From: judi@wam.umd.edu (Jay T Stein -- back after these messages)
Subject: Burning Their Own Clinics! (formerly: Item for Chaney's study...)
Originator: judi@rac1.wam.umd.edu
Organization: Washington Area Clinic Defense task Force, Washington, D.C.
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 06:41:00 GMT

What: <1992Sep8.122956.3269@cbnewsj.cb.att.com>
Who:  decay@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (dean.kaflowitz)

>>  = Peter Nyikos

>And you are still weaseling away from your own baseless speculation
>about clinic staff burning their own clinics.  [...]

This would seem to be an appropriate time to re-post the Michael Bray article
I have archived - now improved with a quote from _Bob Roberts_ even.

It amazes me that people such as Peter Nyikos would make the rather bizarre
claim that clinic staff would bomb their own clinics instead of accepting
that there are extreme anti-abortionists (no way am I going to refer to
an clinic bomber as a 'pro-lifer') who feel it's perfectly okay to bomb
clinics.  How do I know that such people exist?  I've asked around - a lot.
I've been a clinic escort for almost three years, and I've explicitly asked
a large assortment of pro-lifers how they feel about clinic bombing.  Though
most say they abhor the idea, a significant number say they see it as a
viable tactic.  Some have even suggested that they would do it themselves
if they thought they could get away with it.  Appended below is a Washington
Post article from last year about one Michael Bray, leader of the local
Operation Rescue affiliate.

Don't be misled into thinking that only members of Operation Rescue might
approve of bombing clinics, though - I've asked a lot of non-O.R. folks
too.  The group Catholics United for Life, normally fairly tame (at least
in D.C.) sports a number of people who agree with that particular 'tactic.'

>> I never said they were, I just brought [staff bombing their own
>> clinics] up as a possibility.

Instead of even considering that someone calling himself 'pro-life' would
do it.  Interesting.  I've seen pretty violent behavior from pro-lifers,
Peter - and it is not much of a stretch to imagine some of them slithering
up to a clinic in the dead of night and setting fire to it or planting a
pipe bomb.  People who refuse to acknowledge such acts are tacitly condoning
them.

-=* *=-

Excerpts from _The Washington Post_ of Tuesday, 12-3-91

[[ Emphasis is Jay's ]]


THE FACES OF 2 ANTIABORTIONISTS
A `Pretty Normal' Life Contrasts With Confrontational Stand
- --------------- ---- --------- ---- --------------- -----

The Bowie living room fairly hums with the family's happiness.  And
that makes the argument that Jayne and Michael Bray are advancing
seem all the more chilling.

"Is there a legitimate use of force on behalf of the unborn?" Michael
Bray asks rhetorically.  "I say yes, it is justified to destroy the
[abortion] facilities.  And yes, it is justified to - what kind of
word should I use here?"

"Well, they use `terminate a pregnancy,'" Jayne Bray says.

"Yeah, terminate an abortionist," he says.
 ~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~  ~~ ~~~~~
The explosive words are spoken in a characteristically casual and
sincere voice.  Michael Bray, who expresses violent ideas in gentle
tones, spent nearly four years in prison for abortion clinic bombings
that caused nearly $1 million in damage but no injuries.  He and his
wife share a passion for Biblical fundamentalism that manifests
itself in acts of compassion as well as confrontation.

They are perhaps the best-known and most radical anti-abortion
activists in the Washington area. Yet friends and neighbors say the
virulence they bring to that struggle is not evident in their daily
lives.

"They're fun people," said Pam Palumbo, executive director of the
Bowie Crisis Pregnancy Center, which Michael Bray helped found and
where Jayne works as a part-time counselor.  "We can get together and
play cards and have a theological discussion while we are playing."

It is precisely their theology that frightens many people.  "These
people want to enact certain religious dogma they have into civil
law," said the Rev. John Swomley, professor emeritus of Christian
ethics at the St. Paul School, a Methodist theological school in
Kansas City.  "It is not a moral regeneration movement; it is a power
movement."

The Brays do not draw a distinction between the two.  They believe
that writing fundamentalist Christian teachings into law is the only
way to save the country from a "disintegration" engendered by
"religious freedom."  They would prohibit not only abortion, but
fornication and sodomy as well.

"We can't compell people to be Christians," Michael Bray said.  "We
can say we are under Christian law ... these are the laws you must
abide by."     ~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~     ~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~
~~~~~ ~~~
From February 1984 to January 1, 1985, explosions rocked 10
abortion-related facilities, including clinics in Rockville, Wheaton
and Southeast Washington as well as the offices of the National
Abortion Federation.  Bray was convicted in May 1985 of scouting the
facilities and helping to plan the bombings, which U.S. District
Judge Alexaxnder Harvey II said were "among the most cowardly and
despicable of criminal acts."

A three-judge panel overturned the conviction on a jury-selection
technicality, but before the case was retired, Bray entered an Alford
plea in which he did not contest the charges and served 46 months in
prison.  Bray still has never said that he was involved in the
bombings, but as his wife points out, he "affirms the morality of
what he went to jail for." 

Many in the antiabortion movement do not.  The Roman Catholic Church
and several other mainstream groups condemned the bombings as
matching one injustice with another.  Michael Bray said he regrets
that there is not agreement in the movement that clinic bombing is
"right in principle."
~~~~~~ ~~ ~~~~~~~~~~
Friends said that Michael Bray's absence [in prison] brought forth in
his wife a strength that many suspected was there all along.  Jayne
Bray had long been active in antiabortion activities, including
clinic blockades, but, as Pat Fridlend, friend and neighbor for 11
years, put it, she "knew her place scripturally and stayed in the
background."

Clinic bombings fell from 149 in 1985 to 57 in 1990, according to
statistics kept by the National Abortion Federation.  But Michael
Bray does not interpret the drop as evidence that passions have
subsided.  He believes the abortion issue might one day start a civil
war.

"There's a thing about culpability that you have when you are in a
society and you are part of it, paying your taxes and so forth, and
the society as a matter of law permits the holocaust," Michael Bray
said.  "You feel blood guilt for that."

"Once you establish that it is wrong to kill the unborn," Jayne is
saying, "then you must respond to that.  You must respond if you
know murder is takinig place.  Or you condemn yourself."
--
This world turns its back on God, we must fight to protect Him,
This world turns its back on God, we must die to join Him,
This world turns its back on God, we must kill to join Him.
             -- _Bob Roberts_

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