[Vision2020] For Donovan: Some Questions

[Donovan Arnold]

Ted, 

Thank you for your thoughtful and insightful post. I
will do my best to explain my position and address
your concerns and questions. I apologize for the
lengthy response but your questions were long. 

Your write, “I know you do not support discrimination
against women and gays, from what you have written,
and as far as I have gathered, you support the
existence of the public schools, and their important
role to play in the educational/cultural development
of youth, though you may disagree with the details of
how MSD is being operated.”

Yes, this is true. However, I wish to add that I also
support private schools, religious schools, charter
schools, special schools, and home schooling. Children
are all different and need to be able to receive
education in a matter best suited to their needs and
learning style. The more options we can give children
the better their chances of receiving an appropriate
education. 

You continue, “So I am wondering why you are so
venomously (I borrow this word from your V2020 posts)
opposed to those who are seeking to defend the values
of women's rights, gay rights, and the value of the
public schools in Moscow, from what is most certainly
a powerful organization seeking to undermine and
defeat these values and institutions?”

I do not oppose “those who are seeking to defend the
values of women’s rights, gay rights, and the value of
the public schools in Moscow.”  I am all for promotion
of those values. I think that Moscow should better
organize and create a strong influential group to
accomplish those goals and lobby the City Council and
the County Commission to extend as many equal rights
as possible. 

What I oppose Ted, is a group who is targeting
individuals and being sidetracked by the individual
characters of those who hold different values. I
“venomously” disagree with the tactic of personal
character attacks on the integrity or those who voice
disagreement because they have opposing political
viewpoints. These personal attacks do not help advance
the rights of gays, women, or any other legitimate
cause. It fact, it causes great harm. For one, it
makes those that beat their drum to cause of equality
look intolerant and vindictive. But more importantly,
we silence public conversation about giving equality
for women, gays, and minorities. The message sent is
that if you disagree with us, or have legitimate
questions, we are going to publicly destroy you, lie
about you, sue you, investigate you and bring forth
any information about you to the public for evaluation
and judgment. What person in their right mind would
wish to publicly disclose their position, or ask
questions when this is their treatment? No sane person
I know with anything to lose. 

“I have read over and over your arguments on V2020
regarding what you believe is the unreasonable
targeting of Christ Church by some people in Moscow,
but it seems you are downplaying the negative
consequences from some of the beliefs of Christ
Church, consequences that effect real human beings in
the real world.”

Targeting a Church for discriminating against the role
of women, gays, and conflict with the government is
pointless when ¾ of the world’s religions also
discriminate against gays, assign different roles for
women, and conflict with the government. Mainstream
Roman Catholics, Mormons, Muslims, Baptists, Jews, and
many others all hold these views. In fact, even the
city, county, and federal governments also
discriminate against gays and women. So calling one
group out for what the super majority of the
population is doing is pointless and harmful to the
cause of equality and open public discourse. 

While I do agree that there is difference among the
degree of discrimination; gays, women, blacks, or
anyone else is not forced to join Christ Church.
Everyone has the legal right not to join the
organization or leave at any time and not endure the
judgment and punishment prescribed by the church.
However, people cannot escape the discrimination by
the public or the law. This is where we need to
concentrate the efforts for change. By shutting down
public discourse and not addressing the government’s
policies hinders any relief for gays and women from
the harsh hand of discrimination. Targeting a man’s
livelihood, religion, and slandering his character
only serves to set the stage for a closed mind and
closed mouths for fear of public ridicule and loss of
property. 

Ask yourself: Has targeting the moving or NSA from
downtown to another location in Moscow done anything
to advance an end to discrimination against gays and
the role of women in society, Ted? Will moving the
Trinity Conference event from the one location to
another advance gay rights and liberate the school
district? How about if they succeed in preventing
people from receiving Holy Communion, or drinking
wine? Or just those under 21? What positive event
could ever possibly occur from the denial of a ten
year old boy from receiving communion with Christ? And
more importantly, how does it advance the cause of
liberation of gays and women?

Even if people were successful in accomplishing the
goal of shutting down Wilson, Christ Church, Logos,
NSA, Atlas, and his publishing company, it would not
convince or require people to treat gays and women
equally or improve the Moscow school district. So it
is rather pointless to pursue a strategy that even if
successful would not accomplish the intended goal.

I believe that organizing for the purposes of fighting
for the liberation and freedom of a people is a great
and noble cause. But that is not the intent of this
group of people. They are organized for the purposes
of endless harassment of the character of people whom
disagree with them. They do not challenge the belief
of homosexuality being not a chosen sexual
orientation, instead they challenge the tax status of
their publishing company. They do challenge the
content of the courses that teach women are not equal,
they challenge the zoning codes where the classes are
taught. They do challenge that women cannot host the
worship of Holy Communion, they challenge the blood as
wine. They do not challenge the beliefs of the man,
they challenge the man. They do not tear down the
reasons of false beliefs of men, they attempt to tear
down the man.

Did you ever hear Martin Luther King Jr. attack the
Grand Duke Dragon for failing to file his tax return
on time? Did you ever hear him attack the opposing
Baptist minister’s affair? Did you ever hear Christ
attack Judas for impure thoughts? Did you ever hear
Lincoln attack General Lee’s treatment of his dog? No.
We did not hear these attacks because these attacks
serve no purpose but to tear down a person. The idea
should be to tear down the wicked thoughts that can
and can consume all people, not tear down the people.
It is the people that we are suppose to be fighting
for, not against. Destroying the community to save it
is rather pointless. 

I hope this answered your questions on my beliefs.

Donovan J Arnold


--- Tbertruss at aol.com wrote:

> Donovan, Wayne et. al.
> 
> I know you do not support discrimination against
> women and gays, from what 
> you have written, and as far as I have gathered, you
> support the existence of 
> the public schools, and their important role to play
> in the educational/cultural 
> development of youth, though you may disagree with
> the details of how MSD is 
> being operated.
> 
> So I am wondering why you are so venomously (I
> borrow this word from your 
> V2020 posts) opposed to those who are seeking to
> defend the values of women's 
> rights, gay rights, and the value of the public
> schools in Moscow, from what is 
> most certainly a powerful organization seeking to
> undermine and defeat these 
> values and institutions?
> 
> It appears you are trying to undermine the rights of
> citizens to organize, 
> speak out and focus on the legal conduct of an
> organization that is clearly 
> seeking to promote the denial of women's rights, gay
> rights, and the value of the 
> public schools.
> 
> I have read over and over your arguments on V2020
> regarding what you believe 
> is the unreasonable targeting of Christ Church by
> some people in Moscow, but 
> it seems you are downplaying the negative
> consequences from some of the beliefs 
> of Christ Church, consequences that effect real
> human beings in the real 
> world.
> 
> Christ Church has a right to organize and promote
> their values system and 
> beliefs, but others who are adamantly opposed to the
> promotion of some of these 
> values and beliefs also have a right to speak out
> and organize against them, do 
> they not?  Do you think those who have organized
> against Christ Church should 
> stop all their actions, given that they are
> adamantly opposed to the 
> promotion by Christ Church of certain values and
> beliefs that they feel strongly do 
> result in real harm to real human beings?  And if
> they did stop all their 
> actions focused on Christ Church, would they not be
> denying their responsibilities 
> as citizens to oppose an organization that is
> promoting beliefs and values of 
> discrimination against certain classes of people?
> 
> Let's explore what harm Christ Church's values and
> beliefs are doing to real 
> human beings in the real world.
> 
> Donovan wrote:
> 
> Christ Church is not pulling people out their cars
> and
> smashing their faces into the gravel by force with a
> shot gun to the back of their head. They are not
> saying, "Take the law into your own hands and kill a
> Jew." They are not shooting at Gays with a shotgun
> in
> downtown Spokane. They are not dragging minorities
> into the woods and beating them up. They are not
> hanging Black people in the arboretum."
> 
> These observations by Donovan were made in a
> comparison of Christ Church in 
> Moscow to the Aryan Nations "church" that was once
> under the leadership of 
> Richard Butler in N. Idaho.
> 
> The issue of who is being done harm in the promotion
> by Christ Church of 
> absolutist "God given" values that do advocate
> discriminate against certain 
> classes of people begs for more exploration than
> just stating that the this church 
> does not engage in the extreme behavior Donovan
> cited.  
> 
> It is well known that Christ Church does not believe
> in women serving in 
> leadership roles.  The fact that women cannot serve
> on the Logos School Board was 
> a topic of extensive debate on V2020 a few years
> ago.  And we know with 
> certainty that being gay is regarded as a serious
> sin by Christ Church, deserving of 
> punishment, though I don't think the members of this
> church would conduct a 
> public stoning, as the Bible suggests.  And of
> course they view the public 
> schools as an evil agnostic/atheist institution,
> certainly not deserving of their 
> tax dollars.
> 
> The question therefore is, are people being harmed
> by the promotion of these 
> beliefs?  Are women who belong to Christ Church
> being discriminated against?  
> Are any potentially gay members of Christ Church
> being discriminated against?  
> If Christ Church voters succeeded in blocking
> funding for public schools in 
> Moscow, could this do any harm to members of the
> Moscow community?
> 
> While not allowing women to serve on the Logos
> School Board may be legal, it 
> sets an example of discrimination against women, and
> does in fact discriminate 
> against any women who is capable and wishing to
> serve on this school board.  
> Is this not real harm done to real human beings
> resulting from the belief 
> system of Christ Church?
> 
> The youth of this church are being raised to follow
> this belief that women 
> should not serve in leadership roles.  Is this not
> real harm being done to real 
> human beings resulting from the belief system of
> Christ Church?  What does the 
> promotion of this belief that women should not serve
> in leadership roles do 
> to the feelings of self worth and importance of
> female members of Christ Church 
> of all ages?
> 
> Any member of Christ Church who discovers or has
> just been hiding the fact 
> they are gay, who makes this fact publicly known,
> will face some rather serious 
> consequences from the power structure of this
> church, consequences that anyone 
> who wishes to stop discrimination against gay people
> would find appalling.  
> Besides this impact within the church, the impact on
> gay people in general in th
> is area from knowing that a powerful and prominent
> church believes they are 
> committing sins that deserve serious punishment
> cannot be understood as 
> anything but negative on their feelings of
> legitimacy and self worth.
> 
> Is this not real harm done to real human beings
> resulting from the promotion 
> of the beliefs 
> of Christ Church regarding their views on gay
> people?
> 
> And for anyone who believes the public schools have
> a positive role to play 
> in Moscow, is not the total opposition to the public
> schools by Christ Church 
> an influence that may have had and can have in the
> future a negative impact on 
> real human beings?  Is it possible that youth may be
> denied 
> educational/cultural opportunities resulting in a
> real negative impact on real human beings from 
> the adamant ideological opposition by Christ Church
> to the very existence of 
> the public schools, who do follow a separation of
> church and state?
> 
> You may or may not answer all or any of the
> questions in this post, assuming 
> you even read it.
> 
> But I will not be drawn into a long debate with you
> over these questions if 
> you chose to refute the general drift of my little
> spiel here.
> 
> The issues outlined above have been parsed through
> over and over on V2020.  
> They probably will require repeating over and over
> and over in every nation on 
> Earth for hundreds maybe thousands of years if these
> issues are ever going to 
> be resolved in a positive result.
> 
> Ted Moffett 
> 
> 
> 
> 
=== message truncated ===>
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