FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - JUNE 6, 1998 CONTACT: Mike Doughney or Lauren Sabina Kneisly, 888-217-8770, barf@barf.org, http://www.barf.org BARF WITNESSES EXPLOITATION OF CHILDREN BY OPERATION RESCUE NATIONAL (ORN); PLANS INFORMATIONAL PICKET AND PRESS CONFERENCE AT ORN'S HOST CHURCH SUNDAY MORNING KISSIMMEE, FLORIDA - The Biblical America Resistance Front, a small research group that for the past year has documented and reported on the activities of Operation Rescue National (ORN), will hold an informational picket and press conference at the church which hosted ORN for the past week. The picket will begin at 10:30 am, followed by a statement to the press at 11:00 am, at Good Shepherd Free Methodist Church, 1701 N. Thacker Avenue in Kissimmee. "We've watched Operation Rescue National go way beyond the usual limits this week," said Lauren Sabina Kneisly, co-founder of BARF, "and what we're seeing is inhumane. We've often noticed that many children of ORN participants, often too young to understand the political and social nature of ORN's agenda, seem to be bored and uninterested in participating. It's long been clear that these children must endure years of religious indoctrination that justifies their presence at ORN and similar events. But nothing we've seen from them compares to the outright exploitation that we've seen in recent days." About 40 Operation Rescue participants, including several minor children without their parents, were left scattered along four miles of the Route 192 strip in the 95-plus degree heat on Wednesday afternoon for at least one hour, holding anti-Disney signs and distributing an ORN flyer to occupants of passing cars in apparent violation of Florida law. Most of these people did not carry anything to drink; some of those who were drinking had purchased drinks at adjacent convenience stores. Apparently, those without money, or who thought they might miss their bus by walking away from the roadside, risked serious dehydration in the record heat. "Operation Rescue spent the entire morning out in the middle of Lucerne Terrace, on a section of street with little shade," Kneisly continued. "They were already tired and dehydrated from being out in the sun since 8:30 in the morning. We heard some of them call their lunch of thin sandwiches and Gatorade, served out on the street, 'jail food.' Why were they sent back out on the highway? Are they putting their political ideology ahead of personal needs, ignoring their human limits?" "Has Operation Rescue devolved into a religious cult while it expands its targets to include Disney?" asks Mike Doughney, Kneisly's partner. "I use the word 'cult' here specifically to mean a group which uses coercive and abusive means of manipulation to control its members. We've watched ORN use these methods this week, including leaving people isolated and dependent on transportation provided by the leadership, limiting access to food and water, causing physical exhaustion and sleep deprivation, combined with intensive religious indoctrination and emotional overload. These are the kinds of things that are associated with 'high-demand' groups that exploit, abuse and eventually consume their members. The children of people involved in such groups don't have the option of walking away from these situations; some Operation Rescue children are even encouraged to be arrested, to the delight of their parents." In light of these documented abuses, BARF will be holding its informational picket to hold the host church accountable, and to insure that the members of this church are informed about the nature of the events that occurred, and were enabled by them, this week. 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," their term for a social movement that aims to use its particular reading of the Bible as the basis of governance and American society. Doughney also hosts the "ex-cult archive," an Internet website at http://www.ex-cult.org which offers resources for those affected by religious and political cults and other "high-demand" groups. BARF may be found on the Internet at http://www.barf.org. ###