Two or three weeks ago I mentioned that if the story of Christians
being persecuted and arrested FOR PRAYING in the USA was true, the
story would have been front-page news in every newspaper in the
land, and millions of Americans would have protested and rioted in
the streets of Philadelphia, demanding justice and the heads of
the DA and DDA. I also mentioned that if the story was true, I
would join in the protest. And I also mentioned that the story was
without question a pious fraud and that no such arrests had been
made. Well, naturally, I was right.
Free the Philadelphia Facts
WorldNetDaily refuses to tell its readers the full story about
arrested
anti-gay protesters.
By Terry Krepel
Posted 1/14/2005
WorldNetDaily is doing its best to slavishly adhere to a slanted
conservative script in its coverage of the case of a group of
Christians arrested during a protest at a Philadelphia
[homosexual] festival.
Last October, 11 members of group called Repent America were
arrested at a gathering of [homosexuals] in Philadelphia called
Outfest, five of whom were later charged. Since then, WND has done
10 stories on the incident to date -- all of which promote and/or
support the protesters' side of the story, and none of which even
mention the point of view of prosecutors and police beyond listing
the charges that were filed against them. (One of WND's stories
was a lightly rewritten press release originally issued by Repent
America's legal representatives, the conservative American Family
Association's Center for Law & Policy, as ConWebWatch has
previously noted.)
The group started out under the WND moniker the "Philadelphia 11";
they became the "Philadelphia 4" when charges were dropped against
many of them, then inched back up to the "Philadelphia 5" when an
arrested teen girl in the juvenile justice system was remembered
by Ron Strom, WND's writer on the arrested-Philadelphia-Christians
beat.
Among the pro-protester talking points mentioned in nearly every
WND story:
o) The group was merely "preaching God's Word" at Outfest.
o) The charges faced by the five protesters "could put them in
jail for 47 years."
o) The protesters were involved in a confrontation with a group
called the Pink Angels, always described as "a militant mob of
homosexuals"; it's also noted that "none of the Pink Angels were
cited or arrested."
o) A video proves that the protesters were simply "peacefully
evangelizing."
WND editor Joseph Farah spent a Dec. 20 column defending the
protesters and railing against the police and prosecutors, taking
care to repeat all the spin points. Farah wrote that the case of
the "Christians are facing 47 years in jail for expressing their
free-speech rights" is "one of the most brazen, frontal attacks on
religious freedom and free speech I have seen in my lifetime."
Farah claims that the protesters were "peaceful and calm at all
times, despite what appears to be extraordinary provocation,
intimidation and harassment," yet were arrested for "a long list
of felonies and hate crimes that would make the Founding Fathers
spin in their graves." Farah added: "If these charges stand,
Christians across America will soon be hunted down like dogs as
they are in many parts of the world today as the most persecuted
religious group on the planet."
Yet for all of this apoplexy, WND has never reported what
prosecutors and police have had to say about this case.
As a Dec. 10 Philadelphia Inquirer article notes, one of those
arrested, Michael Marcavage, director of Repent America, "tried to
interrupt a performance with his antigay preaching and then
disobeyed a police order to move to the perimeter of the Outfest
to avoid the potential for violence" -- all of which conveniently
occurred prior to the start of that video that Marcavage and his
attorney claims allegedly exonerates the protesters.
A Dec. 4 Inquirer story provides more detail, quoting Karen
Brancheau, a lawyer for the local District Attorney's Office:
Brancheau said the 11 protesters tried to demonstrate in front of
a stage performance at Outfest, a city-permitted event in 15
square blocks of Center City from Juniper Street east to 11th
Street and from Walnut Street south to Pine Street.
Brancheau said the demonstrators were arrested only after they
refused to go to an area on the edge of the block party and went
instead in the opposite direction. Marcavage, with a bullhorn,
then got into an argument with a group of Pink Angels, who
screamed back.
"They were not prohibited from preaching," Brancheau added. "A
reasonable request was made to prevent a situation from becoming
dangerous to their own safety as well as the safety of the
participants."
The closest WND has come to painting a realistic, balanced picture
of what happened and what will likely happen is an unbylined Jan.
4 article covering that lamest and laziest of ConWeb story hooks,
an appearance on a Fox News Channel show by the protesters'
attorney, Brian Fahling. The show also had a legal representative
to the OutFest event, Charles Volz, so WND sorta had to include
his views, much of which are structured so that Fahling rebuts
them. The article, surprisingly, gave the OutFest legal rep the
final word:
Volz said he didn't think any of the protesters ultimately would
go to jail.
"They might get six to 12 months probation," Volz said. "Nobody's
going to jail for 47 years."
Of course, such a statement of truth by a non-conservative could
not be allowed to stand without some sort of payback. Thus, a Jan.
10 story prominently quotes Volz in describing how Outfest
organizers planned to "block Christians from access" to the event.
And a Jan. 5 story by Strom trots out a U.S. Justice Department
employee "who spoke on the condition of anonymity" who claims that
"[h]omosexual attorneys ... advised police on the scene" during
the arrest of the protesters. The anonymous source allegedly told
Strom that "he estimated between 10 and 11 percent of the
attorneys in the Civil Rights Division are homosexual." Again, as
WND has throughout this saga, Strom never details what the police
themselves have said, although other news organizations have done
this work that WND and Strom could easily cut- and-paste from.
The fact that WND refuses to do even that bit of plagiarism
(though plagiarism has suited its purposes in the past)
demonstrates how much WND is trying to force a political agenda on
its readers -- and how little this "news" organization cares for
telling the truth.
This site Copyright 2000-05 Terry Krepel
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http://lastliberal.org
Man Will Never Be Free Until The Last King Is Strangled With
The Entrails of the Last Priest.
Are you aware that you cannot write without typo's? Write to me without a
typo and I will began you education... - Don Ward
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