By now you are probably familiar with the latest chapter in the Kansas Christian right's vendetta against abortion doctor George Tiller and Attorney General Paul Morrison and seemingly anyone who gets in their way. I think I've found an illuminating connection that shows just how extreme Kline and his allies are.
First, the quick background. Shortly before leaving office and after having been resoundingly defeated by ex-AG Phill Kline brought 31 misdemeanor charges against Tiller which were thrown out by the court. This last week, some of the right-wing pastors brought a crowd to Topeka to push for the passage of a bill directing the Attorney General to bring charges against Tiller. This was based on the questionable interpretation of an obscure 1879 law. Although the House Federal and State Affairs committee rushed through the resolution, by midweek, Republican House leaders had backed away from the resolution. House Democrats had caught the committee violating House rules, meaning that the bill would have needed a 2/3 vote to proceed.
Web discoveries. Mainstream media pays attention to news releases, rallies, and legislative action. Progressive bloggers like Diane Silver at In This Moment have done an excellent job of monitoring the press and covering the controversy. (see here , here, and here.) There's an extra step that is often over-looked. Today's right-wing has an internet presence and there's a lot that can be learned there.
The anti-Tiller campaign has a website Charge Tiller.com. Here's something surprising. The website, which has gathered about 3400 petition signatures, isn't owned by Operation Rescue, Kansas Right to Life, or any similar Kansas-based group. It is copyrighted by an Ohio organization called Women Influencing the Nation and designed by a Kentucky web design firm, Bonaventure Design.
Women Influencing the Nation describe themselves in this manner
An entire generation has now been misled and deceived in the areas of abortion, contraception, relationships, morality, homosexuality, education, medical ethics and politics. WIN will strive to give voice to the families who so desperately work to reclaim the forgotten truths for our children and grandchildren. WIN defends the full teachings of the Catholic faith and the dignity of all women.They go on to say that their goal is
to give this country back to God.ChargeTiller.com isn't the first WIN project. In 2004, they set up website See the Passion , ran commercials on 175 radio stations, and circulated a petition.
The petition shows just how extreme WIN is
We know that the enemies of Christian civilization -- who are identifying themselves for all to see by announcing themselves as the enemies of this movie project -Elsewhere, WIN proclaims
This extraordinary movie and its producer, Mel Gibson, were under intense, public attack from all the worst elements of the major news media and the entertainment industry. Powerful forces in Hollywood, New York City, and Washington D.C. were trying to prevent this movie from getting in our local theaters!
The Passion of The Christ movie was threatened with obstruction and even censorship by some of the most powerful behind-the-scenes forces in New York City, Washington D.C., and Hollywood. These are the same forces which supported the absolutely blasphemous 1987 movie, The Last Temptation of Christ, -- a movie which viciously falsified the Gospels, defamed Christ, the Apostles -- and made Judas the good guy and hero!Bonaventure Design has some interesting connections to the radical traditionalist Catholic extremists recently portrayed in a Southern Poverty Law Center Intelligence Report. According to the SPLC,
Bonaventure lists eight projects in their portfolio.
Except for a site for a fiddle festival and one promoting saying Merry Christmas all the sites appear to traditionalist Catholic of the extreme sort.
Two are included in SPLC's dirty dozen of radical traditionalist Catholic organizations.
- Slave of the Immaculate Heart of Mary
SPLC says"the Slaves are followers of the anti-Semitic priest Leonard Feeney...the Slaves today see the Vatican II reforms as the product of Jewish pressures and argue that the "Jewish nation is at enmity with Our Lord's Plan." They have denounced the Vatican's moves to reconcile with Jews as "capitulation to the tyrannical demands of the most insidious elements within Jewry (e.g., the Vatican audiences granted to the pro-abortion, pro-homosexual, anti-Christ Jewish Anti-Defamation League)." In fact, the Slaves say that Jews will be the first people to accept the Antichrist and will quickly join "in launching the most savage persecution of the Church in the history of the world." This kind of ugly rhetoric earned the Slaves a sharp rebuke in 2004 from Bishop John B. McCormack of Manchester, N.H., who called their teachings "blatantly anti-Semitic" and "offensive to all people of good will."
- St. Jospeh Forum SPLC says
A privately run organization dedicated to "addressing the root causes of the crisis in the Church," the St. Joseph Forum specializes in popularizing the writings of the anti-Semitic Irish priest, Father Denis Fahey, through its "Project Awaken" program. In several books, the late Fahey wrote that society and the church had been twisted by "the leadership of the Jews, who wield such enormous power in the modern world through the subjection of man to production and production to finance."
There are still more connections to bad guys. Bonaventure also did the website for NEO-CONNED, a book which contains several articles by racists and antisemites and which is published by another dirty dozen group, the Legion of St. Louis/IHS Press. Other Bonaventure sites are for the Oretes Brownson Society (a 19th century Transcendalist turned right-wing Catholic and anti-Protestant polemicist) and Gerry Matatics (www.gerrymatatics.org), a schismatic Catholic who seems to believes, like Mel Gibson, that recent Popes are illegitimate.
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