FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - JUNE 7, 1998 CONTACT: Mike Doughney or Lauren Sabina Kneisly, 888-217-8770, barf@barf.org, http://www.barf.org BARF HOLDS INFORMATIONAL PICKET AT OPERATION RESCUE NATIONAL'S HOST CHURCH; ISSUES STATEMENT DESCRIBING CHILD EXPLOITATION AND THE "MELTDOWN" OF OPERATION RESCUE 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), held an informational picket, along with other concerned individuals, at Good Shepherd Free Methodist Church in Kissimmee, host of ORN's activities in the Orlando area for the past week. "We wanted everyone to know, including the members of that church, what we saw along highways in the area over the past week," said Lauren Sabina Kneisly of BARF. "One of our signs read, '96 degrees, no water, no parents equals child abuse,' and that sums up what we saw and documented on Wednesday." Operation Rescue participants were scattered in small groups along a four mile stretch of the Route 192 strip in the 95-plus degree heat on Wednesday afternoon for at least one hour, following a 4 hour event on a nearly shadeless street in the city of Orlando. Many, including unaccompanied children, were left without a supply of water, nor did they have any way of communicating with their leadership in case of emergency. "OR participants we spoke with today at Sunday services seemed to be blissfully unaware of the dangers of their participation in demonstrations like this under these conditions," said Mike Doughney, Kneisly's partner. "They said, 'our kids are just fine' or 'the same thing happens in Disney World.' We think instead that what we saw Wednesday afternoon demonstrates a potentially dangerous willingness to sacrifice the health and safety of their people, and their children, to promote their cause." As part of BARF's usual effort to document the activities of Operation Rescue, the participants were videotaped while standing along Route 192. Some of these images have been made available to the press on the BARF website, at http://www.barf.org/press/orlando-98.html. The statement to the press made available today by BARF lays out the true significance of this past week's events. BARF collected evidence of a 'meltdown' of Operation Rescue, which included an apparent shift towards visibly more coercive and dangerous methods of manipulation of participants. This event could be called the "Three Mile Island" of the broader Biblical America movement, as the systems, beliefs and customs common throughout thousands of churches and religious organizations set up the conditions for disaster. "Operation Rescue demonstrated one way through which the common ideology of the Biblical America movement could lead to tragedy, when a group isolates themselves, alienates their supporters, and pushes itself toward more extreme methods of action in a calculated way," says Doughney. "I urge everyone who's uncomfortable with what Operation Rescue does - and their participants too - to read our statement." BARF produced copies of this statement for distribution to Operation Rescue participants attending church today. Biblical America Resistance Front (BARF) is the research 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. BARF may be found on the Internet at http://www.barf.org. ###