Box Turtle Bulletin

Iowa Teen Beaten To Death By Anti-Gay Attackers

A nineteen-year-old youth died Sunday afternoon following an attack and severe beating early Friday morning. Marcellus Richard Andrews was officially pronounced dead after life support was removed at an Iowa City Hospital.

According to friends, it all began when Andrews was at a friend’s house late Thursday night:

She said the problems started at about 12:45 a.m. Friday when she and Tudia Simpson, her cousin, went for a walk down the street. Andrews opted to stay behind, waiting on the enclosed porch, she said.

The two women hadn’t made it as far as Adams Street a block away when they heard yelling back at the house. They ran back and found a truck stopped in the street, and the occupants were taunting Andrews, calling him “faggot” and “Mercedes,” a feminization of his first name, Simpson said.

The arguing and name calling continued, said Simpson, who admitted throwing the first punch, striking a girl.

“She kept saying it, and I hit her,” Simpson said.

At one point in the ensuing melee, Andrews fell to the ground. Simpson tried to help him up but another male kicked him in the face. She tried to help him back up again after the fight ended, but he wasn’t able to get up. Another girl called 911. When paramedics arrived, they found Andrews with severe head trauma and had him flown to Iowa City for treatment.

Police are investigating. No arrests have been made.

“Buzz Words”

Public opinion keeps shifting toward allowing same-sex couples to legally marry. That make the work of the National Organization “for” Marriage a lot more strenuous. Every time a new poll comes out, NOM is reduced to spinning the results while bent over backwards, dancing on the head of a pin, keeping a straight face on the head they’ve got buried in the sand.

It’s quite a work out.

Get a load of their latest effort. In this post, NOM is trying to dismiss a Marist poll showing most New Yorkers favor marriage equality.

Generally speaking, people are reluctant to change an existing law when they don’t think it adversely affects them directly. Using buzz words like “allow” and “legally” also drives up favorable responses, while asking if people want to “overturn” something drives up negative responses.

Read the rest of this entry »

UK Reverses Decision To Deny Visa To Ugandan LGBT Advocate

Last week, we reported that Britain’s Border Agency (UKBA) has denied a visa for Freedom and Roam Uganda (FARUG) founder and executive Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera, who was scheduled to open a pride celebration in Derry, Northern Ireland later this month. Today, Paul Canning reports that UKBA has reversed its decision and granted Kasha a visa:

Kasha was today granted a visa to visit Northern Ireland. When reapplying in Kampala she reports it being granted extremely quickly. We understand that there has been significant lobbying regarding the previous visa denial, in particular of the UK Foreign Office.

Randy Thomas, Ex-Gay Superstar?

There’s a new web site that has popped up with an introductory video:

I’ve clicked around the new web site Confessions of an Ex-Gay Superstar, hoping to find evidence that the site is some kind of a clever satire, but allas, it’s not. The former Exodus International vice president has yet another (!) blog.

Ugandan Cabinet “Throws Out” Anti-Homosexuality Bill, But Parliament Presses Ahead

Daily Monitor, Uganda’s largest independent newspaper, has a very brief report this morning saying that the Ugandan Cabinet has “dropped” the Anti-Homosexuality Bill:

Cabinet has finally thrown out the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, 2009 on the advice of Mr Adolf Mwesige, the ruling party lawyer. However, Ndorwa West MP David Bahati, the architect of the Bill, insists the proposed legislation is now property of Parliament and that the Executive should stop “playing hide- and- seek games” on the matter.

“We agreed that government should search the law archives and get some of the laws, enforce them rather than having another new piece of legislation,” a source said. “He [Mwesige] said the Bill is overtaken by events and that donors and other sections of the public were not comfortable.”

The decision to throw out the Anti-Homosexuality Bill was made at a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday where Mr Mwesige, according to sources, told ministers that the Bill was unnecessary since government has a number of laws in place criminalising homosexual activities.

It’s unclear what the reported action from the Cabinet would mean. In May of 2010, the Cabinet reportedly rejected the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, but the bill remained subject to debate in Parliament and had not been withdrawn.

[Update: Warren Throckmorton reports that a Parliamentary Spokesperson, Helen Kawesa, has confirmed that the “bill is in the Parliament now. It’s the Parliament’s property.” According to Throckmorton:

Currently, budget meetings are on the agenda but a budget is slated to get a vote by next Wednesday. After that, other business, including the anti-gay bill could be considered. As of now, according to Kawesa, there is no official action scheduled for the Anti-Homosexuality Bill but she said the bill could come up at any time after the budget has been passed.

This would indicate that not only is the bill very much alive, but is being actively worked in Parliament. If so, then the bill’s backers were already successful in reviving the bill without garnering any notice from the news media.]

Earlier reports of the Cabinet’s decision indicated that members recommended dismantling the bill and passing portions of it surreptitiously as amendments to other bills in the hopes of escaping worldwide attention. Many of those reported recommendations made their way into a Parliamentary report last May, barely a week before the Eight Parliament was scheduled to end. Early reports had it that the death penalty provisions had been dropped, but in an example of the kind of subterfuge the bill’s supporters would undertake to ensure its passage, it was revealed that the death penalty, in fact, was still part of the bill. Parliamentary Affairs Committee recommended that in the Clause 3 defining “aggravated homosexuality” and which specifies that “A person who commits the offence of aggravated homosexuality shall be liable on conviction to suffer death,” that the phrase “suffer death” should be replaced with “the penalty provided for aggravated defilement under Section 129 of the Penal Code Act.” Section 129 of the Penal Code Act mandates the death penalty for an  unrelated offense of child molestation. Parliament ultimately failed to pass the bill due to a lack of a quorum because of controversy over another unrelated bill.

M.P. David Bahati, the bill’s sponsor, has repeatedly insisted that the bill would be brought back during the Ninth Parliament, with its status picking up where it left off at the close of previous Parliament where it was awaiting a final vote. The Ninth Parliament invoked the procedure to bring forward a bill from the prior Parliament last July when it quickly revived the controversial HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control Bill, which criminalizes the transmission of HIV/AIDS with ten years imprisonment. That bill also criminalizes the transmission of AIDS from mother to child through breast milk. HIV/AIDS workers and human rights advocates say that the penalties will will discourage testing and treatment for HIV/AIDS, as lack of knowledge of one’s status will be an effective defense against charges arising from the bill. That bill is now in the HIV/AIDS Committee.

Recent reports have speculated that the Anti-Homosexuality Bill would be brought back sometime in the second half of August, while another unconfirmed report placed the timing in November. Consistent throughout however is the concern that the bill would be brought up surreptitiously. Warren Throckmorton has reported:

I have also heard today from sources I trust that ministers are quietly appealing to MPs to pass the bill via letters and emails. The relevance of this is that the movement to get the bill considered is not as public as during the previous parliament.

The Daily Agenda for Monday, August 22

TODAY’S AGENDA:

All quiet on the Homo Front. Consider this an open thread. How was your weekend?

If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. PLEASE, don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).

Christian Dominionism Is Not A Myth

On August 14, Michelle Goldberg sounded the alarm about the close ties that two GOP candidates for president, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann and Texas Gov. Rick Perry have with extreme elements of far-right Cristianism known as Dominionism. Today, A. Larry Ross responds with a well-intentioned, but ultimately hopelessly informed counterargument that “Christian Dominionism is a Myth.” Ross’s argument rests on this crux:

Although her well-intentioned article may resonate in the echo chambers of her fellow East Coast media elite, Goldberg misapplies a broad label that few, if any, evangelicals use or with which they identify.

Ross identifies himself as “a lifelong evangelical who understands the foundational tenets of belief in the doctrine of love, according to the principles of Jesus in the Great Commandment and the Sermon on the Mount.”  I take him at his word. I think that description applies to almost all who identify as evangelicals — as well as almost all who identify as mainline Protestants, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox and Mormon. Which means that it doesn’t really tell us much. And if the particular individuals that Goldberg discussed held themselves to that relatively simple and expansive definition, then there would hardly be any cause for alarm. But they don’t. And instead of understanding what they do believe to be equally essential articles of faith, Ross dismisses the entire phenomenon as ghosts dreamed up by the “East Cost media elite” (his words; how’s that for misapplying broad labels?) to pump more excitement into cable news channels:

But in discussing Dominionism, Goldberg doesn’t misapply anything. To the very point that Ross misses, she is actually applying a label to identify a theology that few, if any, evangelicals use or with which they identify, and she applies it specifically to that exceptionally tiny minority for whom the label does applies. These are not the people within the broad spectrum of Christianity, nor are they even those within the outer ten percent of its fringes. We’re not talking about the Pat Robertsons, the Joel Olsteens, the Albert Mohlers or the Rick Warrens. No, we’re talking about people who are far, far more fringe than anyone whose name immediately comes to mind whenever most people think of Christian Evangelicalism. And that is exactly Goldberg’s point. And when Goldberg says, “If you want to understand Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry, understanding Dominionism isn’t optional,” that advice applies to mainstream Evangelicals as well. I suspect most of them don’t understand Dominionism either. Ross certainly doesn’t appear to.

Pretending that the so-called New Apostolic Movement and Seven Mountains Theology don’t exist or that those influenced by the Kansas City Prophets have not gained influence among particular presidential candidates here at home and political leaders abroad doesn’t make them go away. Granted, these are probably not the kind of people Ross runs into in his church, his friends and colleagues’ churches, or in any other circles he hands with. But just because they can’t be found under Ross’s bed or alongside him in the pews — or in Wallis’s greenroom sojourns — doesn’t mean they don’t exist. And when they are identified as close advisers credited for a big win in Iowa, or when they act as main speakers and moderators at a huge televised rally for a candidate’s benefit, the proper response is to ask hard questions of what they want for the country, not whistling and quickly walking away.

The Daily Agenda for Sunday, August 21

TODAY’S AGENDA:

Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Allentown, PA; Brooklyn (Bedford Stuyvesant), NY; Copenhagen, Denmark; Galway, Ireland; Madison, WI; Mocton, NB and San Jose, CA.

Also This Weekend: FilmOut San Diego, CA.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
James “John” Gruber: 1928. James Gruber was born on Des Moines, Iowa, but his father, a former vaudeville performer turned music teacher, moved the family to Los Angeles in 1936, and it was in L.A. that Gruber came of age. In 1946, Gruber turned eighteen and enlisted in the Marines. He later remarked that being in such close proximity to men, he “went bananas in the sex department.” Despite the, ah, camaraderie, he continued to have affairs with women, and throughout his life he considered himself bisexual. After he was honorable discharged in 1949, he studied English Literature at Occidental College and met Christopher Isherwood, who would become a close friend and mentor.

An exceptionally rare photo of early members of the Mattachine Society

In April 1951, Gruber and his boyfriend, photographer Konrad Stevens, became the last new members of a group of gay men who had begun gathering under the name of “Society of Fools.” which proved to be a turning point. “All of us had known a whole lifetime of not talking, or repression. Just the freedom to open up … really, that’s what it was all about. We had found a sense of belonging, of camaraderie, of openness in an atmosphere of tension and distrust. … Such a great deal of it was a social climate. A family feeling came out of it, a nonsexual emphasis. … It was a brand-new idea.” Gruber suggested the group rename itself the Mattachine Society, referring to the medieval masque troops known as “mattachines.” Gruber and Stevens brought a new sense of urgency and energy into the Society. In fact, Gruber was responsible for taking the only known photo of the early members of the highly secretive Society when he snapped a quick snapshot during a gathering in 1951. Founder Harry Hay was furious, and Gruber was nearly expelled. The only way he stayed in was by lying and saying there was no film in the camera.

By 1953, Gruber and others resigned over tensions caused by the Communist ties of several other members of the group. He moved to San Francisco and Palo Alto, where he changed his first name to John and he became a high school and college teacher. In the late 1990s, Gruber became involved with documenting the history of the gay community and was recognized as a pioneer in organizing the gay and lesbian community. Before he died peacefully earlier this year at his home in Santa Clara, he was the last living member of the original Mattachine Society.

If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. PLEASE, don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).

The Daily Agenda for Saturday, August 20

TODAY’S AGENDA (OURS):
On the Road To Equality: Omaha and Lincoln, NE. It seems that everyone and their sister is organizing a bus tour this year, and the Human Rights Campaign certainly doesn’t want to be left out on the hot new trend. HRC’s bus tour, dubbed “On the Road To Equality,” will make two stops this weekend. The first stop is at the ConAgra Campus in downtown Omaha, and the second is at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. Check the HRC web site for more details.

Bishop Christopher Senyonjo (Retired)

Ugandan Bishop To Speak At Sunday Forum: San Diego. Retired Anglican bishop Rt. Rev. Christopher Senyonjo will begin the American leg of his Compass to Compassion tour tomorrow with a talk at San Diego’s St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral. Bishop Senyonjo has been an outspoken defender of LGBT rights and dignity in Uganda, a position that he has taken at great personal cost and risk. His picture was published alongside the late David Kato’s photo under the headline tagged with “hang them” during last year’s outing campaign by the Ugandan tabloid Rolling Stone (no relation to the U.S. magazine by the same name). In 2001, Bishop Senyonjo received numerous death threats because of his advocacy, requiring him to remain in exile in the United States for about six months. Tomorrow, he will be speaking at the Cathedral’s Sunday Forum with a talk titled, “Global Equality – How Do We Get There?” The forum is at 9:00 a.m. at St. Paul’s, 2728 Sixth Avenue in San Diego, adjacent to Balboa Park. You can read my 2010 interview with Bishop Senyonjo in three parts: how he became an ally and advocate, the price he’s paid for his advocacy, and the impact of the notorious March 2009 American ex-gay conference in Kampala on the LGBT community.

AIDS Walk This Weekend: Reno, NV.

Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Allentown, PA; Brooklyn (Bedford Stuyvesant), NY; Copenhagen, Denmark; Derby, UK; Doncaster, UK; Edgewater, MD; Galway, Ireland; Lafayette, IN; London, UK (Black Pride); Madison, WI; Mocton, NB; Reno, NV and San Jose, CA.

Also This Weekend: Ascension Beach Party, Fire Island, NY; FilmOut San Diego, CA and Munich Streetfest, Germany.

If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. PLEASE, don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).

LaBarbera Award: Tony Perkins

Observers of gay youth suicides can point to many different factors leading to their deaths. Fundamentally, suicide is what often comes when a person loses all hope of things ever changing for the better. Many gay kids who survive suicide attempts say that they reached their breaking point when they came to believe that their mere presence was disgusting, immoral, a gross pervert, and that the very thought of them makes people want to throw up.

And where do they get these ideas? They get them from the people around them. From classmates, teachers, preachers, neighbors, parents, relatives, and Tony Perkins. And Perkins is raising money off of it, with this fundraising plea that was sent out in the mail:

Now accepting blood money: Family "Research" Council's fundraising plea (Click to enlarge).

If you’ve not yet heard about this true story, get ready to be shocked–and to take action.

For President Obama to use the power of his office to promote such aims is truly appalling. I was especially disappointed to see pro-homosexual videos aimed directly at young people recorded at the White House. They were made in partnership with Dan Savage, a homosexual extremist who built a career on hatred of Christians and their values.

The videos are titled “It Gets Better.” They are aimed at persuading kids that although they’ll face struggles and perhaps bullying for “coming out” as homosexual (or transgendered or some other perversion), life will get better.

President Obama, Michelle Obama, Vice President Biden, and many White House staffers recorded and posted “It Gets Better” videos on the first-ever White House web pages devoted exclusively to the so-called LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) “community.”

Can you imagine George Washington, Ronald Reagan, or any other president telling school children that it’s okay to be immoral and that they’ll eventually feel better about it?

It’s disgusting. And it’s part of a concerted effort to persuade kids that homosexuality is okay and actually to recruit them into that “lifestyle.”

Thanks for giving what you can and for praying for FRC–and for our nation.

He knows what he's doing

All of the names are in there: immoral, perversion, disgusting, appalling. And of course the rest of FRC’s mission is to drive home the message that gay people makes Tony Perkins want to throw up. Their solution to the youth suicide problem? More of the same name-calling from other kids and all of the adults around them — and even from the President and First Lady of the United States if he were to have his way. We already have several examples of the kind of messages Perkins would be perfectly happy with from one presidential candidate and prospective First Lady.

There is a saying that’s going around in management circles: the definition of crazy is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. I don’t think Perkins is crazy. I think he’s evil because I don’t think he expects a different result. He’s fine with things exactly as they are right now.

It’s just one more reason why Perkins’s Family Research Council is among a very tiny handful of anti-gay groups on the SPLC’s list of certified hate groups.

[via Right Wing Watch]

The Daily Agenda for Friday, August 19

TODAY’S AGENDA (OURS):

AIDS Walk This Weekend: Reno, NV.

Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Allentown, PA; Brooklyn (Bedford Stuyvesant), NY; Copenhagen, Denmark; Derby, UK; Doncaster, UK; Edgewater, MD; Galway, Ireland; Lafayette, IN; London, UK (Black Pride); Madison, WI; Mocton, NB; Reno, NV and San Jose, CA.

Also This Weekend: Ascension Beach Party, Fire Island, NY; FilmOut San Diego, CA and Munich Streetfest, Germany.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Frank Kameny Throws Down The Gauntlet: 1969. Benning Wentworth was an electronics technician for a private research contractor for the U.S. Air Force. In the spring of 1966, he was accused of homosexuality, and his eleven-year security clearance was revoked. Frank Kameny, who himself had been fired by the Army Map Service in 1957 because of his homosexuality, worked as Wentworth’s counsel in an appeal before the Industrial Security Clearance Review Office in the Department of Defense. The Pentagon justified its blanket denial of security clearances to gay people by claiming gays were subject to blackmail. Kameny pointed out the obvious flaw in that logic: Wentworth was out — he even appeared in a press conference about his hearing — and it’s impossible to blackmail someone over their homosexuality if the whole world knows about it. In his opening remarks, Kameny described a different unnamed person, known only as OSD 66-44, who was allowed to keep his clearance as long as he spent the rest of his life in the closet and pretended to be straight. But for Wentworth and others, that was no longer an option. Kameny declared:

The Department got its satisfaction out of OSD 66-44, whoever he may be. We hope he sleeps soundly these days, poor man.  OSD 66-44 may have compromised.  He may have knuckled under.  He may have crawled.  He may have groveled.  He may have submitted to Departmental blackmail of the most contemptible kind.

We will not.  We stand our ground.

We throw down the gauntlet, clearly, unequivocally and unambiguously.

We state for the world, as we have stated for the public, we state for the record and, if the Department forces us to carry the case that far, we state for the courts that Mr. Wentworth, being a healthy, unmarried, homosexual male, 35 years old, has lived, and does live a suitable homosexual life, in parallel with the suitable active heterosexual sexual life lived by 75 percent of our healthy, unmarried, heterosexual males holding security clearances; and he intends to continue to do so indefinitely into the future.  And please underline starting with the word “and intends to do so into the future”.  Underline that, please, Mr. Stenographer.

Kameny Way: Frank Kameny (left) with D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty and D.C. Councilman Jack Evans

Kameny lost that case, but his commitment to the gay rights struggle was unwavering. He continued to dog the federal government over its active discrimination against gay people until, over the next several decades the barriers fell one by one. But it wouldn’t be until President Clinton signed Executive order 12968 in 1995 that homosexuality would be formally removed as a reason for denying a security clearance (must governmental agencies had dropped the ban informally by then). Today, Kameny’s papers are a part of the Kameny Archives of the Library of Congress. Kameny is now 86 years old and makes his home in Washington, D.C. Because of his historic activism, his home is listed as a D.C. Historic Landmark by the District of Columbia’s Historic Preservation Review Board, and 17th Street between P and R streets, N.W., has been designated as “Frank Kameny Way.” You can read Kameny’s entire opening statement in the Wentworth case here,

Anti-gay Extremist Hired As Congressional Adviser: 1985. This Associated Press Report appeared in newspapers nationwide:

A Psychologist who believes homosexuals should be quarantined has been hired as an expert on AIDS by a congressman who sits on the House subcommittee overseeing research on the disease, a newspaper reported Sunday. Paul Cameron of Lincoln, Neb., was hired for a $2,000, one-month tenure to advise Rep. William Dannemeyer, R-Calif., on homosexuality and acquired immune deficiency syndrome, the Register of Orange County reported. Cameron, who says the quarantine should be ordered to stop the spread of disease, has linked homosexuality to criminal behavior, including mass murder and child molestation. Dannemeyer, a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on health and environment, said he trust Camerin as an adviser even though the psychologist has been expelled from the American Psychological Association and repudiated by the Nebraska Psychological Association.

Not only was Cameron kicked out of the APA and censured by the NPA, he was also denounced by several other professional organizations for gross and unethical misrepresentations of legitimate scientific research. Cameron would go on to say that medical extermination of people with AIDS might be a legitimate consideration, and in 1999 he wrote admiringly of how the Nazi’s “dealt with” homosexuality. Dannemeyer’s record on LGBT issues was little better. In 1986, Dannemeyer was the only prominent politician to support Lyndon LaRouche’s Proposition 64 in California, which would have labeled AIDS a disease subject to quarantine. In 1989, Dannemeyer read into the Congressional Record Cameron’s graphic description of gay sex, “The Medical Consequences of What Homosexuals Do.” Dannemeyer left the House in 1992 to try to run for the Senate seat for California, but he lost in the primary.

If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. PLEASE, don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).

Changes To Immigration Policy Will Allow Some Same-Sex Partners Avoid Deportation

From the Washington Blade:

The Obama administration unveiled on Thursday new immigration policy that could enable many undocumented immigrants facing deportation to stay within the United States — a move that could enable bi-national same-sex couples at the risk of separation to stay together within the country.

Under the new guidance, immigration authorities within the Obama administration will conduct a case-by-case review of the approximately 300,000 undocumented immigrants facing possible deportation to determine which cases are high priority and low priority. Those who have been convicted of crimes or pose a security risk will be a higher priority for deportation, while those who are deemed lower priority will be taken out of the pipeline.

…”The prosecutorial discretion memo provides for the use of discretion for people with strong community ties, with community contributions and with family relationships,” the official said. “We consider LGBT families to be families in this context.”

Chris Geidner at Metro Weekly also digs into the details.

Don’t Tell Me Marriage Doesn’t Evolve

I discovered something today that shocked me.

I’ve known for a long time that “traditional” marriage involved a woman who could not own property, could be beaten (lightly) by her husband, and had no protection from being raped by him.

Actually, that’s a bit of a misnomer: Husbands never “raped” their wives because it was considered a logical impossibility. State laws against rape carved out a “marital rape exemption” for husbands.

I knew all that. What shocked me was discovering when those exemptions finally began to disappear.

Do you know?  Care to guess? Read the rest of this entry »

Conservative churches welcome homosexuals

Tony Perkins, lead anti-gay activist at Family Research Council tweeted the following

And he’s right.

As long as you are a “homosexual” – as Tony and fellow believers define the term – the church doors are open wide. To them, a homosexual is someone who engages in sex with persons of the same sex, and has nothing whatsoever to do with attractions, instincts, love, or family. If you show up looking to be delivered from a sinful homosexual lifestyle then you are not only welcomed but celebrated.

Church members will joyously go online to leave comments on the Militant Homosexual Activist Blogsites reporting that the saving grace of Jesus healed a broken and wounded soul right that very morning. Of course, they don’t actually want to associate with that person, “do you know what he’s done? And he’s so very, well, flamboyant still”, but nevertheless they are happy to report deliverance.

Yes indeed, homosexuals are welcome.

Ah, but as for conservative churches welcoming gay people? The folks that do not believe that their orientation – that immutable, natural, and powerful force – is inherently evil? Those folk?

Yeah, not so much.

(hat tip: Joe My God)

A book review: Only One Mommy

Here is the review I offered to Amazon for Only One Mommy: A Woman’s Battle for Her Life, Her Daughter, and Her Freedom: The Lisa Miller Story by Janet Miller’s attorney, Rena Lindevaldsen.

In 1991 Sally Fields starred in Not Without My Daughter, the story of a woman whose Muslim husband fled with their daughter to a Iran in order to have sole custody and control over the child. He believed that he should have sole decision making authority and his religion taught him that he wasn’t subject to the American judicial system.

Rena Lindevaldsen has now stood that story on it’s head. No longer the sole territory of Islamist states and radical Muslim extremists, Christians are now justifying kidnapping in the name of their faith.

In September 2010, Janet Miller absconded with Isabella Jenkens-Miller and disappeared so as to avoid court-ordered visitation. Her church, Jerry Falwell’s Thomas Hill Baptist Church, encouraged her to ignore the orders of the court because Linda Jenkins was a lesbian and, frankly, they don’t believe lesbians are entitled to the same rights as Baptists.

And Liberty Counsel (part of the Falwell empire) fought a court battle designed to delay and obstruct justice. So obvious were their efforts that a judge finally ordered that Isabella be turned over to Linda’s custody. But Janet was gone by then and Rena Lindevaldsen, her lead counsel, had “no idea where she went.”

Then in April 2011, Janet was discovered living in El Salvador in a home owned by the father of one of Rena’s employees.

And now Rena has penned her version of the story. Written from the perspective of the fugitive, Lindevaldsen justifies parental kidnapping and flouting the American judicial system. Because, as Rena teachers her laws students, Christians are subject to God’s laws and not Man’s laws.

This book should be seen as a warning. In the United States we tell ourselves that we believe in freedom, that we respect differing faiths, that religion does not dictate to those who don’t believe their doctrines. But there is a growing movement – one that mirrors the Islamists in the Middle East – of people who believe that their religious faith entitles them to ‘dominion’ over non-believers, over the government, over society, and over you.

Rena is but one voice pleading their case. It is imperative that we listen – and when tempted to think, “they don’t REALLY mean that do they?”, the answer is yes. They do.