Anti-Abortion Thugs Intimidate Pro-Choice Speaker

Thugs - and I use that label deliberately - managed to stop a forum in Michigan that was about how to get people to register to vote. Why? Because it was being held at a Catholic Church and one of the participants was to be a Catholic former state senator (Alma Wheeler-Smith) who is pro-choice. People wrote in making threats if the forum went forward, so it was cancelled - but, fortunately, it was revived at a different location.

The Ann Arbor News explains:

The deluge of negative e-mails threatened protests not only at the event, but also at confirmation services at the nearby St. Thomas The Apostle Catholic Church, ultimately pushing St. Mary's leaders to cancel. ... Andrew Shirvell, a first-year student at the Ave Maria School of Law who organized the opposition's e-mail drive, said he and other members of the parish's newly founded Life Issues Task Force were angered by Smith's presence at a church event regardless of the topic. "Would we allow a member of the Ku Klux Klan to talk here even if the event wasn't related to race? You have to look at the whole character when you bring someone in and she's a radical, pro-abortion Catholic," he said.

Notice how Shirvell tries to paint Smith as the real extremist? Being a pro-choice Catholic is nothing at all like being a member of the Ku Klux Klan. Shirvell may honestly believe that Smith is completely wrong and may even believe that Smith shouldn't be considered Catholic, but to engage in extremist actions while portraying others as the "real" extremists betrays a lack of ethical honesty on his part.

Thanks for David Neiwert for keep track of such lunacy.

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• Religious Right
• Christian Extremism
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