[Vision2020] Chemical warfare? (Was Trinity Festival protest)

Fri Aug 3 07:19:00 PDT 2007

The spider analogy that you so lovingly quote seems the perfect follow up to the statements made by Ms. Mix. The cute little story about the creatures in the closet begs the question, what do we do with the little dears once we imagine we discern their true nature. Try to refuse them land, refuse them sustenance, refuse them a voice? When those measures fail, what I would have to conclude from what you and your friends have posted the answer is to break out the bug spray. Perhaps one of the cyanide based insecticides such as Zyclon-B would be appropriate?

g
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Saundra Lund 
  To: 'Paul Rumelhart' ; 'Bill London' 
  Cc: 'v2020' 
  Sent: Thursday, August 02, 2007 8:20 PM
  Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Trinity Festival protest

  Hi Paul & Visionaries:

  <sigh>  It's a good question, but I sometimes feel like people haven't been paying attention over the last few years.

  I'm a Christian, and I absolutely do *not* agree with the Kirk's . . . theology.  I don't believe in forced salvation (if they can't win us over by conversion, then they want the teeth of the law to force the rest of us to act/behave as they think we ought to behave), and it really disturbs me the way God's word has been perverted by Kirk hierarchy. 

  However, IMHO, of larger concern is the Kirk hierarchy's refusal to follow the "secular" rules and laws the rest of us are expected to follow.  The rules are for others, not for them.  Lying under oath -- no problem.  Lying to government officials -- again, no problem.  Thumbing their noses at planning and zoning regulations -- absolutely no problem.  Failing to live up to the very limited requirements of tax exemption - they excel at that.  Parking where they have no right -- no problem.  Withholding information vital to the safety of our community's children - absolutely no problem.  And on and on and on the list goes.  In essence, while there are wonderful individual Kirk members, Christ Church itself has proven time and again that it is the quintessential Bad Neighbor.

  My dear friend Rose Huskey blogged on this very topic recently -- you might want to read what she had to say:

  http://cleaning-house.org/?p=591

  I'm sure she won't mind if I repost here:

  "Nests of Pests

  Temperatures in Moscow hover in the 90's during the dog days of August but that's not why many community members are boiling. For the past three years we have endured the civic embarrassment generated by the pseudo-Ceilidh, pseudo-Calvinistic jamboree known as the Trinity Fest. Members of the Confederation of Reformed Evangelicals aka CREC, view Moscow as their Rome, Jerusalem, Mecca, and Ganges River. They gather in August to sit at the knee of Massa Doug Wilson, (the brains behind the beards) greedily ingesting the racist, sexist, homophobic preaching disgorged from his pie hole. It has been my habit to refrain from going to town during the week that Doug attempts to claim Moscow as his papal seat. However, this year I will join with friends to acquaint (or reacquaint as the case may be) CREC visitors and Kirk members with long-standing community values. Flyers have been posted throughout downtown Moscow and in the windows of supportive businesses asking folks to:

  [T]ake a stand for traditional American values of tolerance and diversity as we gather to voice our collective community opposition to the racist, sexist, homophobic agenda of Christ Church, New St. Andrews College, The Confederation of Reformed Evangelical Churches and the Association of Classical and Christian Schools.

  Uninformed readers might (mistakenly) believe that it is, at best, ironic to take a stand for tolerance and diversity while simultaneously opposing a "religious" celebration. The following analogy might help to clarify my position. Suppose you wake up one fine morning and notice - in a dark corner of your closet - a sweet little nest of spiders. On the whole you like spiders (Charlotte's Web was your favorite childhood book), so you adopt a live and let live attitude toward the little critters. Five or six days later you have an opportunity to take a closer look at mama spider. She is a glossy black color, and son of a gun, has a red hour glass on her belly. This is not what you had in mind when you believed your closet was big enough for you and the spiders, was it? An apathetic reaction is not in your best interest. Silently acquiescing to bigotry is as risky and stupid as deliberately sharing your closet with black widow spiders. And while the Brotherhood of the Kirk always exacts a price from their critics the cost of going along to get along is much too high for me.

  Rose"

  HTH,

  Saundra Lund
  Moscow, ID

  The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.
  - Edmund Burke

  ***** Original material contained herein is Copyright 2007 through life plus 70 years, Saundra Lund.  Do not copy, forward, excerpt, or reproduce outside the Vision 2020 forum without the express written permission of the author.*****

  -----Original Message-----
  From: vision2020-bounces at moscow.com [mailto:vision2020-bounces at moscow.com] On Behalf Of Paul Rumelhart
  Sent: Thursday, August 02, 2007 7:19 PM
  To: Bill London
  Cc: v2020
  Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Trinity Festival protest

  Doesn't freedom of religion trump simple dislike for the church or some of it's members?  If there are irregularities with how they were granted permits or something, then that should be looked into.  But why disturb their festival?  What is their political and economic agendas that these activists are protesting?  

  Granted, people have a right to protest as long as they keep it civil and follow the law.  It's just that I have never understood why people are so opposed to them.  Most of the objections I've heard have to do with zoning laws and permits for the NSA school.  That sounds like a problem with the authorities and not Christ Church.  There are lots of comments about their theology (Southern slavery, odd ideas about how they think a "biblical" society would work, etc), but so what?  They have every right to believe as they wish, whether or not I think the lot of them have been standing too long in the hot sun with no hat.

  I don't agree theologically with them at all.  But who am I to try to tell them they can't expand themselves?

  I have great respect for you all as community leaders, I just think you going too far sometimes.

  Paul

  Bill London wrote: 

              Protest Planned for Christ Church Trinity Festival

              A group of local activists invite the community to join their demonstration of opposition to the political and economic agenda of Moscow's Christ Church and the church's Trinity Festival, announced spokesperson Selena Rosewater. 

              The group will meet in Friendship Square in downtown Moscow at 7:30pm on Friday, August 3, and then march to the Trinity Festival event at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Center.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  =======================================================
   List services made available by First Step Internet, 
   serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.   
                 http://www.fsr.net                       
            mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
  =======================================================
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20070803/851ac34d/attachment.html 