FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Mike Doughney or Lauren Sabina Kneisly, 301-854-9635, barf@barf.org, http://www.barf.org AMERICAN FAMILY ASSOCIATION SEVERS TIES WITH OPERATION RESCUE NATIONAL; ORN "GOES OVER THE EDGE" WITH EXTREME ACTS The Biblical America Resistance Front (BARF) has learned that the American Family Association (AFA) Law Center "will not be representing" Operation Rescue National (ORN), and "will be looking to sever that relationship," according to the Center's Bruce Green. AFA had provided literature and signs to ORN for last December's picketing of Disney, and legal support for ORN director Philip "Flip" Benham and other ORN participants. According to Green, the separation occurred as a result of the disruptive presence of ORN participants inside the Federal Courthouse in Orlando on June 2 while an AFA staff attorney presented a case involving ORN's activities in the Orlando area last December. Published statements by ORN director Benham regarding his intention to lead a demonstration into the Disney theme parks on Gay Day were also cited by Green as a contributing factor in the separation. "Green told me that ORN was 'unwilling to respond to advice of counsel,'" said Mike Doughney, co-founder of BARF. "Along with all of the extreme acts we saw this week - which included deliberate action by ORN director Flip Benham to get himself arrested, and the abuse of children who were forced to stand in the record heat along a busy highway without water - it's clear that Operation Rescue has gone over the edge, and the relationship with AFA was a contributing factor." Tupelo, Mississippi-based AFA - known for years for its campaigns against popular television and media, led by its founder, Don Wildmon - provided counsel in support of ORN director Benham and another principal ORN leader, John Reyes, earlier this year in a Lynchburg, Virginia case in which AFA alleged that "gentle Christians" were being "persecuted" for demonstrating at a high school there; reportedly, ORN participants and others entered the school and refused to leave. This support, along with that provided for the December Disney picketing, was apparently taken by Benham as an endorsement of an extreme strategy of pushing the limits of acceptable protest and evangelism in public places and public accommodations. "AFA didn't do its homework," Doughney continued. "We've watched ORN closely throughout the past year, and the foundation of what they do is that of dominion theology - that they must go out and claim every public space in America in the name of their God for themselves, regardless of our laws and social conventions. We saw them set up church in a Dayton, Ohio public square and attempt to drive out all others who disagreed with them; we've seen them inside a Barnes and Noble bookstore aggressively approaching customers who demanded to be left alone. ORN's Orlando courthouse demonstration was completely within character for them." "When push came to shove - when it actually came time to apply the theology - Operation Rescue's tactics and methods were too extreme for even the American Family Association to support," Lauren Sabina Kneisly, Doughney's partner, said. "Disturbingly, both ORN and AFA, along with a movement of millions of people in this country, share the same ideology of 'dominion,' of creating 'God's kingdom on earth,' that the Bible must be used as the sole basis of American law and society - they all share a common underlying theology. The only difference is that ORN actually put the ideology into practice, with potentially catastrophic results." Biblical America Resistance Front (BARF) is the research team of Mike Doughney and Lauren Sabina Kneisly. Since July 1997, BARF has followed the activities of Operation Rescue and other organizations of Biblical America including the Promise Keepers Washington DC "Stand in the Gap" event, the "Reclaiming America for Christ" conference hosted by Fort Lauderdale televangelist D. James Kennedy, and the "March for Life" in Washington, DC. BARF may be found on the Internet at http://www.barf.org.