Miscellanea Agnostica

It only took 37 minutes for the jury to reach a verdict in the case of Scott Roeder, the Christian terrorist who assassinated Dr George Tiller while he was in church (of all places!) in Kansas earlier this year (as I blogged about on a number of occasions). CNN reports on it (WebCite cached article):

A Kansas jury deliberated just 37 minutes before convicting an anti-abortion activist of first-degree murder in the fatal shooting of an abortion provider.

The jury found Scott Roeder, 51, guilty of gunning down Dr. George Tiller, who operated a clinic in Wichita where late-term abortions were performed. Roeder, 51, faces life in prison when he is sentenced on March 9.

Apparently Roeder himself sped this verdict along:

A day earlier, Roeder told jurors he had shot Tiller in the foyer of Reformation Lutheran Church as Sunday services began. Testifying as his only defense witness, he said he believed he had to kill Tiller to save lives. He said he had no regrets.

“There was nothing being done, and the legal process had been exhausted, and these babies were dying every day,” Roeder said. “I felt that if someone did not do something, he was going to continue.”

Of course, this trial was a magnet for exactly the kinds of marvelously tasteful, mature, rational and logical protests one expects of the pro-lifers and the Religious Right:

The trial drew activists from both sides of the abortion debate to the courtroom, and a van plastered with slogans and photographs of fetuses was parked in a prominent spot in front of the courthouse.

As I’ve blogged before, pictures of aborted fetuses are objective, logical proof of absolutely nothing whatsoever. They may be emotionally-compelling, but an appeal to emotion (or as I call it, an argumentum ad motum) is meaningless and even fallacious.

Roeder’s claim to want to protect “babies” from Dr Tiller, was refuted by trial testimony:

Jurors heard emotional testimony from church-goers who rushed to Tiller’s side and attempted to administer mouth-to-mouth resuscitation as he lay in a pool of blood. Others, meanwhile, followed Roeder into the church parking lot, where he threatened to shoot them.

If all Roeder had wanted to do was to stop Tiller, what reason did he have to threaten anyone else in Tiller’s church, once he’d killed the doctor? Answer: None!

Given the interest in this case, and the fact that Roeder has had many supporters, one thing is sure: This is not over. A lengthy and intensive appeals process will likely begin soon. The Kansas state bench is stacked with many conservative judges, and it’s conceivable this case might be retried, or the verdict vacated, or something else. The Religious Right is not likely to let this case die. Not only that … it remains to be seen if any of Roeder’s accomplices — such as Cheryl Sullenger of Operation Rescue (WebCite cached article) will be prosecuted for their roles in Tiller’s assassination. My own guess is that Roeder is the only one who will ever be charged.

Oh, and … memo to people who continue to insist that Christians are never terrorists … guess again. As of today, Scott Roeder is now a convicted Christian terrorist. See it right here (video courtesy of CBS News):

It’s time for Christians to stop acting as if the extremists in their own midst are somehow not quite as bad as other types of murderous extremists who belong to other religions. Are we finally clear on that?

The Web site Religion Dispatches is pithy and interesting. Today I saw a post there which is particularly important. It concerns the assassination of Dr George Tiller, as well as the killing of one soldier and wounding of another at a military recruiting station in Little Rock AR. I’ll discuss the Religion Dispatches posting with only limited comment of my own:

Muslims Murder, Christians Don’t: What Went Missing in Analysis of Tiller’s Executioner

… As the Times headline [i.e. "Seeking Clues on Suspect in Shooting of Doctor"] suggests, there must have been something in [Tiller's assassin Scott] Roeder’s background that everyone missed, which would explain why he crossed the line from protest to murder.

Similar questions regarding the motives for murder apparently do not linger around the June 1 killing of an army recruiter, Private William A. Long, in Little Rock, Arkansas. The June 2 headline in the Times purports to give the “Report of Motive in Recruiter Attack,” and introduces the alleged killer, Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, as “an American convert to Islam.”

Dan Mathewson of Religion Dispatches goes over, at length, the ways in which the media have emphasized religion (in his case, Islam) as a motive for Mujahid Muhammad, but have avoided discussing the role religion (in his case, Christianity) in Roeder’s motivation.

The case has been made, and the mass media have bought into exactly the principle in the post’s headine; they assume that “Muslims murder, but Christians don’t.” That they ignore religiosity in Roeder’s case, does everyone a disservice.

Further evidence of the moral bankruptcy of the Religious Right continues to stream in, in the form of commentary on the assassination of Dr George Tiller, about which I’ve blogged twice already.

Here are some comments by Bill “Shut Up!” O’Reilly, of Fox News, in his weekly online column. While O’Reilly concedes it was wrong to have killed Tiller, O’Reilly qualifies this with the following:

It took just minutes after the report of Tiller’s murder for the far-left loons to hit the websites. Postings on the Daily Kos and The Huffington Post immediately blamed me and Fox News for inciting Tiller’s killer. Even though I reported on the doctor honestly, the loons asserted that my analysis of him was “hateful.”

According to O’Reilly, the problem with Tiller’s assassination is not that it happened, but rather, it’s that Leftist Web sites complained about it, and particularly vexing for O’Reilly, was that he was held partly to blame.

Wow. Is this guy for real? (Don’t answer that, I already know he really believes the bullshit he shovels to his sheep every night … that was just a rhetorical question.) O’Reilly defends his earlier characterizations of Tiller on the grounds that other people had done it:

Chief of among the complaints [made against O'Reilly] was the doctor’s nickname, “Tiller the baby killer.” Some pro-lifers branded him with that, and I reported it.

This, of course, is “two wrongs make a right” thinking … which anyone who’s ever been through Catholic schools (as O’Reilly claims he was) knows is not correct. Of course he knows better … he just doesn’t let that get in the way of justifying his own language.

O’Reilly continues with a truly paranoid diatribe:

But behind all the bluster was a well thought out, coordinated campaign. By exploiting the death of Tiller, the far-left is seeking to silence Americans who are appalled by late-term abortion. By demonizing people like me who believe that terminating viable fetuses must only be done when there are catastrophic health ramifications, the pro-abortion zealots are trying to inhibit dissent on the abortion issue in general.

I’m not sure anyone is trying to “silence” anyone. As for the criticism of the language used by O’Reilly and other Religious Right pundits, that criticism may have been sparked by Tiller’s assassination, but let’s be honest, it’s not all fabricated (as O’Reilly himself admitted earlier using his “but other people called him ‘baby killer’!” claim). The fact is that these R.R. pundits did, in fact, spew horrible invectives against Dr Tiller. Had they not done so, there would not now be any criticism of their language. That is why they were criticized — in other words, their own words were “coming home to roost” (to use a phrase made famous by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright).

Note to Mr O’Reilly: Be a man. Own up to your own words. Admit you said them … without qualification. Have the courage to face them.

Or be a childish sniveler who makes excuses for his own behavior and then whines when other people notice it. It’s your choice.

A couple of items to follow up on, concerning the assassination of Dr George Tiller yesterday that I blogged about already.

First, Kansas authorities turned out not to be as lackadaisical in their apprehension of a suspect as I’d thought they might be. CNN reports they’ve taken someone into custody:

A 51-year-old man was in a Kansas jail Monday, charged with first-degree murder in the killing of a physician whose women’s clinic frequently took center stage in the debate over abortion, authorities said.

Hopefully they’ll prosecute him to the limit of the law. Given that this is the very same Kansas criminal-justice machine that prosecuted Dr Tiller on a charge trumped up by the religionazis, I won’t be convinced of their effectiveness until the conviction is handed down.

Second, while it’s true, as I said earlier, that most pro-life organizations are condemning this murder, at least one pro-lifer has not actually done so. And that’s Randall Terry, former (not current, as I’d said earlier) head of Operation Rescue. Rather than express his outrage over the killing, Terry took the time to vilify Dr Tiller one last time:

George Tiller was a mass-murderer. We grieve for him that he did not have time to properly prepare his soul to face God. I am more concerned that the Obama Administration will use Tiller’s killing to intimidate pro-lifers into surrendering our most effective rhetoric and actions. Abortion is still murder. And we still must call abortion by its proper name; murder.

What a class act that Randall Terry is, no? Did I not say, before, that Terry is “one of the most bellicose, determined and vehement religionazis in the country”? His own words only confirm this assessment!

Dr George Tiller of Wichita KS, a famous “abortion doctor” who’s long been the target of the pro-life movement — I mean that literally, they’ve shot and bombed him as well has having taken other measures to destroy him — was gunned down this morning (as reported by the AP via the Hartford Courant):

Late-term abortion doctor George Tiller, a prominent advocate for abortion rights wounded by a protester more than a decade ago, was shot and killed today at a church in Wichita where he was serving as an usher and his wife was in the choir, his attorney said.

Tiller was shot during morning services at Reformation Lutheran Church, attorney Dan Monnat said. Police said a manhunt was under way for the shooter, who fled in a car registered to a Kansas City suburb nearly 200 miles away. …

Hmm. Given it’s Kansas we’re talking about — the state which the Religious Right turned into a crucible of religionazism in the US over the last decade and a half — one has to wonder how much is being done to apprehend his shooter. We’ll just have to see who how this manhunt works out. Of course, pro-lifers have already tried to distance themselves from the shooting:

Anti-abortion group Operation Rescue issued a statement denouncing the shooting.

Uh huh. Riiiiiight! As if I’m supposed to believe that Operation Rescue (led by one of the most bellicose, determined and vehement religionazis in the country, Randall Terry*) is actually upset at Tiller’s killing. No way is that possible! And I’m not sure what basis they can claim for denouncing his execution, given that they’ve gone after the guy full-bore, and have called the man every name in the book and even some that aren’t, for over two decades. Seriously … what did they think the product of their vicious campaign against Tiller would be? Did they think their campaign against him can’t possibly have inspired murderous hatred? And now that he’s been executed, how can they claim not to have any culpability in the matter? Just how stupid do they think I am?

The article lists just some of the often-violent features of their long campaign:

National anti-abortion groups had long focused on Tiller, whose Women’s Health Care Services clinic is one of just three in the nation where abortions are performed after the 21st week of pregnancy.

In 1991, the Summer of Mercy protests organized by Operation Rescue drew thousands of anti-abortion activists to this city for demonstrations marked by civil disobedience and mass arrests.

Some abortion opponents had resorted to attacks against Tiller long before today’s shooting. A protester shot Tiller in both arms in 1993, and his clinic was bombed in 1985.

As I blogged a couple months ago, the pro-lifers had suffered a setback when Tiller was acquitted in a criminal case trumped up against him by the Religious Right. Perhaps this frustrated them enough to take the law into their own hands … yet again?

Let’s hear it for killing in the name of the “pro-life” movement! Folks … in case it’s not already crystal-clear to you … there’s nothing “pro-life” about the so-called “pro-life” movement. Rather it’s all about control … managing people’s lives for them, and using the state to force all of its citizens to live by one particular set of religious principles.)

* Correction: After publishing this post I realized Randall Terry is no longer head of Operation Rescue. See my follow-up post for more.

Five years ago Norman Frank wrote What’s the Matter with Kansas?, a now-famous book which chronicled how conservatives — and more particularly, the Religious Right wing — hijacked an entire state in an effort to remake it into a showcase for their ideology and religiosity. While Frank’s book has been critiqued to death, and I’m not sure I agree with all of it, the fact remains that the Religious Right does have a great deal of power in that state, even despite it having a pro-choice Democratic governor, Kathleen Sebelius (she’s slated to join Obama’s cabinet). And they have used their authority to bludgeon all opposition. Recently, though, their campaign of demolishing “secularity” hit a roadbump, as reported by the Kansas City Star:

A jury today acquitted one of the nation’s few late-term abortion providers of violating Kansas law requiring an independent second opinion for the procedure.

Tiller was acquitted Friday of 19 misdemeanor charges stemming from some abortions he performed at his Wichita clinic in 2003. Prosecutors had alleged that a doctor he used for second opinions was essentially an employee of his and not independent as state law requires.

The religionazis in Kansas have long had a personal vendetta against Dr Tiller; they’ve been after him for over two decades, as the story explains:

Tiller has been a favored target of anti-abortion protesters, and he testified that he and his family had suffered years of harassment and threats. His clinic was the site of the 1991 “Summer of Mercy” protests marked by mass demonstrations and arrests. His clinic was bombed in 1985, and an abortion opponent shot him in both arms in 1993.

Way to go, Religious Right … show your support for “life” by bombing buildings and shooting people. How nice of you.

Of course, the religionazis in Kansas aren’t quite done with their effort to destroy Dr Tiller, even despite being rebuffed by a jury:

[M]oments after the verdict was announced, the state’s medical board made public a complaint against Wichita physician George Tiller on similar allegations.

Note that they held this complaint back, awaiting the outcome of the criminal trial. Having been denied their pound of flesh by a jury’s verdict, they’re plodding along using other avenues of attack.

This leaves me asking, what the hell is the matter with Kansas? When are these people going to grow the hell up?