Last night I sat down to think about what's going on in Jackson with Operation Save America, formerly Operation Rescue, and it's hatred of select items - abortion clinics, the Quran, some U.S. Supreme Court decisions and a rainbow flag that represents gay pride.
If you haven't caught the news from south of U.S. 82, a group of Christians has decided to gather for eight days to protest abortion. They want to close Mississippi's only abortion clinic. I have no problem with protesters. They're expressing themselves freely and are guaranteed the rights of assemblage and speech by our Constitution.
However, sometimes protesters are carried away and become rude. That bothers me. There's no need to shout at someone that they're going to hell if they go into a building and choose an option available to them. It might not be the thing you would do, but you don't have to live in their skin.
When I lived in Jackson and would pass by the clinic where the abortions are performed, I'd listen to women wail, "God loves you and your baby! Don't kill it." Sometimes I was afraid that some hormonal woman in the throes of pregnancy might go over and attack one of the screaming faithful. It never happened.
Instead of playing up the drama, I'd be more impressed if I saw the Rev. Flip Benham, leader of the Save America group, and other true believers applying to become foster parents for abused or unwanted children, or lugging around a bunch of adopted children. That way, they'd seem to put their beliefs in practice.
It also would be interesting to see some of these pro-life folk be pro-life all the way. How about a little "God loves the killer" up at Parchman the next time there's an execution? After all, if life is special on the front end, then it must be special in the middle even if someone messed up horribly. That's only logical.
Rev. Flip took it a little far this week when he lined up folks three to four at the time and stationed them at what he called the "23 gates of hell" in Jackson.
I frequented a couple of those places when I lived in the city. One of them was The Clarion-Ledger building. I still have some friends who work in that building and are devout Roman Catholics, Episcopalians, Methodists and Baptists. Bet they're surprised to find out that they operate the gates to hell.
Several of them were pretty tolerant back in the old days on Pearl Street when a certain anti-abortion activist would tromp up the steps wagging a child-size coffin complete with a fetus floating in a bottle of formaldehyde. He'd walk from one reporter's desk to another, kind of like an old man showing dirty French post cards. "Want to see an aborted baby? See what abortion does?" he'd ask and open the little white casket's lid.
Nobody yelled or threw books at him because he was so gross. Nobody told him he was a nut. Instead, people just looked at him with this "I-can't-believe-you're-actually-doing-this" look on their faces and went back to their business. Some would shake their heads.
Eventually, we got a lock on the front door that kept him from coming up the steps. It also kept the homeless from slipping in and sleeping on the steps to the newsroom during the winter months.
Up the way from the Ledger is my alma mater, Millsaps College. It's another gate to hell, according to Rev. Flip. I still have some friends who teach there. They, too, are believers in God. They also believe in tolerance.
When I think of Rev. Flip's assault on Millsaps, I think of Dr. David Davis, a history professor. He grew up in Africa, the son of missionaries - Baptist missionaries, I believe. I remember his course on the conflict in the Middle East and how he gave us book after book and article after article to read, showing us the importance of seeing all sides of this issue. He had a belief system. It was evident. But Davis never smothered his students with his view.
I suppose that's one of the reasons Rev. Flip believes Millsaps is a gate of hell. People are encouraged to read and write and think and tolerate ideas different from their own. Maybe Rev. Flip doesn't like Methodists. After all, Millsaps is a Methodist college.
Actually, I didn't have a hard time with Rev. Flip until his group went into a church and burned the Quran. They also burned the flag used as a gay symbol and a few U.S. Supreme Court decisions.
The flag and the decisions seemed like small stuff to get the crowd whipped up. Homosexuals are a favorite whipping post of ignorance. People have been beating up on Supreme Court decisions since before Brown v. Board of Education.
But the Quran burning bothers me. First of all that's a book. And as the poet Heinrich Heine said, once you start burning books, then people usually come next. I don't doubt that.
Secondly, the Quran is a holy book. I don't want anybody burning my Bible or my Daily Missal or my copy of Zen meditations or my Tibetan Book of the Dead. Those are all holy to someone. They bring peace and speak of higher powers.
Having read my Bible a good bit, I'm familiar with a scripture in Ephesians that goes like this, "Be ye kind one to another, tender hearted, forgiving each other as God in Christ forgave you."
Maybe we need a little more kindness and a little less fire and brimstone in dealing with those who don't believe as we do.
