The other day I wrote about how counter-protesters outside Terri Schiavo's hospice managed to make the news by grabbing a microphone and labelling the protesters "Christian Fascist Thugs." Completely by chance I stumbled on the blog of a person responsible for this counter-protest and I want to share with you some of her thoughts on the Schiavo case.

Sunsara Taylor wrote while on the flight to Florida:

Randall Terry, and people like him, are serious about their expectations to be running things. "Our goal is a Christian Nation. ...We have a biblical duty, we are called by God to conquer this country. We don't want equal time. We don't want pluralism. ...Theocracy means God rules. I've got a hot flash. God rules." That this man can be on national television whining that Jeb Bush quit taking his calls?!?! This man expects, and has been granted, a direct line to and input into how the country is run. To the corridors of power. And - he, and folks like him, have been granted this. Today, the U.S.A. Today quotes him as saying that if Terri dies, "There will be hell to pay."

Ten years ago, almost exactly, I got my first taste of political activism in a serious way. It was at the doors of the last remaining abortion clinic in Fargo, North Dakota. Operation Rescue (an anti-abortion clinic assault organization founded by Randall Terry) had targetted this clinic - and a handful of us defended it, and its patients and its doctors, night and day.

Randall was there. We talked. Flip Benham was there. We talked, too. I was only just beginning to understand that there is no common ground. That these people have absolutely nothing to contribute to the forward development of humanity. That they do not entertain reason, do not care about the quality of people's lives, and agressively and gleefully uphold the most brutal and vengeful dictates of a literal interpretation of the Bible.

The next day she wrote:

When Debra and I started making our signs to hold up against the hundreds of protesters there who don't want to let Terri simply die in peace, a two year old boy kept coming over to us and giving us pieces of grass he had picked. We repeatedly accepted his gifts, smiling and kidding with a kid the way any fun and decent person would.

But when his mother figured out what our signs said, ("Leave the Dark Ages in History, No Christian Fascist Theocracy, check out the Revolutionary Communist Party, rwor.org" and "'We Need Morality, But Not Traditional Morality' -BobAvakian.net, Chairman Revolutionary Communist Party") she flipped out and started shrieking at her kid to get away from us.

I said, "We're not contagious." But, she differed, "Oh yes you are! Evil is about you!"

[...]

[T]his crowd turned vicious very quickly while Randall Terry was giving a press conference. The only Black man I saw there all day was also a Christian but came holding a sign that read, "Let Terri Rest" and another that said, "Let Terri Have Peace." During the press conference he held these signs up behind Randall, but in the middle some woman started grabbing and shoving him. Soon the whole crowd was hollering at him, calling in the police and mindlessly surrounding him and condemning him and shoving him.

It really had the feel of a LYNCH MOB.

I don't doubt that there was a lynch-mob atmosphere down there. Can you imagine what would have happened had Michael Schiavo appeared near the crowd? The "culture of life" mob would have torn him to pieces, thus demonstrating their moral superiority over the way in which he has consistently sought to fulfill what he believes (and the courts agree) were his wife's wishes.

Read More:

• Religious Right
• Terri Schiavo: News & Issues
• Bioethics