Abortion supporters conduct “Project Detour” around pro-life protest
Calling it the States of Refuge campaign, 15 pro-life activist groups launched a yearlong endeavor beginning January 22, 2012, to close any or all of the lone abortion clinics remaining in each of five states.
The goal of the groups is to “establish the first abortion-free states since Roe vs. Wade,” adding even one closure would be a “breakthrough in our nation.” I agree such a closure or closures will constitute a milestone. Those states are:
- Little Rock, Arkansas
- Jackson, Mississippi
- Fargo, North Dakota
- Sioux Falls, South Dakota
- Jackson, Wyoming
The scope of the pro-life groups includes Truth Tours using large abortion pictures on both city streets and major college campuses, mailers to all churches in those states, and a five-state funeral procession carrying an aborted baby.
Last week States of Refuge focused on Jackson, Wyoming, and Dr. Brent Blue, who commits abortions at Emerg-A-Care.
In an effort to thwart the effort, because both last year and this year pro-lifers planned their protests during the city’s annual Elkfest – which resulted in pro-abortion violence – the city went so far as to ban the display of abortion pictures, which the State Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional April 10.
(Yes, those are elk antlers in the top photo and photo right.)
So a group called Jackson Hole United formed…
… to do all they could legally to keep people from seeing the reality of abortion by conducting “Project Detour,” holding their own signs encouraging traffic to avoid the pro-lifers. Reported Rachel Maddow:
If you saw the protesters somewhere, you reported it on the Jackson Hole United Facebook page, with a call for help holding up signs. “Turn here to avoid to avoid protesters,” one sign read. Another said, “Stay calm. Graphic images ahead.” The results weren’t perfect, but Elkfest happened peacefully.
Maddow’s linked article doesn’t say who vandalized whom, although I knew it had to be abortion proponents. Otherwise the piece would have screamed “pro-life violence!”
But to confirm I spoke with Pastor Mark Holick, who was present and said the perpetrators were indeed abortion proponents who, in one case, spray painted one of the Truth Trucks, and in another swerved a car toward pro-lifers who were holding signs.
Here were some of the signs advocating “Civility Compassion Love” by way of abortion support or denial…
It is hard to fathom there are churches that support abortion, although we know it is true.
In Jackson, five area churches joined the Jackson Hole United effort.
One was Presbyterian Church of Jackson Hole.
Below is a video of Rev. Dr. Paul Hayden explaining to his congregation – relatively aged, I note – this past Sunday why their church was being picketed and how in Christ pro-abortion beliefs are as valid as pro-life beliefs.
I can think of no better example of the “lukewarm church” than this. Hayden also implied the abortion issue is political, not religious…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yld6cBLUY84[/youtube]
[Top photo via Jackson Hole Daily; 2nd photo (of Pastor Flip Benham) and bottom photo (of Leslie Hanks) via Leslie Hanks of The Passionate Pro-Lifer; 3rd photo via Jackson Hole United; 4th and 5th photos via Maddow]
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
I LOVE the pro-choice signs. They are just drawing even more attention to the pro-lfe signs!! Human curiosity being what it is, if someone tells me “stay calm. Graphic images ahead” or “turn here to avoid protesters” I’m going to go out of my way to see the protesters and their signs and see what it is they’re protesting. DUH.
abortion is not a political issue…its a HUMAN RIGHTS ISSUE. The rights of the PREBORN HUMAN CHILD to be BORN, to be LOVED, and to be ALLOWED TO GROW UP!
Very very good, people God is on the move and we all need to support the movement one way or the other. Lets get the job done, what a great story.
What’s hateful and obscene about abortion photos, huh? Tell us, please. It’s just another procedure, huh? Would my wisdom tooth extraction photos be obscene? Would my knee surgery photos be obscene? Tell us, please, what is obscene about photos of choice?
Tell us also, please, what is civil about ripping a child apart? Tell us, what is civilized about it?
Thanks, pro-choicers and “reproductive injusticers”, you do such a fine job of making yourselves look bad. It allows us to concentrate our efforts much better. Kudos!!
as a secular Pro-Lifer, I have to say I find religious Pro-Legal-Abortionists particularly reprehensible.
The people of Jackson Hole need our prayers.
“Obscenity and hatred do NOT live here”…?
What about pre-born babies? Do they LIVE there?
In that whole little speech the pastor gives, he does not once–not even once–quote a verse of the Bible, name a reference to a verse, or so much as say the word “Scripture” or any of its cognates. Not even when he set himself up for a perfect moment, too. “So how do we maintain a Christian sense of charity, compassion? Listening, praying, studying together as we strive to make the decisions, that will shape our nation, individually as well as corporately.” Studying what? If this church is not grounded in the Word of God, then what are they grounded in? Sola Scriptura, dude! It’s not just a pretty phrase in a dead language! *rant, rant, rant*
I’m not entirely sure what the most effective way to use graphic pictures is. But I have to say that the whole “protect the kids” argument is a pretty lame excuse for not using them. Major news sources, which are often very visible to children (ie magazine covers in a grocery store), often have graphic images:
http://www.abortionno.org/index.php/public_education_projects/using_graphic_images_in_public/
How the children will be affected largely depends on how the parents react. I know that at least sometimes, children seeing the images can produce excellent results:
http://www.firstthings.com/article/2010/09/fighting-for-life
Alice, pastors like that have only a “form” of godliness.
That particular pastor probably has a higher than average number of post-abortive women and men in his congregation. At the very least, he’s not ministering to those in pain, nor is he defending the weakest and neediest.
Unfortunately, this kind of wishy-washy pandering to man is far more common in the church today. I’ve said it before – abortion in the USA would cease if Christians genuinely followed the Lord in complete obedience.
The sin and disobedience continues.
If abortion is such a good thing to do, then there should be no problem in seeing pictures of aborted babies. It’s just a bunch of tissue, right? It’s just a choice, right? It’s not like killing an unborn baby, right?
The religious folks call abortion a political issue.
The political folks call abortion a religious issue.
The screen in the church says, “Meek: What every Christian should be.”
The Bible says, “Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.”
Dear Pastor Flip-them-off: Humans don’t come any more meek than our preborn brothers and sisters! Grow a set and protect the weak among us!
Yeah, the most offensive thing to me in what the pastor had to say was, indeed, that abortion is political.
It’s not very good thinking. It’s only political because it’s first something else — a moral wrong, deemed wrong, by those who oppose the political hegemony of death-mongers who literally aid and abet it. So if you oppose something that’s politically sanctioned because it’s morally wrong, pastors are going to impugn you for being political rather than congratulate you for being moral.
I get it. He has a flock that’s never challenged on the actual spiritual, moral issues that underpin abortion’s political standing — precisely because he’s afraid of losing people, or offending them. And yet Jesus was unconcerned about offense, or the numbers attracted to him. He purposefully spoke in ways that actually discouraged many from following him.
Our own pastor is a true shepherd; he’s awesome with people. That’s his best gift, I think. So I can understand this pastor’s concern not to divide the flock, even though he should be concerned about the spiritual stakes of the issue.
Maybe this is why Paul told a church that “I wish you all prophesied.” Pastoring (a shepherd’s heart) is ONE of God’s gifts to the church. God has other voices, though. That a pastor is enamored of political diversity within the church but finds the prophetic voice so alien that his encounter with it outside the church walls seems a sad thing to him, well, it’s sad.
A prophet is not welcome in his home town.
“Meek — What Every Christian Should Be” (on the overhead behind him)
Right. Defined as “I’m with you fellas” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xJkUyotSc4
Don’t you just feel like you want to scream out the truth in that nice big church hall? Put those abortion pictures on that nice big screen? I want to!
Please someone do it!
And film it!
And post it!
Dear Spineless Pastor: Meek does not mean Weak.
It seems kind of shallow but many of these mainline churches that also tend to be the ones who speak in favor of abortion seem so devoid of vibrant families and children. Shall we know them by their fruits? Why keep people in the seats if you soon won’t have any people left to preach to?
Great point, Chris. I dye my hair too, but I see a lot of gray heads. At my friend’s super-pro-choice congregation, I went to one of their big fundraisers. One underage child in attendance. One. I go to my own church’s fundraiser events: kids everywhere and delightful chaos and noise! It’s music to my ears.
During mass, when we shake hands, I often see kids running to another pew to kiss an aunt or grandma. I’m very grateful and blessed to be part of such a community.
Ninek — I’m not a churchgoer, but when I’ve gone to events with my Catholic friends, I’ve noticed lots of children.
Anyway, does anybody else think those entwined elk antlers look creepy and kinda nasty?
A bit of an aside, but Ninek’s last comment reminded of a two cute moments in particular from Mass:
There was a little girl who was just a bit shorter than the pews, so after Mass when she felt it was time to run through the pews (because that’s children’s jobs after Mass, right?), all I saw was a small red toque bouncing all over the place.
Another time, my second-youngest nephew was at Mass, sitting next to the center aisle, and when the priest came down with the procession, he just looked at his mom and said (not quietly, I might add), “There’s God, late again!”
Man, I love kids. :-)
Ninek and Phillymiss are definitely right; authentically Catholic parishes tend to have a large number of children in them, and you really start to get an appreciation for how siblings can all look EXACTLY THE SAME. Hence, the comical labeling of some mothers as carbon-copy machines (don’t worry, this was started by those mothers before I ever used it). :-P
In my opinion, though, the best part about children is that, eventually, they demand that you explain everything to them and they’ll make up their own minds about things, and what with abortion being entirely incompatible with Christianity, I’ve seem MANY of them avoid the deception and accept nothing less than the truth.
While it is genuinely unfortunate that they often end up at odds with their parents (and sometimes the rest of their family and former friends) and we must be conscious of that, the redeeming truth is that after that, they have no fear of retribution from the pro-aborts.
It’s very liberating. :-)
I have to comment about the pastor kicking Jesus. If he only knew. His entire speech was kicking Jesus. He kicked Jesus out of his church. In other words that church is not the Lord’s church. It is man’s church and both the people and the pastor will suffer the consequences. The Lord Jesus Christ is about life and he wants us to stand for life as well.
It takes a freakin’ lot of meekness and courage to stand on the sidewalk outside an abortionary and pray.
Revolutionaries storm the building. Cowards stay home.
Meek heroes stand in witness; suffering rain, snow and insults; offering help however we can.
Del, Amen to that! I have stood outside two PP’s in my area on many occaisions. I got flack for the big one because one of my pro-choice friends saw me there! (to say nothing of the spitting and cursing we endured). She tried to flame me on FB but instead of replying on her comments, I private messaged her. The smaller office resulted in a more sinister “flack.” It reached right up to the door of my home. No details will be given, no encouragement to the enemy, but it’s no coincidence that the perp is also going after our community’s churches. Like a true Sanger fan, perp believes that charity is evil. Next 40 Days, however, I will be out again. There are folks that protest the big building all year round, but they are kind of confrontational with the anti-lifers. It’s good they are literally standing up for what they believe in, but I feel safer with the 40 Dayers. Our numbers are good and they smile when spit on rather than argue. It makes me wonder, suddenly, if the other group also gets spit on by passers-by, or do they spit on us because we won’t fight back? Who knows, right?
The first time I ever stood outside the small office, it was a 40 Days but there was no group in my community yet. I went to stand alone. A man walked around the corner and stood and looked at me. I thought he was an employee coming to give me a hard time. He thought I was a pregnant mom waffling about going in! God bless him for thinking I was pregnant at my age, lol! We had a good laugh then a good prayer.
We who fight for life can take a slogan from our vets: “Two turnin’ two burnin’ and flack so thick you could walk on it!”
Look at all the Grey Haired parishoners in that Jackson Hole Church.
No babies. Still clueless.
“…has the potential of dividing people that have the same Lord, the same faith, the same baptism, but different politics…”
I would say this is probably true for economic and many other issues. But how does a pastor not recognize abortion as the moral issue that it is? How do Christians reconcile a pro-choice mentality with their faith? I really would like to know.
“How do Christians reconcile a pro-choice mentality with their faith? I really would like to know.”
In that case, I’m very grateful to be able to offer a very simple explanation, Lrning: they don’t.
No, they compromise (or entirely forsake) their faith, either for this cause or due to some earlier event, but they still call themselves Christian because they still believe there is or was someone named Jesus.
Well, even demons believe in Jesus (James 2:19), but I definitely would not be calling them Christians either.
This isn’t entirely related, but I feel it’s worth sharing. Every Saturday morning, many of my Catholic friends, as well as some Christians of other denominations, stand outside the abortion mill paying. Mother’s Day weekend, 100 people or possibly more, showed up. It’s an amazing thing to witness the faith, but it’s awful to feel the evil in the air. There are “escorts” who bring the girls in for their abortions, and they loath us pro-lifers so much, and try to make trouble for us. It never fails to amaze me (and, I admit it, chuckle a bit) how scared they make the girls. On Mother’s Day weekend, they had all of the girls hide up and down the block until it was time to go into the mill, and as they are “escorting” them, they surround them in an effort to block out the sidewalk counselors. They make it such a dramatic production, and it’s quite ridiculous. What I find is entirely silly and very ironic, is that most of the escorts are female, and most of the females are lesbians. Meaning they’re standing up for a “women’s right” to something they, most likely, will never need. (that being abortion) Anyway, this was a great article!