Sunday, December 24, 2006
Heart-felt from the Solomonia family to a community we probably wouldn't always see eye-to-eye with, but who's actions we cannot help but admire in this case.
Not long ago, the church leased space to Ron Francis's Somerville Divestment Project for a full-time "Center for Palestinian Human Rights." It is clear that at the time, the church did not understand just what it was they were letting in the door. We cannot help but praise what must have been a difficult decision on their part to evict the group once it became clear that they were not the "human rights" champions they claimed to be, but in fact a fringe group of anti-semites and Jew-obsessed wackos who would surely have twisted the leased space in the church to make it appear that they had an endorsement -- a common tactic of this group.
You can get some of the story on SDP's mouthpiece site, here: Rule19: Confronting Zionists and their appeasers:
Many of us if not all were shocked at the behavior of church staff who came out to try and intimidate us into leaving the area (we were on a public sidewalk). They were aggressive, nasty and bullying...
If true, good for them. Note the two fliers the SDP people have handed out at the church since their evictions (PDFs at the link above), one lamenting the influence of the Jewish Lobby and their control of money influence gives a pretty good idea of the mind-set of these folks, and should further reinforce that the church folks made the right decision in distancing themselves from the SDP. This is no joke, the SDP has within it a rather nasty lot of people known for disruptive protests that require police involvement (including by Francis himself).
The second letter to parishioners contains these illuminating lines:
Well now, that about sums it all up right there, doesn't it?
Edit: BTW, note page 2 of the first flier that laments the power of "The Lobby" -- for some reason Francis thinks it's a good idea to trumpet the poison he's also brought to Andover High School. Why he would think that attaching AHS to his anti-semitic flier is a good idea shows how out of touch with reality this guy is.
Good to see a UCC church comprehend what they did and then undo their actions.
Let us hope this is a start of new procedures at churches to do some investigation before they go off on a tangent supporting some group with dubious credentials.
I must admit I'm surprised by this (and pleased).
Often churches that describe themselves as first church does, "We are committed to making a difference in this world through ministries of justice and reconciliation in Christ's name," are easily misled by something with a name like "Center for Palestinian Human Rights." I mean, who could be against human rights? Taking a stand supposedly for them makes you feel good. Reading the fine print in such an organization is unusual.
The Jewish Advocate published an article about this last week.
I'm somewhat troubled by it, as I firmly believe that the proper response to bad speech is better speech, rather than trying to kick the soapbox out from under the bad speaker.
Well, Ron, when you discover someone is using a soapbox with your name on it to spout something odious, what do you do?
First Church-Congregational is free to evict any tenant that it does not want. But do we need a group of "Jewish activists" publicly proclaiming this as a victory for our side?
If the group is not careful, they are about to run into a brick wall:
Now, Unitarian-Universalism may be a creedless religion, but free speech and diversity of views are foundational values to most UUs. First Parish is justly proud of its long-running speaker series, the Cambridge Forum. Are we not a mature enough community to accept the fact that an occasional Forum speaker may express views that we disagree with?
When Hillel Stavis owned WordsWorth Books, I do believe he sold books by Noam Chomsky and Pat Buchanan and many other writers whose views he abhorred.
There are several issues here. First of all, I know that the discussion with the UCC church was, after an initial public event, quiet and respectful. The church had clearly been snowed as to what SDP really was, and was open enough to take an honest look at the truth. The tone in the Jewish Advocate article was I think more "triumphal" than anyone actually involved in the thing would have been comfortable with.
None of these churches would rent space to Nazis, so clearly there's a line somewhere, and SDP is not a group who's voice one would include in any sort of useful dialog. Further, SDP itself is known for disupting other's (particularly Jewish) events, so claiming their free speech is being stifled unfairly is a bit rich. And finally, they are known, as I have also pointed out several times here, for taking any tenuous tie and turning it into an endorsement -- they claimed the Somerville Human Rights Commission cleared their web site of antisemtism, it had not, they claimed the Somerville Teacher's Union had endorsed their questions, it had not, and now Ron Francis is running around claiming victory because 45% of Somerville voted for one of his ballot questions...the church has a responsibility not to be used by these people.
A book store sells many, many kinds of books with clearly no implied endorsement, not so a church renting space who doesn't want to have its name tied over and over again to a hate group like SDP.
All fair points. But if the group of Jewish activists moves on, as the article suggests, to attack the speaker series of the First Parish UU church, they will generate a lot of bad will in and around Cambridge. I hope this was just sloppy reporting.
Well, Ron, I'm sure Fred Phelps and David Duke will be more than glad to come speak to the Cambridge Forum.
David Duke spoke at the Ford Hall Forum in Boston about 15 years ago.
It was a few weeks after Purim, so some friends of mine from New Jewish Agenda showed up with groggers in hand. Our intent was to "blot out" his name while it was being announced. After that, we intended to sit quietly and listen.
Unfortunately, some left-wing extremists from (I think) the Revolutionary Communist Party had other ideas. They interrupted and shouted over the speaker throughout his presentation, making it difficult for him to be heard at all.
Since Ford Hall Forum and Old South Meetinghouse both pride themselves on their dedication to free and untrammelled speech, the audience became more and more impatient with the disruptors. As a result, some people probably left the event with a grudging sympathy for the Nazi who had been effectively prevented from addressing the audience.
Suppressing speech is never the right answer.