From braintree!news.sprintlink.net!in1.uu.net!nntp-xfer-2.csn.net!tali.UCHSC.edu!chris Thu Oct 5 10:54:22 1995
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From: chris@eris.uchsc.edu (Chris Yoder)
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology,co.general
Subject: Denver, CO Scientology sponsored Religious Freedom Ceremony.
Date: 3 Oct 1995 16:24:11 GMT
Organization: UCHSC
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On Thursday, September 28, 1995 the Church <spit> of Scientology
sponsored a non-denominational religious ceremony celebrating religious
freedom. It was held in veterans memorial park, just to the west of the
colorado state capitol.
I went, along with one other critic. We took flyers, and left
some on windshields outside the capitol building.
Here is the text of one of the flyers we used:
- ----------------------------------
CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY DECLARES WAR ON FREEDOM.
On August twenty third, the Church of Scientology smashed the protections
offered by both the First and the Fourth Amendment of the United States
Constitution. In two simultaneous raids Scientologist officials
accompanied by US Marshals smashed down the doors of two boulder county
residents. Taking advantage of loopholes in the US copyright laws,
Scientologists obtained federal warrants for the search and seizure of the
contents of two boulder county homes. The homes were also the "home" of an
electronic lending library. This library was allegedly what the Church of
Scientology was after. Since then it has come to light that the Church of
Scientology is not searching for electronic copyright violations, but for
intelligence data about many of the people who are vocally and widely
critical of the Church of Scientology’s practices. Most of these critics
are not critical of the spiritual beliefs of the Church, only it's
practices.
What the Church of Scientology has done is the moral equivalent of the
Catholic Church breaking down the doors of the Boulder Public Library
looking for Luther’s Small Catechism, and ending up with the life history
of every person who had ever checked a book out of the library. Keep in
mind that the Catholics have never done this. In the past several months
the Church of Scientology has done the same thing to its critics on both
coasts of the US. The church has also filed a motion against the
Washington Post, for essentially the same thing. The Church of Scientology
is trying to silence the thundering printing presses that are so vital to
the foundational freedoms sacred to everyone.
Our protest is not over the fact that Scientologists believe that Xenu
threw them into a volcano 75,000,000 years ago and then dropped nuclear
bombs on them. It's not over the fact that they believe they are descended
from Piltdown man. It's over the fact that they have attempted to remove
alt.religion.scientology. It's over the fact that they have canceled
thousands of posts that they did not like. It's over the raids of Dennis
Erlich, Arnie Lerma, Larry Wollersheim, Bob Penny. It's about Paulette
Cooper, Jon Atack, the Youngs, Susan Meister, the Taboyons, and the tens
of thousands of other people who have had their lives destroyed by this
cult.
You might have heard that the Internet is part of this battle. The
internet, as an uncensored medium, permits the free flow of debate between
people with opposing viewpoints. Over 14,000 forums, called news groups,
are established to debate virtually every topic imaginable. Socialists
argue with militia members. Democrats argue with Republicans. Pro-
choicers argue with Right to Lifers. Environmentalists argue with wise
users. Some members of the cult would act to prevent that town square from
including a place where cult critics and cult members could argue with
each other. The news group called alt.religion.scientology, dedicated to
the discussion of that cult, has been the subject of attempts to delete
the entire forum. Specific messages that cult members took offense to were
deleted through the use of forged cancel messages. Unauthorized deletion
of files violates two separate federal statutes. They want to silence the
critics by any means possible. The raids in Boulder, California, and
Virginia are only part of this attempt to silence debate. Numerous people
have gotten threatening letters from a cult attorney threatening
litigation for quoting as little as 6 lines of their 'trade secret'
scripture (have you ever heard of a RELIGION with trade secrets),
scripture which now, according to Federal Judge Leoni Brinkema, has
"escaped into the public domain". Anyone is entitled to freedom of
religion. But with that freedom comes the right to question. That is not a
right which anyone should have to give up in America at the whim of a
fanatical cult's attorneys. It is not a right we are willing to give up.
HOW TO GET MORE INFORMATION.
If you have internet access, detailed documentation of this entire
incident can be found at the WWW page
http://www.cybercom.net/~rnewman/scientology/home.html and ongoing
discussion can be joined in the Usenet News Group
alt.religion.scientology. There are also many other WWW pages on this
issue, and Ron Newman’s (above) contains links to them all. Some good
books to try and find are: Bare-faced Messiah: The True Story of L Ron
Hubbard by Russell Miller ISBN 0-8050-0654-0 or 0-7181-2764-1 (Penguin
edition), or A Piece of Blue Sky: Scientology, Dianetics and L Ron Hubbard
by Jon Atack ISBN 0-8184-0499-X. Both of these books should be in your
local library, if they aren’t, think about it. Another excellent source of
information on The Church of Scientology is the 5/6/91 Time Magazine cover
story, see if your local library still has this one.
- ------------------------------------------------
I won't use the other flyer without permission, just as I won't
use the other critics name without permission.
Some of the prestigious members of The Church of Scientology that
were there included Heber Jentsch, Leisa Goodman, and maybe Helena
Kobrin, but I'm not sure about Ms Kobrin. The infamous Deb Danos was
there as well.
From the public, there were members of other churchs, Catholic,
and Buddism spring to mind, and a paid political hack from the City and
County of Denver.
It was an odd feeling, to say the least, to be there in the park
surrounded by at least 50 people who consider me to be a suppresive
person. I'm not saying that the Co$ has declared me suppressive, but as
soon as they found out who we were, they became less than friendly. I
did not see anyone that I recognized from normal life, which I am very
thankful for.
A media person was going to tape the ceremony, but was asked by
the Dianeticists to stop, no reason given.
The main things I noticed was a fairly subtle attack on
psychiatry, saying that the church should be allowed to do mental health
stuff, and mental health stuff should not be allowed without appropriate
spiritual guidance.
After that, I was getting way too tempted, and was way too
out-numbered for my own good. So, the other critic and I blew. It was a
very unnerving experience.
*****************************************************************************
* Chris Yoder, SP3, KoX, Clam Snapper.* To find out what that means read ars*
*****************************************************************************
* To find out about what the Scientologists are trying to do to the net *
* WWW to the URL: http://www.cybercom.net/~rnewman/scientology/home.html *
*****************************************************************************
[ For Public Key: finger chris@eris.uchsc.edu ]
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