You have blood on your hands.' They don't know what we believe. They said, 'There's a gay couple on the street.' I said, 'What's next, you're going to come with burning crosses?' It was rude. It was just a circus."
These guys must share a marketing firm with PETA. At the very least, parading around with 4' high posters of dismembered fetuses in a residential neighborhood is going to alienate a number of people who might actually be sympathetic to your viewpoint, but displaying the same thing or screaming about "sodomites" in front of someone's kids is going to net you nothing but hostility. And trotting your own bewildered toddlers out, as these mouth-breathers are known to do, doesn't make it all right.
This marks the second year in an August campaign called "Oh Saratoga!" organized by The Rev. Francis McCloskey, a Roman Catholic priest from East Durham, Greene County, and Flip Benham, director or Operation Rescue/Operation Save America, a militant group of abortion opponents based in Dallas. Neither Benham nor McCloskey could be reached for comment Thursday.
Big surprise. Benham doesn't talk publicly if there's the slightest possibility that he can be called on the carpet for his misinformation and smear tactics.
Linda Scharf, a Planned Parenthood spokeswoman, said the protesters were wrong to approach anyone's home. "We feel this is creating a climate that leads to violence and it has crossed the line, using free speech to attempt to coerce," Scharf said.
"I don't feel we disrespected their neighborhood or their rights,"
countered Lawrence Willette, a marcher and deacon at St. Clements Catholic church in Saratoga Springs.
That settles that, I guess.
Apparently no one bothered to ask Willette how he'd feel if picketers showed up outside his house, informed all his neighbors that he was a hatemonger who derived some perverse thrill from harassing innocent people, and then posted pictures of him, his home, and his car on the web. Shouldn't be a big deal, since anti-choice groups practice such tactics all the time.
Yeah, I know, none of them "officially condone" such practices. Pull the other one.
The group didn't violate any laws, said Scotia Police Chief John Pytlovany, who had several officers accompany the group of parents, children and grandparents after an earlier protest outside Planned Parenthood in Schenectady. While McCloskey did pray in the street, he did not impede traffic or block pedestrians, Pytlovany said. Police asked Lehra's neighbors not to argue with the protesters because they wanted to keep things calm, Pytlovany said.
Lehra said police told her she was overreacting. One officer "stated that
we're not in any danger because this is a religious group. I told him I lived in Buffalo when Dr. Slepian was killed. I've got a baby in here. I'm afraid."
Wow. That's one stupid cop. Lehra's answer is a good one, but she could have just as easily countered that al-Qaeda, Aum Shinrikyo, the IRA, Hezbollah, the Sudanese Janjaweed, and the Branch Davidians are all "religious groups" (and that's without even bringing up the major churches).
"I was raised Catholic. I consider myself to be a Christian," added Lehra, who has a large cross on her living room wall. "This is not Christian behavior. The fact that these people are terrorizing people in their homes in the name of Jesus is outrageous. What accountability is there for this kind of thing?"
Well, if you're a Christian, I guess you could just wait until they stand in judgment before your god and he casts them into the Pit for being such intolerant scumbags.
Or you could have a friend dress as Jesus, walk down the street to where they're assembled, and ask them to stop. Probably wouldn't work, though. Today's on-the-go fundamentalist doesn't have time for that "love thy brother," tree-hugging, hippie New Testament crap.
I'd probably just turn on the sprinklers, open the windows, and play some Minor Threat.
And release the hounds. Mustn't forget the hounds.
"Oh Saratoga!" sounds like a Busby Berkeley movie musical. And you know what? I'd like abortion protestors a lot more if they dressed in tights, top hats and tails, wore a lot of glitter, and occasionally dived into a pool.
Dude, that's when you break out the leaf blower and blow your sidewalk's refuse and filth in their general direction. And yeah, the hounds. Them too. And if they brought their kids to the protest, that's when you start leaf blowing in the nude.
You sure this is New York and not Salem? Ahh, organized religion...more destructive than the plague, a Pauly Shore movie festival, and billions of crashing meteorites combined. Luckily, religion helps us separate those who are told what to think from those who can think on their own.
I know why all those reverends and pastors are so upset. More abortions means fewer little children to molest.
Seriously, I humbly suggest that we, your readers, organize a SWAT group to go up and protest on Mr. Willette's street, shouting at all his neighbors that a child molester lives on their street, and asking his neighbors' 8 year olds if they think heterosexuality is a sin.