← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Sertorius
Thread ID: 17528 | Posts: 21 | Started: 2005-03-26
2005-03-26 13:52 | User Profile
LewRockwell.com
Only Parents Care
by Charley Reese
Of all the people who are yakking, demonstrating, legislating and speechifying about Terri Schiavo, the only two human beings on this planet who probably really care about her as a human being are her parents. To all the rest, she is just a pawn in their political and ideological games.
The media, especially the TV types, and the politicians have shamelessly exploited what should be a private tragedy. The matter had been litigated during the past several years in the state courts, and the result was always the same: Recovery is hopeless. Then Florida Gov. Jeb Bush stuck his nose into it, got the Legislature to pass a special act, and the matter had to be litigated all over again. Again, the results were the same: Recovery is hopeless.
Then, for the most cynical of reasons, the Republicans in Congress passed yet another special act and, with great fanfare, sent the matter to the federal courts. The federal judge ruled that there were no grounds for a federal appeal. That was appealed, but an appellate court and the Supreme Court rejected it.
Technically, the U.S. district judge denied a request for an emergency order to reinsert the feeding tube, but he did so on the grounds that their claims of her constitutional rights being violated were unlikely to be provable. If the church failed to administer last rites, that's its fault. This is, I believe, the third time her feeding tube has been removed.
It might help you to understand if you remember that lower courts take sworn testimony and establish the facts; appellate courts rule only on the law and procedures. The Florida governor, the Legislature, the U.S. Congress and the president acted without any facts whatsoever. No hearings were held; no one read the transcripts; no one consulted the doctors. There was no need for facts, because the purpose both in the Florida Legislature and in Congress was not to do anything substantive, but simply to win a political Brownie point with the religious right-to-life constituency.
"We tried," they will say, knowing darn well that what they did would have no effect on the outcome at all. When are the right-to-life folks going to wake up and realize that they are being conned by the Republican Party? If the party and its dishonest members really were pro-life, they would push hard for a constitutional amendment banning abortion. Will they do it? Of course not. That would be taking a stand on principle, and politicians today do not take stands ââ¬â they make gestures and speeches. President George Bush would rather conjure up foreign boogeymen and campaign against a problem (Social Security insolvency) that is 50 years away than face the real problems in this country.
Just look at all the attention, energy and money spent arguing about a woman who has been in a persistent vegetative state for 15 years, while the murder of a little girl and yet another school shooting show that we have more immediate social problems to concern ourselves about.
Like it or not, tradition is that these decisions about terminating life support are properly handled in the state courts. Like him or not, her husband, in consultation with doctors, has the right to say, "Pull the plug." It's entirely understandable that her parents want to cling to hope, but if you are going to have the rule of law, you have to recognize the primacy of the spouse's role in these matters. In Texas, there is a law that states that explicitly, and it was signed by none other than George W. Bush.
It's a shame that everything in this country gets politicized, litigated and chewed to pieces by the media. That's in part the fault of the 24-hour so-called cable news channels, which, lacking any real reporting staff, need something to knock the enamel off their teeth about.
For all practical purposes, Terri Schiavo has been dead for more than a decade. It's been dishonest on the part of television to keep showing the same tape of her, which is several years old. Let the poor woman die in peace. Cut the lawyers off their sugar teat. Tell the politicians to do their real job and stop grandstanding for political purposes.
March 26, 2005
Charley Reese has been a journalist for 49 years, reporting on everything from sports to politics. From 1969ââ¬â71, he worked as a campaign staffer for gubernatorial, senatorial and congressional races in several states. He was an editor, assistant to the publisher, and columnist for the Orlando Sentinel from 1971 to 2001. He now writes a syndicated column which is carried on LewRockwell.com. Reese served two years active duty in the U.S. Army as a tank gunner. Write to Charley Reese at P.O. Box 2446, Orlando, FL 32802.
é 2005 by King Features Syndicate, Inc.
[url]http://www.lewrockwell.com/reese/reese178.html[/url]
2005-03-26 19:28 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Sertorius]Of all the people who are yakking, demonstrating, legislating and speechifying about Terri Schiavo, the only two human beings on this planet who probably really care about her as a human being are her parents. To all the rest, she is just a pawn in their political and ideological games.
I strongly disagree. I think the millions of people around the world who have shown visible support for Terri Schiavo passionately care about her and preserving her life. I think the folks who want to see Schiavo murdered and claim she is just a pawn are projecting their own political and ideological games upon the side that disagrees with their agenda of death. They are the ones who are cynically using Schiavo and her case as a pawn, not vice versa.
Like it or not, tradition is that these decisions about terminating life support are properly handled in the state courts. Like him or not, her husband, in consultation with doctors, has the right to say, "Pull the plug."
Charley's too smart a fella to be this dim, so I have to conclude he is willfully misleading his audience. If it were a matter of "pulling the plug" on say, a breathing machine or heart pump or something of the like performing a basic life functioning task, then the point would be valid. But that's not the case here. They're not "pulling the plug", they're killing her by refusing to give her water and food!! It's outrageous and it's murder, plain and simple. If one can't see that distinction then they need to just shut-up and be quiet.
It's a shame that everything in this country gets politicized, litigated and chewed to pieces by the media.
Well guess what, Charley? Some issues, whether we may like it or not, become prominent and bellwethers of a sort for our nation/culture. This is one such 'issue' and I firmly believe that it is no accident it is occuring right here at Easter. Just like our unjust actions in Iraq, because our American system has killed Mrs. Schiavo, I believe God's righteous judgment on this nation is imminent.
Shame on you, Charley Reese for misrepresenting the real facts of this case to your readers.
2005-03-26 19:45 | User Profile
[IMG]http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20050325/lthumb.cho11303252119.brain_damaged_woman_cho113.jpg[/IMG] Mnsg. Thaddeus Malanowski, right, celebrates Mass outsdie the Woodside Hospice, where Terri Schiavo is a patient, Friday afternoon March 25, 2005 in Pinellas Park, Fla. Terri's feeding tube was removed by court order one-week ago. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)
[IMG]http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20050324/lthumb.cho11203241929.brain_damaged_woman_cho112.jpg[/IMG] Christa Carpenter, of Clearwater, Fla., carries a large crucifix as she leads supporters in the Rosary outside the Woodside Hospice Thursday afternoon March 24, 2005, in Pinellas Park, Fla. Terri Schiavo, a patient at Woodside, had her feeding tube removed by court order Friday, March 18, 2005. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)
[IMG]http://us.news1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/20050325/s/r3322354629.jpg[/IMG] Joshua Heldreth (C), 10, is arrested for trespassing into the Woodside hospice grounds where brain-damaged Florida woman Terri Schiavo is kept in Pinellas Park, Florida(AFP/Roberto Schmidt)
2005-03-26 23:19 | User Profile
Tex,
So, I take it you don't agree with Charley.
2005-03-27 00:44 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Sertorius]Tex,
So, I take it you don't agree with Charley.[/QUOTE]I don't either. See my comments in [URL=http://www.originaldissent.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17535]Never Say Die[/URL]
2005-03-27 14:32 | User Profile
[QUOTE]the only two human beings on this planet who probably really care about her as a human being are her parents. [/QUOTE]
Let's take a little poll: If your spouse is living with someone else in a long-term relationship and has children by that other person, do you still want your spouse to make decisions about your life (especially where that spouse has a chance of financial gain)? Do you think the courts should still recognize spousal authority when the marriage contract is being completely violated?
Why not ask Rorbert Blake and Scot Peterson if their wives would have wanted their killers prosecuted?
This is not one of Reese's better columns, but he is close to the truth is that parents usually care more than anyone else.
2005-03-27 17:47 | User Profile
TEXAS DISSIDENT-[I]I believe God's righteous judgment on this nation is imminent.[/I] Amen brother. A sign of the times....
Statement of the Catholic Medical Association: Regarding the provision of artificial nutrition and hydration in the case of Mrs. Terri Schindler-Schiavo: he mission of the Catholic Medical Association (CMA) is to uphold the truth of the Catholic Faith in the science and practice of medicine. In July 2003, the CMA published a statement regarding the provision of artificial nutrition and hydration in the case of Mrs. Terri Schindler-Schiavo. The circumstances surrounding this case have been widely publicized. In 2003, after summarizing the ethical directives found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care, we concluded that based upon the current teaching of the Church the withdrawal of nutrition and hydration could not be justified. Two subsequent events compel us to update our former statement to uphold the truth and defend the life of Mrs. Schindler-Schiavo.
In March 2004, Pope John Paul II addressed an international congress of health care professionals convened in Rome to discuss the scientific advances and ethical dilemmas in the vegetative state. In the statement by the Vicar of Christ, ââ¬ÅLife Sustaining Treatments and Vegetative State,ââ¬Â he declares clearly and unequivocally that ââ¬Åthe sick person in a vegetative state still has the right to basic health careââ¬Â¦the administration of water and food, even when provided by artificial means, always represents a natural means of preserving life, not a medical actââ¬Â¦Its use furthermore, should be considered in principle, ordinary and proportionate, and as such morally obligatoryââ¬Â¦Death by starvation or dehydration is, in fact, the only possible outcome as a result of their withdrawal. In this sense it ends up becoming, if done knowingly and willingly, true and proper euthanasia by omission.ââ¬Â This papal statement makes it absolutely clear that the withdrawal of food and water from Mrs. Schindler-Schiavo constitutes euthanasia, a gravely immoral act. We would add furthermore, that it represents a violation of her constitutionally protected right to life and a violation of her religious freedom as a Catholic.
Second, recently published data in the journal Neurology indicates that magnetic resonance imaging can be a very powerful tool in the evaluation of ââ¬Åawarenessââ¬Â in patients with severe neurological injury. The findings were so remarkable Dr. Joy Hirsch, director of the Functional MRI Research Center at Columbia University Medical School and an author of the study, said, ââ¬ÅThe most consequential thing about this is that we have opened a door, we have found an objective voice for these patients, which tells us they have some cognitive ability in a way they cannot tell us themselves. The patients are more human than we imagined in the past, and it is unconscionable not to aggressively pursue research efforts to evaluate them and develop therapeutic techniques.ââ¬Â
These two events, the definitive papal statement and the scientific evidence of new diagnostic techniques required to adequately assess the severely brain injured patient, support our former conclusion in July 2003. There is no rational justification, moral or medical, to withdraw food and water from Mrs. Terri Schindler-Schiavo. Finally, we recognize that many will not agree with our conclusion. In a country that legally justifies the destruction of innocent human life in its most vulnerable stage of development, within the womb of the mother, it will come as no surprise that our courts have failed to defend her right to life. The darkness of death shrouds the conscience of America. Therefore, we conclude this statement by making a sincere appeal to all who do agree with us. Please join us in prayer on behalf of Terri, her family and our country; that by the Grace of Almighty God some intervention will save her life and save us from the inevitable consequences if she were euthanized. [url]http://www.cathmed.org/newsroom/newsreleases.html[/url]
Please note, Terri Schindler-Schiavo cannot undergo a functional MRI (fMRI) due to an implanted thalamic stimulator. Implanted metal would adversely react with the high-field, high-oscillation electromagnetic energy involved. She could have undergone a PET scan - now used to assess Alzheimer's disease. It would show functional brain. Her 1996 CT scan showed thinned but intact temporal cortex, and intact frontal lobes. Pax vobiscum and a most joyous Easter. He is Risen!
2005-03-28 05:25 | User Profile
Having been through one of these things, I've recused myself from comment. But here is an eye-opener:
[IMG]http://us.news1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/20050325/s/r3322354629.jpg[/IMG]
Wow. [I]Only three cops to cuff a ten-year-old? [/I] Sure you're not gonna hear from the PBA, risking officer safety like that?....and did you make sure to impersonally refer to the kid as 'sir' as you were telling him to lie flat on the ground?
2005-03-28 12:09 | User Profile
Like him or not, her husband, in consultation with doctors, has the right to say, "Pull the plug." It's entirely understandable that her parents want to cling to hope, but if you are going to have the rule of law, you have to recognize the primacy of the spouse's role in these matters. In Texas, there is a law that states that explicitly, and it was signed by none other than George W. Bush.
The only thing I take from this sad circus is that when they're still living, parents (and the next closest blood relatives when they're not) should be the ones to decide such matters - not spouses. After all, history proves that spouses are far more likely to murder their "beloved" than parents: romantic love often turns to murderous hate; love based on blood ties rarely does.
2005-03-28 12:19 | User Profile
[QUOTE=N.B. Forrest]Like him or not, her husband, in consultation with doctors, has the right to say, "Pull the plug." It's entirely understandable that her parents want to cling to hope, but if you are going to have the rule of law, you have to recognize the primacy of the spouse's role in these matters. In Texas, there is a law that states that explicitly, and it was signed by none other than George W. Bush.[/QUOTE]
This shows just how confused our thinking about marriage has become.
In this case the husband for all intents and purposes left the wife and started another family. He lives with this other woman and has children with her.
In short, in equity the original marriage no longer exists, at least judged by the standards of a more civilized day. Michael Shiavo's rights here are wholly based on his "marriage", but if he doesn't live as if he's married to Terri, then in equity there is no marriage. Right?
So why in the world would a court sitting in equity grant him rights to make life-and-death equitable decisions concerning a woman he is not married to?
Here's a question for mwdallas and the other lawyers here: why didn't the parents first petition to nullify Terri's marriage with Shiavo? There must be some sort of procedure for that. I mean, what would Shiavo's defense be? He has what amounts to a common law marriage to another woman.
I don't get it.
2005-03-28 14:31 | User Profile
Kudos to the 10-year old. He doesn't seem distressed at all. He seems to be keeping is composure quite well, which is more than I could have said for myself at that young age if arrested.
What a brave young man.
2005-03-28 15:51 | User Profile
Tex,
Sorry I didn't see what you posted at the bottom of your first couple of posts. I thought it was nothing more than a series of pictures. Now that Easter is over I'll make this comment on an issue which has devolved into 10% logic and reason and 90% emotion.
[QUOTE]"Of all the people who are yakking, demonstrating, legislating and speechifying about Terri Schiavo, the only two human beings on this planet who probably really care about her as a human being are her parents. To all the rest, she is just a pawn in their political and ideological games."
I strongly disagree. I think the millions of people around the world who have shown visible support for Terri Schiavo passionately care about her and preserving her life. I think the folks who want to see Schiavo murdered and claim she is just a pawn are projecting their own political and ideological games upon the side that disagrees with their agenda of death. They are the ones who are cynically using Schiavo and her case as a pawn, not vice versa.
There are cynical people on both sides of this and sincere people as well. Based on what I have read here, heard on the radio, and seen on tv the worst offences are being committed by the folks I'll loosely call "conservatives". I know in my own mind that people like Hannity and Limbaugh along with DeLay and other big wigs in the Republican party went into this with the idea of beating up on their political opponents by cynically exploiting the emotions of those who are really wrapped up into this. They take a noble impulse and use it for their own self aggrandizement. I just love how some of these jerks have gone out of their way to smear anyone who doesn't agree with them with some of the worst calummies. I don't believe half the stuff I've heard about Micheal Schiavo, knowing something about the people who are the worst character assassins and seeing their efforts from the past. (e.g., Limbaugh and Hannity smearing Scott Ritter)
Then, you have some of the protestors lead by the self serving hypocritcal theocrat Randall Terry. (google him) Instead of a ten year old being arrested the authorities should have arrested the father for abusing his son in that manner. It isn't just "liberals" that go out there and make fools out of themselves. This is going to come back and bite the Stupid Party in the backside and they deserve it. I, for one, have no desire to see Terry and his ilk ever achieve power. I disdain fanaticism whether it is espoused by economic men, neocons or the super religious. People like this should never be allowed to have power, for they will abuse it. I will always oppose fanatics of whatever stripe.
Like it or not, tradition is that these decisions about terminating life support are properly handled in the state courts. Like him or not, her husband, in consultation with doctors, has the right to say, "Pull the plug."
Charley's too smart a fella to be this dim, so I have to conclude he is willfully misleading his audience. If it were a matter of "pulling the plug" on say, a breathing machine or heart pump or something of the like performing a basic life functioning task, then the point would be valid. But that's not the case here. They're not "pulling the plug", they're killing her by refusing to give her water and food!! It's outrageous and it's murder, plain and simple. If one can't see that distinction then they need to just shut-up and be quiet.
My main objection to this whole sorry situation is that I believe that this is a violation of the 10th Amendment and the Congress it completely out of line here no matter what the merits of the cause or lack of. I'm not as concerned about the Schiavo affair as I am with the states being reduced to mere collection and administration areas for the federal government. A bad precedent is being set. If Congress is really that concerned about this they should pass a law that applies to everyone and not one person. I don't like judicial activism anymore than you do. I didn't care for the federal judge who overturned Prop. 187 and I don't like it when Congress does its version of activism either. It underminds the concept of separation of powers. If people in the State of Florida have a problem with their judicial system they should remove the judges. If the feds wish to meddle in the affairs of a state they need to go via the amendment process.
"It's a shame that everything in this country gets politicized, litigated and chewed to pieces by the media."
Well guess what, Charley? Some issues, whether we may like it or not, become prominent and bellwethers of a sort for our nation/culture. This is one such 'issue' and I firmly believe that it is no accident it is occuring right here at Easter. Just like our unjust actions in Iraq, because our American system has killed Mrs. Schiavo, I believe God's righteous judgment on this nation is imminent.
No, what the real shame is this. Of all the problems facing the U.S. this is the only one that gavinate the Congress and this President to get off their duffs and take (wrongly, imo) action. This may make some folks feel good as they stand in front of the mirror and say to themselves "I'm a good person", but it doesn't accomplish anything towards dealing with the things that will destroy this country. The fact it takes something like this to get people raising hell shows me this country is doom whether the body lives or not. (Yes, I think that poor woman died 15 years ago.) I just marvel over the things that could have been accomplished if all these people had shown just half the effort they have here towards say, immigration!
[A side obsevation on Iraq, I would bet that if one were to poll those who are engaged in the worse behaviour it would be found that most of them are big supporters of Israel and the invasion of Iraq.]
If one can't see that distinction then they need to just shut-up and be quiet.
And I think Lord Acton was right on this point with his famous comment about power.
2005-03-28 17:10 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Sertorius]There are cynical people on both sides of this and sincere people as well. Based on what I have read here, heard on the radio, and seen on tv the worst offences are being committed by the folks I'll loosely call "conservatives". I know in my own mind that people like Hannity and Limbaugh along with DeLay and other big wigs in the Republican party went into this with the idea of beating up on their political opponents by cynically exploiting the emotions of those who are really wrapped up into this.
I'll take your word for it as I haven't heard any of the men you mention on the issue. I was thinking of the thousands of regular everyday folks who are protesting there in Florida and praying throughout the world.
I don't believe half the stuff I've heard about Micheal Schiavo, knowing something about the people who are the worst character assassins and seeing their efforts from the past. (e.g., Limbaugh and Hannity smearing Scott Ritter)
From what I've read there are a number of undisputed facts about this guy that are quite disturbing, but irregardless, I think Walter's comment above this is the most appropriate one. He is in a common law marriage with another lady. He should have no say-so in this matter as he forfeited any such legal claim years ago when he shacked up with this other lady.
Then, you have some of the protestors lead by the self serving hypocritcal theocrat Randall Terry.
One man's hypocritical theocrat is another man's hero. Think of our current war in Iraq. Those we proclaim as brave American heroes for denouncing it are called traitors by those for it. A man like Randall Terry passionately believes that aborting millions of babies every year in this country is horrendous and that we need to be doing everything we can to stop it. I have no argument to counter that belief.
Instead of a ten year old being arrested the authorities should have arrested the father for abusing his son in that manner.
I do not believe it is abuse to teach our children to act in accordance with what they profess to believe in. Most of these children want to do these things and have to persuade their parents to allow them. Civil disobedience and pictures like the 10 year old boy getting arrested above help to generate sympathy and win over hearts and minds for one's cause.
I disdain fanaticism whether it is espoused by economic men, neocons or the super religious. People like this should never be allowed to have power, for they will abuse it. I will always oppose fanatics of whatever stripe.
I don't believe a man like Randall Terry wants power or to rule, he just wants to see abortion ended. When we consider the millions of children who are killed in this country each year, I find it hard to get worked up about one, two or three fanatics on the other side trying to fight it. But fanaticism is not always to be opposed. Would you have done the same with a Patrick Henry or Thomas Paine? Were they fanatics of their day? What about Quantrill or my avatar Travis? Travis was known as quite the radical and trouble maker back in his day.
My main objection to this whole sorry situation is that I believe that this is a violation of the 10th Amendment and the Congress it completely out of line here no matter what the merits of the cause or lack of. I'm not as concerned about the Schiavo affair as I am with the states being reduced to mere collection and administration areas for the federal government. A bad precedent is being set.
I also think a bad precedent is being set, but I believe it to be how we define 'life' and its legal protection and status in this once, former Republic. As with Roe v. Wade, once again we are defining it downward, cheapening and devaluing life. There really is no moral distinction that can be made between what has been done to Schiavo and active government sponsored eugenics programs to kill and sterilize the feeble or those deemed unworthy or life or procreation by our government masters. Now I don't know about you, but that scares me a heck of alot more than losing proper Constitutional separation of powers. The Constitution means nothing anymore (much to my regret I would add). Who has the power defines the rules and quite frankly, after this and what happened to Judge Moore, I'm sick to death of a radical judiciary, who are probably red commies at heart, dictating what will and won't be allowed.
If people in the State of Florida have a problem with their judicial system they should remove the judges. If the feds wish to meddle in the affairs of a state they need to go via the amendment process.
I agree, but they don't have the time for these type formalities. Plus, what do you do when justice is not served?
No, what the real shame is this. Of all the problems facing the U.S. this is the only one that gavinate the Congress and this President to get off their duffs and take (wrongly, imo) action. This may make some folks feel good as they stand in front of the mirror and say to themselves "I'm a good person", but it doesn't accomplish anything towards dealing with the things that will destroy this country. The fact it takes something like this to get people raising hell shows me this country is doom whether the body lives or not. (Yes, I think that poor woman died 15 years ago.) I just marvel over the things that could have been accomplished if all these people had shown just half the effort they have here towards say, immigration!
Sure, some of it is a shame, but that's just the way it is. Folks are just folks and we have to take them the way they are or else say screw it all and become a hermit and/or misanthrope. At bottom, they're still our people and the fight never ends.
2005-03-28 18:14 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Sertorius]In Texas, there is a law that states that explicitly, and it was signed by none other than George W. Bush.[/QUOTE]
The only line worth jack in the whole piece.
With an article like this, it appears Reese is now dead "for all practical purposes."
2005-03-28 18:42 | User Profile
[QUOTE=il ragno]Having been through one of these things, I've recused myself from comment. But here is an eye-opener:
[IMG]http://us.news1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/20050325/s/r3322354629.jpg[/IMG]
Wow. [I]Only three cops to cuff a ten-year-old? [/I] Sure you're not gonna hear from the PBA, risking officer safety like that?....and did you make sure to impersonally refer to the kid as 'sir' as you were telling him to lie flat on the ground?[/QUOTE]
Ten-year-olds tend not to shoot back, outside Compton anyway.
[url]http://www.thegunzone.com/11april86.html[/url]
2005-03-28 18:43 | User Profile
Sert:
I [I]was [/I] gonna PM you about this, but to hell with that: [B]what a fantastic post![/B]
You ought to get riled up like this more often! I don't necessarily agree with your sentiments 100% here, but you've made your case powerfully and persuasively. [I]Great [/I] stuff.
2005-03-28 19:25 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Texas Dissident] From what I've read there are a number of undisputed facts about this guy that are quite disturbing, but irregardless, I think Walter's comment above this is the most appropriate one. He is in a common law marriage with another lady. He should have no say-so in this matter as he forfeited any such legal claim years ago when he shacked up with this other lady...
One man's hypocritical theocrat is another man's hero. Think of our current war in Iraq. Those we proclaim as brave American heroes for denouncing it are called traitors by those for it. A man like Randall Terry passionately believes that aborting millions of babies every year in this country is horrendous and that we need to be doing everything we can to stop it. I have no argument to counter that belief...
I don't believe a man like Randall Terry wants power or to rule, he just wants to see abortion ended...But fanaticism is not always to be opposed. Would you have done the same with a Patrick Henry or Thomas Paine? Were they fanatics of their day? What about Quantrill or my avatar Travis? Travis was known as quite the radical and trouble maker back in his day... [/QUOTE]
[COLOR=Blue]Since I agree with you, Tex, on most of your points including the uncontrolled radical judiciary and your thoughts on the sanctity of life, please note that my comments here are limited to Terry himself. Most people probably don't know the facts about the guy; I certainly didn't until seeing the information on Little Geneva. And you have to look at any such story in the Washington Post with a jaundiced eye. But it is true that Terry divorced his wife and- just like Schiavo- shacked up with another woman. The difference is he was attempting to present himself as a witness and a leader; I would say he is just as much a failure as a result of his actions and lifestyle as is Justin Raimondo is for being a rampant butt pirate. Both are much more of a liability to good causes than they are a benefit, much less rising to the level of hero. I'll submit that Raimondo is the more honorable of the two, as he has never tried to deny his rump ranging; Terry, on the other hand, has attempted to capitalize on his "family man" image while even advertising his interracial adoption (apparently to raise his stock among the bonehead Promise Keeper egalitarians spouting misquotations of Galatians 3:28) as if it is some sort of soul-redeeming radicalism.
I'm not attempting to pass judgement for all on Terry, although I'll reserve my right to personally do so and it's pretty obvious where I stand on the guy. But Matthew 7:15-23 has plenty to say about this kind of loser and I think the application of scripture in this case is apt.[/COLOR]
[url]http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A32934-2004Apr21¬Found=true[/url]
Family Values Randall Terry Fights Gay Unions. His Son No Longer Will.
By Michael Powell Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, April 22, 2004; Page C01
Jamiel Terry wrote in the May issue of Out magazine about coming to terms with his homosexuality, a decision that angered his father, Christian activist Randall Terry. (Chris Keane - For The Washington Post)
CHARLOTTE
Jamiel Terry grew up a child of movement royalty.
His father, Randall Terry, was a wavy-haired charismatic possessed of a mellifluous voice and proudly extreme politics, a Christian warrior from Upstate New York who founded Operation Rescue, appeared regularly on national television and denounced murderous abortionists and demonic homosexual sodomites.
Randall Terry adopted Jamiel, and Jamiel became his adoring son. He rose to his father's defense during an unsuccessful congressional race. And he joined his dad in taking up the rhetorical sword to fight against homosexual civil unions in Vermont in 2000.
Theirs was a righteous narrative of father and son. Until Jamiel decided to write a new chapter.
"It's hard to point to one moment when you begin to come out to yourself," Jamiel begins his essay in the May issue of Out magazine, which appears on newsstands this week, "but if I had to, I'd go back to a night seven years ago when I was 17 . . . in my old bedroom at my parents' house . . . where my friend 'Johnny' and I had just finished fooling around."
This was the moment, Jamiel wrote, when he realized he was gay.
Jamiel, 24, has close-cropped hair, mocha coloring and a stud under his lower lip. He's handsome and articulate, with the preternatural ease in the spotlight found in celebrity children. He lounges in a white leather chair in a friend's house in suburban Charlotte and talks of his decision to bear public witness to his sexuality.
He wrote his article, he says, to help children of Christian fundamentalists deal with their own sexuality. Maybe he also wrote to help his father understand him. Or maybe he wrote to make him understand something else.
A few years back, Randall Terry divorced his wife, Cindy -- who once said her husband was touched by the divine -- and married a much younger woman. (Terry's ex barely speaks to him anymore.) Their four children say they still love their father but the relationship has frayed. Terry recently barred one of his adopted teenage daughters from his house after she got pregnant out of wedlock for the second time. Another adopted daughter also became pregnant as a teenager and later converted to Islam, a religion Terry has described as composed of "murderers" and "terrorists." (The couple's lone biological child, a daughter, is in college.)
The night before Jamiel's interview with The Washington Post, Randall Terry drove seven hours from his Florida home to visit Jamiel in Charlotte. Theirs was not a pleasant talk. Why, Randall demanded, didn't you tell me you were thinking of writing this and committing an act of betrayal? I could have helped you with a Christian cure for homosexuality.
Jamiel hikes his eyebrows as he recalls the conversation. "I told him: 'Dad, how was I supposed to tell you? Look at who you are.' "
'My Prodigal Son'
You pick up the telephone and there's Randall Terry, as folksy and pained as could be.
"I'm distressed, man," he says. "This is absolutely the most gut-wrenching thing I've ever gone through. Man, I'm grieving."
You're a father, he says to the reporter. You know my pain. I tried, Randall says, to talk my son out of going public, but Jamiel paid me no heed. I tried to explain the ramifications, but Jamiel turned a deaf ear.
So Randall, 45, did what made sense to him as a father, not to mention to a man who harbors hopes of regaining a leadership role in the Christian evangelical and antiabortion movement. (The pastor of his previous church -- the Landmark Church of Binghamton, N.Y. -- unceremoniously tossed him out when he divorced his wife.) Before Jamiel's article could appear, Randall wrote his own, and titled it "My Prodigal Son, the Homosexual."
He posted this essay on several Web sites, including his own, RandallTerry.com. He wrote of his love for Jamiel and his son's gifts -- his keen mind, singing voice and cooking skill. But Randall cautions that one must understand this about his son: The Terrys rescued Jamiel from a very dark home. Jamiel was born in jail, a victim of "crimes and treacheries" too terrible to spell out (if not too terrible for a father to hint at). Jamiel is a liar who's led a double life.
"My son's life," Randall wrote, "is a shambles."
As open letters go from father to son, it's quite extraordinary. Did Randall wrestle with doubt before putting such an unsparing document on Web sites and later publishing a version of it in the Washington Times?
"It about tore my heart out to write that column, but Jamiel prostituted my name," Randall says. "The truth is that Jamiel is not trustworthy. The truth is that his life is one long deception. May God have mercy. May Christ have mercy."
Family Affair
Families surely are a most inscrutable product of God's hand. Who should know this better than Randall Terry?
Randall came rambling out of the capacious lands of northern New York. His grandmother was a civil rights activist, his aunts were strong feminists -- one would later serve as spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood of Rochester. Randall, as this aunt once noted with intentional irony, was raised at the knees of feminists.
Randall, though, was sweetly oblivious. He played a mean guitar and piano, and smoked bodacious amounts of herb. He was going to be a rock-and-roll star. A bright kid, he dropped out of high school a few months short of graduation, stuck out a thumb and disappeared into the West.
A few months and boatloads of dope and magic mushrooms later, he washed ashore in Galveston, Tex. He had his epiphany in a diner and that was that. Randall Terry never had much trouble divining God's will after that -- the transmissions were crystal clear.
Terry returned to Rochester and began talking of God and hellfire, and selling used cars. Once he fell to his knees by the side of a highway and beseeched the Lord to forgive his sins. He enrolled in a Bible school, where he met his wife, Cindy. They talked of serving as missionaries in Central America. But "God interrupted" and delivered unto Terry a vision of a battle plan to fight abortion.
Terry read civil rights tracts, including Coretta Scott King's memoir, and slowly hatched a plan. In 1986 he founded Operation Rescue. This would become a significant moment in the history of the Christian right, the first time an evangelical general would wield the tools of civil disobedience in the service of the antiabortion cause.
In 1988, Terry and his legions started standing in front of local abortion clinics, screaming and pleading with pregnant women to turn away. They tossed their bodies against car doors to keep abortion patients from getting out. They waved crucifixes and screamed "Mommy, Mommy" at the women. When Terry commanded, hundreds went jellyfish-limp and blockaded the "death clinics."
In 1989, a "Holy Week of Rescue" shut down a family planning clinic in Los Angeles. More than 40,000 people were arrested in these demonstrations over four years. Subtlety wasn't Terry's thing -- he described Planned Parenthood's founder, Margaret Sanger, as a "whore" and an "adulteress" and arranged to have a dead fetus presented to Bill Clinton at the 1992 Democratic National Convention. (He also opposed birth control and divorce -- "Families," he wrote in his 1995 book "The Judgment of God," "are destroyed as a father vents his mid life crisis by abandoning his wife for a 'younger, prettier model.' ")
A few years earlier came a day that looms large in the Legend of Randall Terry. Terry had stopped a troubled young woman outside an abortion clinic and persuaded her to bring her pregnancy to term. The baby, Tila, was born in 1985.
"After I saved Tila's life, we helped her mother out with baby furniture and clothes," Terry recalls. "We became more and more involved with her family. The children stayed with us for summers, holidays, weekends."
In 1987, Randall and Cindy agreed to take in Tila and her older brother, Jamiel, then 8, and his older sister, Ebony, as foster children. In 1994, they formally adopted Tila and Jamiel. The children are biracial. Their biological mother, who was white, has since died.
Randall circulated a résumé at the time that described his family. "Children: One by birth and three black foster children."
Terry's fame arced high during this time, his days and nights a blur of airports and appearances on "Crossfire" and "Nightline." ("Did you see my sound bites?" he'd inquire when reporters called for interviews in the late 1980s.)
The family lived in a Victorian home set in the rolling farmland outside Binghamton in south central New York. Randall was the outsize patriarch, his energy inexhaustible, his laughter infectious, his control considerable. He read everything, sang like an angel and played that piano. At night, he'd tuck in the children and pray with them.
"I idolized my dad. He's a very magnetic person and my best friend," Jamiel says. "He was running a major national organization, we'd have all sorts of guests -- Jerry Falwell came by.
"Our life was never boring."
Randall takes pride in saying he shielded his family from the media spotlight. But the membrane between public and private life can be porous for a movement man. When Randall ran for Congress in 1998 and faced charges of racism, Jamiel stepped forward. Identifying himself as a person of color, Jamiel demanded that his father's opponent apologize.
It's hard to know after talking with Jamiel and his sisters how much of their narrative is reality and how much desire. They insist their childhood was happy even as they say their parents' unyielding moral code allowed for few adolescent stumbles. They were to study the Bible and live its word. They were schooled at home and in fundamentalist schools. R-rated movies were out. So was divorce and any talk of sexuality.
"My parents were very strict and sheltering," recalls Tila, a startling 18-year-old beauty who is unmarried and now pregnant for the second time. "They were very loving but we never talked about anything."
Ebony, now 28, left home when she was 16 and became pregnant soon after. "When you get out of a family with very strict rules, you are exposed to so much," she says. "You discover how easy it is to make the wrong choice."
When his parents divorced, Randall refused to let his children speak with their grandfather for three years. At 16, Jamiel was a summer intern with the American Center for Law and Justice, founded by the Rev. Pat Robertson. Afterward, Jamiel announced that he wanted to become a chef.
His father was not amused.
"He told me I could leave his house at that very moment," Jamiel recalls. "He wanted me to be a lawyer, a judge, in the movement. He told me he'd cut me off cold if I became a chef."
Awakening
At the time, Jamiel was beginning to wrestle with a far greater inner conflict -- his own sexuality. Asked if he tried to broach this subject with his parents, Jamiel returns a look that suggests you're on crack. As he noted in Out magazine: "When you grow up in a house where to be the thing you are is an abominable sin, you tend to try and shed those behaviors."
He practiced deepening his voice. He avoided anything hinting of the effeminate. And he dated girls even as he fooled around with male friends in his bedroom. "It was so secret and so hidden, I don't think I even felt the weight of it," Jamiel says.
Sometimes he'd sneak into his father's library late at night and look at his collection of books on gays and gay life (Terry maintained the collection so he could speak with authority on such questions).
"I looked at the pictures of shirtless men," Jamiel wrote. "I even picked up some useful knowledge about safe sex from these volumes."
An air of cognitive dissonance attends to this voyage of discovery, to his navigation between nights of desire and days of self-loathing. A 20-year-old Jamiel did a stint with the short-lived Steve Forbes for President 2000 campaign. Later he repaired to Vermont to help his father campaign against gay civil unions.
It was an awkward reunion. Randall Terry recently had separated from Cindy and taken up with a young former housekeeper and aide. He was shunned by many friends and activists in the antiabortion movement. Randall moved for a while to Nashville and tried his hand at country music. (He recently cut a second album with Ronnie Milsap's band. "It's to die for, man," Randall says.)
"My father kept saying, 'It's no one's business that I got divorced,' " Jamiel recalls. "I'd tell him: 'Dad, you sent out 100,000 Christmas cards with pictures of our perfect Christian family. You led Christian workshops on being a good husband. That's why people are disappointed.' "
Randall conceded that Jamiel had a point.
Now Randall plunged into his second act, as an anti-gay-rights crusader, heading an organization called Loyal Opposition.
"The Bible," Randall notes, "doesn't condemn divorce, but it does condemn homosexuality."
He opened an office in Montpelier, within sight of Vermont's gold-domed Capitol building. One day he walked outside the capitol during a legislative vote and shook his head as though to dislodge images too horrible for words.
"It's hideous in there, man," he told reporters. "It's unbelievable. It's demonic."
Jamiel felt a little queasy about the whole undertaking. But that didn't stop him from staying on in Vermont. Jamiel isn't particularly good at articulating, what, precisely he was thinking.
"I felt very hypocritical," he acknowledges. "I would get these angry phone calls from gays and I wanted to say: 'I know, I know, I'm gay, too!' "
Soon Jamiel quit and headed south. Many months later, he told his family that he was gay. His mother thought he was having a nervous breakdown. His father offered to send Jamiel away for a three-month Christian cure. Jamiel declined the offer.
"I'm going to be at your funeral," Randall told his son. "You'll be dead by 40."
These were months of deep struggle, a time during which Jamiel thought more than once of suicide. Eventually, he came to a point of calm and thought of writing about his struggle. After a fashion, he sees himself acting on his father's teachings.
"We were taught that if you saw pain in the world, you should speak out," he says. "I knew that because of my name I could get published and help young men and women who are gay and struggling because of their religious upbringing.
"I was raised in a family where it's immoral to see a problem and remain silent."
Randall's Lament
"The only reason you want to talk with me is because his last name is Terry. He's playing you and he's prostituting my name."
So the father talks about the son whom he raised to adulthood. In a long phone conversation, Randall Terry says his son is lost, a drug user and a liar who has written bad checks. Randall says Out magazine paid Jamiel $5,000 to write the article and become its "homosexual poster boy." Randall says the magazine's editors "put words in my son's mouth."
(For the record, Jamiel and the editors of Out say much of this is wrong. Jamiel says he sought out the magazine because he felt an obligation to help those struggling with their own sexual identity. He was paid roughly $2,500. While his account was edited, Jamiel claims ownership of the words.)
In Randall's view, most -- no, make that all -- of Jamiel's problems arise from his formative years in his biological mom's home.
"Tragically," Randall writes in his online essay, "by the time we got him as a foster child, he had already learned a lifestyle of deceit. . . . My hope was that providing a loving safe home, his life would be spared. . . . Unfortunately, my hopes and prayers were not realized."
Randall, by turns, is voluble and pained at what he says is a media intrusion into his privacy and that of his family. Then he puts his mother -- Jamiel's grandmother -- on the phone to talk about Jamiel's problems. Then Randall gets back on the phone and demands to know: Did Jamiel tell you what his biological mother did for a living?
The reporter replies that Jamiel and Tila describe their biological mother as more child than adult, a thoroughly lost woman of the street.
Randall exhales into the phone, disgusted. "Dealing with Jamiel is like dealing with his biological mother -- you never know when he's playing you," he says. "I will tell you for sure: Jamiel's mother was a prostitute."
"God rest her soul," he adds.
Brick by brick, Randall dismantles the House of Terry. He says Jamiel has been bounced from three colleges and tries to suck up to wealthy family friends. Randall had to bar Tila from his house because, he says, "to quote an AA phrase, her life just became more and more unmanageable."
As for Ebony, she left home as a teenager and became pregnant. But their relationship is good. At least, he says, she's honest.
By the way, Terry adds, you do know that I never officially adopted her?
Since leaving the Terry home, Ebony has become a Muslim, a conversion she attributes -- for better and worse -- to her upbringing.
"We learned that, nine times out of 10, if someone is being persecuted for their religion, there's probably some truth to the religion," Ebony says. "And the Christian community is supposed to stand for forgiveness and charity, but my experience hasn't been entirely positive."
The irony is that Jamiel's essay is quite a tender piece. He describes a loving childhood, writes of his love for his father, and concludes with a vision of future reconciliation. Even Randall, who will be in Washington this Sunday protesting a massive abortion rights rally, acknowledges the essay could have been worse.
"Overall, the article isn't unfair to me," he says. "But that isn't the issue. He prostituted my name."
Hours later, Jamiel is told of his father's counterattack. He sighs. Jamiel acknowledges he's had a troubled time these past few years, with a drunken-driving conviction and some bad checks.
"Dad doesn't mess around with Tomahawks, he sends in the nuclear warheads," Jamiel says. "My father's first and foremost aim is to protect himself. He talks about how I prostitute the family's name, but he's used the fact that he saved my sister from abortion and rescued me from hardship in his speeches and interviews. What's the difference?"
Jamiel pauses and adds: "My father talks about how deceitful I am. But I was 11, 12, 13, 14. How was I supposed to make sense, in a family that didn't talk about it, of what I was feeling? How am I deceitful?"
"I still fight the thought that I'm committing a mortal sin." There's a moment of silence and Jamiel continues. "God knows my heart. Randall Terry doesn't know my heart."
2005-03-28 20:02 | User Profile
Randall Terry may be no damn good - he certainly comes off as yet another loony fundie/publicity whore - but 'unbiased' reporting like this makes me laugh.
[QUOTE]He played a mean guitar and piano, and smoked bodacious amounts of herb. He was going to be a rock-and-roll star. A bright kid, he dropped out of high school a few months short of graduation, stuck out a thumb and disappeared into the West. A few months and boatloads of dope and magic mushrooms later, he washed ashore in Galveston, Tex. [/QUOTE]
[I]Nobody,[/I] on average, indulges in more dope, booze and furtive motel sex than members of the Fourth Estate - yet when it comes time to demolish the hated Christian Right, how adept they are are donning the Raiment of Purity!
There's really only one answer to the Randall Terrys [I]and [/I] the Leftist hypocrites of this world. Electrodes attached to both the testicles [B]and [/B] a polygraph. And not the sort of electrodes that deliver a mild shock, either, but the kind that scorch flesh until you can smell it burn. No need for prolonged he-said she-saids, or endlessly swapped accusations. The road to Truth will be paved with deep-fried gonads, as it probably should be.
2005-03-28 20:08 | User Profile
[QUOTE=weisbrot]Since I agree with you, Tex, on most of your points including the uncontrolled radical judiciary and your thoughts on the sanctity of life, please note that my comments here are limited to Terry himself.[/QUOTE]
Tks, white bread.
In case it wasn't clear, my point wasn't really to defend or endorse Randall Terry, specifically. He was just the name that Sert brought up. I agree that if one is going to enter the public arena on behalf of a moral cause and be credible and effective, then their private life better dang well be spotless as that will be the enemy's first point of attack.
2005-03-28 20:32 | User Profile
[QUOTE=il ragno]Randall Terry may be no damn good - he certainly comes off as yet another loony fundie/publicity whore - but 'unbiased' reporting like this makes me laugh.
[I]Nobody,[/I] on average, indulges in more dope, booze and furtive motel sex than members of the Fourth Estate - yet when it comes time to demolish the hated Christian Right, how adept they are are donning the Raiment of Purity!
There's really only one answer to the Randall Terrys [I]and [/I] the Leftist hypocrites of this world. Electrodes attached to both the testicles [B]and [/B] a polygraph. And not the sort of electrodes that deliver a mild shock, either, but the kind that scorch flesh until you can smell it burn. No need for prolonged he-said she-saids, or endlessly swapped accusations. The road to Truth will be paved with deep-fried gonads, as it probably should be.[/QUOTE]
This Post writer may have thought he was demolishing Terry, but in fact this kind of "revelation" only enhances his image among evangelicals and Promise Keepers of the day. They love this stuff; eat it up. Look at Franklin Graham; he's had to invent some booze and motorcycle saga to burnish his image and give himself some creds among today's worldly Christian.
I agree, attach the 110's and zap away.
2005-03-28 20:39 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Texas Dissident]Tks, white bread.
In case it wasn't clear, my point wasn't really to defend or endorse Randall Terry, specifically. He was just the name that Sert brought up. I agree that if one is going to enter the public arena on behalf of a moral cause and be credible and effective, then their private life better dang well be spotless as that will be the enemy's first point of attack.[/QUOTE]
Got it. Terry's just a name, not a guy who fits this characterization:
[QUOTE]One man's hypocritical theocrat is another man's hero.[/QUOTE]