Harassment is Not Terrorism

My colleague, Deanna Vandiver recently wrote of her experience with protesters who disrupted Sunday services by spewing words of condemnation at the congregation.  She characterized the experience as "religious terrorism."   Another colleague, Krista Tavis, echoed the description of Operation Save America's "direct action"  of negative proselytizing in our Untiarian Universalist Sanctuary.

I respectfully disagree with how this event is characterized by my colleagues and by UUs who engage in social media to promote our faith.

Terrorism is a vast overstatement of what happened in First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans.  There is no question that the behavior of Operation Save America was outrageous, disrespectful, and a harrassing form of public speech.

But, while their behavior as described most certainly was disruptive, it clearly was NOT terroristic.   We should not inflate the meaning of fundamentalist intruders'  pesky drama to a level that only improves their odds of achieving media celebrity.

Media celebrity would be a win for these rude proselytizers.  Do we want that?

I've been at public events, such as Lansdowne pride parades, when fundamentalists tried to grab media attention by spewing hate speech to our gathered crowds.  One fanatic was so offensive that a town personage pressed charges against him.  The case was thrown out, as it should have been, because the court ruled that hate speech, however offensive,  is protected speech - hate speech is NOT terrorism. 

Similarly, I belonged to the Paulist Center Roman Catholic Church back in the day when some of our church members were hauled into court and jailed for committing acts of civil disobedience they committed to protest the Vietnam War.

Specifically, The Camden 28, with the help of an FBI informant, broke into Camden FBI offices to destroy draft records as a moral statement against Vietnam War (imitating previous actions by Jesuit priests Revs. Dan and Phil Berrigan).

In 1971, The U.S. government tried to characterize the "Camden 28"  acts of civil disobedience as conspiracy.  Our government leveled additional exaggerated charges to ensure prison terms of 47 years for each defendent - hoping, thereby, to trim the sails of peace activists who were gaining public favor.

"The Camden 28" spent eleven months in jail during the trial.  But, no one can dispute their success in using the media to turn the tide of public opinion against the War.  They successfully staged a media show trial to make their moral case against the Vietnam War,   They were eventually acquitted  once the  FBI informant who trained them to enter the FBI building surreptitiously admitted in court that he trained the group under the direction of FBI authorities who hoped that they could discredit the Peace Movement once this group was indicted for illegally entering a federal building and destroying government property (draft records).

Civil Disobedience is a time honored social justice strategy.  We could say that our very own Henry David Thoreau invented this tactic to draw attention to immoral government policies in the 19th century.  But, if you read the "Trial of Sophocles"  or "Antigone," you might agree with me that there have always been people of conscience who were willing to do outrageous, illegal things to make a moral statement of conscience in the hope of convincing authorities to change their evil ways.

As a young US Army duty officer at Oakland Army Base, I once had to monitor protections for Martin Sheen and his entourage when they protested the presence of nuclear missiles on the base.  Our official government position was that there were no missiles on the base.  I was just a lieutenant, so, I had no knowledge either way.

At the time, I thought Martin Sheen exaggerated his own importance when he protested by carrying the Cross of Christ up and down past all our base access points.  But, by 1985, the US government knew exactly how to minimize the importance of Sheen's protest: we were instructed to be respectful, to provide security to keep the protesters safe, and to just ignore them, or escort them off the property if they became too disruptive.

I offer these contrary examples to make this point: speech acts, however offensive they may seem, are an important means of conveying moral messages to the general public.

Sometimes, we are on the right side of history as UUs, making statements to end horrific government behaviors.  Justice has prevailed time and again when our government tried to stem our protests by relabeling sincere acts of civil disobedience as dangerous, threatening behaviors. Time and again, juries and the court of public opinion refused to accept false threatening characterizations of sincere, morally motivated behaviors when it could be proved there was no imminent danger when the speech was uttered.

Sometimes, we are on the receiving end of history, experiencing some of the free speech tactics that we have used over the decades to stop war, stop production of nuclear weapons, stop racism, sexism, homophobia, and religious persecution of marginalized faith communities.

But, face it.  We taught the religious right everything they know about media attention-getting strategies.

There's no turning back.  All we can do now is beat them at their own game when they use civil disobedience tactics against us.

We have to use smart tactics when we are confronted with obnoxious speech acts.  Call a spade a spade, but, DO NOT let a spade think it has the power of a stacked deck of cards.

Operation Save America behaved shamefully in our New Orleans UU sanctuary.  But, they were not terrorists. Do not label them as such, thereby, letting them think we fear them.

They were haters.  They came to spew hate in a church that preaches the Gospel of Love.

It makes NO sense to overplay our hand by exaggerating the significance of rude, obnoxious public speech acts committed in our sanctuaries.  We can't play the Fear card, and expect to win against bigotry.

Because even in a deck of cards that seems stacked against our minority faith, Love ALWAYS trumps Fear. Love ALWAYS trumps Hate.

May Love triumph today.