Statement by Mike Doughney and Lauren Sabina Kneisly
Biblical America Resistance Front
Sunday, June 7, 1998

Mike Doughney:

Good morning.  We'd like to start out by introducing ourselves and
explaining the kind of work we've been doing over the past year. We'll
then move on to discuss what we saw happening to the Operation Rescue
children, the evidence of coercive and abusive manipulation of
Operation Rescue participants, and the knowing support of these
activities - indeed the outright endorsement of them, according to OR
leaders, by this church.  We'll also try to explain the process of
extremism represented by Operation Rescue, and how the apparently
growing desperation and isolation exemplified that process we saw
throughout the week.  There's also the split between the American
Family Association and OR that we reported to you earlier this week. 

I'm Mike Doughney, my partner is Lauren Sabina Kneisly, and together
we call ourselves the "Biblical America Resistance Front."  Our
purpose is to resist and counter "Biblical America," which is our term
for a growing social, cultural and political movement - the most
extreme part, the snowflakes on the tip of an enormous iceberg, so to
speak, being exemplified by Operation Rescue.  This movement seeks to
use the Bible as the sole basis for government and society, a position
often called the theology of "dominion." 

Since last July, when we first began documenting Operation Rescue's
visit to Dayton, Ohio, we have been following them through various
cities, including their last visit to this area in December and their
visit to Washington DC in January.  We noticed early on that to
understand OR, we must have a broader focus, to include the churches
and organizations that the ideology and people in this group come
from.  So, we attended the huge Promise Keepers rally in Washington,
DC, followed by a series of events in Florida including the
"Reclaiming America for Christ" conference hosted by Fort Lauderdale
televangelist D. James Kennedy.  We can say with confidence that
Operation Rescue shares with these large groups, and even with large
churches and organizations right here in Orlando, exactly the same
ideology and worldview; the only difference is that Operation Rescue
puts the ideology into practice, or in the words of Flip Benham, turns
"theology into biography."  What we saw this week was the "Three Mile
Island" of Biblical America; the system and ideology were in place,
all that needed to happen were the right conditions, and meltdown
would occur.

This meltdown, this going to extremes, put a lot of people in this
city through a great deal of stress this past week.  We wish to
commend the Orlando police force that, under difficult circumstances,
successfully executed a near-zero-tolerance policy against Operation
Rescue that is the exception, rather than the rule, in this country.
The extreme tactics and demands of such groups must never be tolerated
to preserve our free society; we must all say "no," or as we say,
"never surrender and never submit" to the demands of extremists.  We
include this to mean never giving in to small demands, to avoid
starting a process of negotiating away the non-negotiable.

But let's talk about the Operation Rescue children for a moment, who
might have been under the most stress of all the participants this
week. These weren't stolen pathology samples planted in a dumpster to
be found, photographed and shown on huge cards along roadsides; these
were someone's children, ten, twelve years old, left to stand
alongside a busy highway during the near-record heat this past
Wednesday, without their parents, some without water, and after having
already spent almost four hours on a city street without shade, a lot
of activity and a great deal of indoctrination and emotional overload
which included the arrest of Operation Rescue director Flip Benham.
That arrest, by the way, we believe to be the result of a deliberate
act of provocation on Benham's part, which he did knowing full well he
would be arrested.

This church that you see across the street was used as the home base 
for this activity, and its pastor - according to Operation Rescue -
has described OR as "the cream of the church."  This is the church
that recruited Flip Benham from his saloon down the road, putting him
on the path to the events of this past week.  Why should we tolerate
churches that endorse this kind of abusive behavior as an ideal?

But there's more.  We watched the leadership of Operation Rescue use
coercive and abusive methods of manipulation against participants both
young and old, which were clearly demonstrated by the activity along
route 192 Wednesday afternoon. We watched them leave people isolated
and dependent on transportation provided by the leadership; they've
also limited access to food and water, caused physical exhaustion and
sleep deprivation, and as always, insured that participants were
bombarded with intensive religious indoctrination and emotional
overload.  These are the kinds of things that are associated with
'high-demand' groups, or cults, that exploit, abuse and eventually
consume their members.  

We ask, then, has Operation Rescue devolved into some form of
religious cultism?  We are particularly concerned about a new group of
young people who, to our knowledge, were trained by Operation Rescue
leader David Lackey and were brought here from a fairly substantial
church in Birmingham.  This group dressed alike, marched in military
formation, showed the results of a great deal of indoctrination, and
were deliberately targeting young people with their intimidation and
harassment methods that we saw used in the Barnes and Noble parking
lot.  We've called them the 'commando team' this week, and we
expected, had Operation Rescue gone through with their plans, that
this group would be the main player in the intrusion onto Disney
property.   [We've since learned since writing this statement, from
published reports, that Lackey and two members of this group did enter
the 'Magic Kingdom' wearing Operation Rescue tee-shirts under strict
orders not to be arrested.  They were polite and were pretty much
ignored, and didn't cause a distrubance.]

Lauren Sabina Kneisly:

We mentioned that Operation Rescue reflects the values and ideology of
a broader movement, and we saw clear evidence that this group was just
putting into practice the same ideas that anyone can find in any
Christian bookstore, or by tuning their radio or television to
Christian media.  Much of the music to which this group often
performed was that of Carman, a Christian contemporary music artist.
Carman clearly has a political and social agenda; his picture can be
found in this past Friday's New York Times, standing in a group of
Washington politicians lamenting the lack of support for the so-called
"Religious Freedom Amendment."  According to his website, he performed
at the largest single Christian music concert of over seventy thousand
people. Ironically, he says that his conversion experience occurred at
Disney's Night of Joy Christian music event some years ago.

Carman has produced a music video titled "America Again," which
epitomizes the viewpoint of the Biblical America movement.  He
presents a revisionistic, false version of American history to
millions of our children, that this country was founded as a Christian
nation to the political and social exclusion of those who don't match
their definition of "Christian," and that would exclude most
Americans.  The use of his music in public high schools has prompted
lawsuits.   We've found it quite intriguing that a fictional account
of the efforts of the "Army of God" to bomb every womens' clinic in
the state of Florida that we found on the Web includes mention of
Carman's music as the preferred listening of the main character of the
story.

Carman co-wrote a small book that we've found to be so disturbing that
we've placed most of its contents on our web site; it's called the
"R.I.O.T. Manual," an acronym for "Righteous Invasion of Truth."  In
it he comes right out and says, "It's time for a 20th century holy
riot!"  It's a manual that lays out in detail the tactics that this
group of 8 young people have put into practice; tactics of
intimidation, of making others believe that there's no place they can
hide from these Biblical Americans preaching everywhere, so they might
as well just give in and submit.  Which is the kind of statement of
intent that we've heard often from Flip Benham recently.

And that is the basic problem; a movement with millions of people with
billions of dollars (by their own numbers) truly believes that its
absolutist, totalistic system is the destiny of this nation, if they
only believe that to be so.  The rest of us are not allowed to refuse,
they will not take no for an answer, much of what they do is about
getting around the word "no." They also believe that all consequences
of what they do, out of obedience, belong to God, that they need not
be concerned about who is hurt by them.  Books that lay all of this
out can be found everywhere - including at Barnes and Noble.

It's for these reasons we believe that we all feel a twinge in the
gut, a feeling that something's not right, when we encounter many of
the people of Biblical America.  Anyone who's not willing to take no
for an answer, and is looking for ways to get around the word "no,"
never has our best interests at heart.  We all instinctively know
that, and much of what they preach is directed at making people
believe that that feeling in the gut and the weaseling around the word
"no" is to be ignored or even celebrated. 

So what has happened over the past 25 years is that advocates for a
Biblical American, in a strategy to gain "dominion" openly explained
by their leaders, concentrated on a group of targets that are many
small businesses and individuals which are vulnerable and difficult to
defend.  Those targets, of course, are women's health clinics and
doctors that perform a medical procedure that's been with us, though
talked about in hushed tones, for millennia, and will not be wiped
out, even by their own admission.  We can also include other
businesses, such as adult bookstores and gambling establishments, on
that list of targets.  Tactics that we saw practiced throughout this
past week, of bending or breaking secular law in defense of this
group's interpretation of their "God's law" have been honed against
these targets for decades.  It was just a matter of time before these
people and their tactics broke out of the ghetto and aimed themselves
at large wealthy targets.

We've got news for you.  Disney feared the worst from these people,
and it had hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend this weekend to
defend itself.  Come Monday, thousands of clinics across this country,
and around the world, will face the same threat with little to no
resources to defend themselves - often only a few volunteer defenders
to see to it that women have access to a simple medical procedure.

Last year, less than a week after Operation Rescue's visit to Dayton,
a Tuscaloosa Alabama women's clinic was set afire.  Those that use the
success or failure of Operation Rescue's events as a means of judging
the success of their movement may see OR's fiasco as proof that more
extreme means are now necessary.  

We know what happens when they don't get their way - they resort to
extreme behavior.  We saw this on Monday afternoon here in Orlando's
City Council chamber as a representative of Concerned Women for
America, objecting to the decision to go forward with the hanging of
rainbow flags, was nearly ejected for defying the Mayor's request to
go forward to other city business.

Mike Doughney:

Finally, the role of the American Family Association, the AFA, in
precipitating the events of this week cannot be overemphasized.  They
specialize in cases that challenge the norms of behavior in public
places and schools, in attempts to legitimize aggressive forms of
evangelism in places where it's not acceptable today.  The AFA's legal
help in defending Flip Benham in his Lynchburg case, in which he and
his associates allegedly trespassed on public school property to
evangelize to students, is a good example of the cause they promote.

It's clear that Operation Rescue sought to set up another challenge or
series of challenges, by claiming that they only wanted to set foot on
Disney property for religious purposes.  We believe that Operation
Rescue went forward with this extreme plan with the expectation of
AFA's support.  When that support was withdrawn last Tuesday, the rest
of the week became an exercise in saving face while the application of
their theology pushed them into a corner with no way out.  Extremists
in the 'no way out' position often lash out at others or destroy
themselves, which might explain some of the more extreme behavior we
observed from them.  This cycle of granting and withdrawing support
may have created yet another cult in our midst.

The AFA, like much of Biblical America, hasn't thought through the
true consequences of taking this theology of "dominion" to its
eventual conclusion, which is the business that Operation Rescue has
been in since its founding in the mid-80's by Randall Terry and
others.  AFA has used words and threats of boycott, rather than
physical action, in its efforts to get its way.  When the threat of
physical trespass, or worse, loomed before them, they distanced
themselves from Operation Rescue, while for some reason ignoring the
fact that that's what OR and many other groups have done on a regular
basis for a decade and a half.  But those targets were marginal and
immoral in their view, and therefore invisible.

That's another thing Biblical America wants - invisibility for those
it deems immoral according to its Puritan standards.  With
invisibility comes the potential for limitless violence against the
invisible.

I'm a white male heterosexual who doesn't meet those standards, and
should the leaders of this movement come to power, I'll be up against
the wall with everyone else.  That's why I'm speaking here today.

Lauren Sabina Kneisly:

I'm speaking as a queer bisexual feminist who of course is on Biblical
America's short list of targets. If we win, life goes on as usual, and
their paper tigers crumble.  If they win, even if they are completely
right, in their own words - and we have the tape - the consequence is
blood in the streets, because some will never submit.

Questions...