Posted by rogerhollander in Health, Religion, Right Wing, Women.
Tags: abortion clinics, abortion doctor, anti-abortion activists, anti-abortion bigots, anti-choice, anti-choice bigots, assassination, george tiller, late abortion, naral, operation rescue, religious bigots, roger hollander, roxana hegeman, scott roeder, women's health, women's rights
(Roger’s note: as I write it is not known whether the assassin of Dr. Tiller is an anti-choice religious bigot. I assume that he is, and I apologize if I am wrong. Despite Operation Rescue’s laudable denunciation, the violence against pro-choice doctor’s and clinics who perform therepeutic abortions is inspired by the lies and inflammatory rhetoric (not the least of which is referring to the fetus as a baby) spouted by the anti-choice misogynist hypocrites who harass, terrorize and kill in the name of life).
By ROXANA HEGEMAN, Associated Press Writer Roxana Hegeman, Associated Press Writer – 31 May 2009
WICHITA, Kan. – Dr. George Tiller, one of the nation’s few providers of late-term abortions despite decades of protests and attacks, was shot and killed Sunday in a church where he was serving as an usher.
The gunman fled, but a 51-year-old suspect was detained some 170 miles away in suburban Kansas City three hours after the shooting, Wichita Deputy Police Chief Tom Stolz said.
Although Stolz refused to release the man’s name, Johnson County sheriff’s spokesman Tom Erickson identified the detained man as Scott Roeder. He has not been charged in the slaying and was expected to be taken to Wichita for questioning.
Police did not release a motive for the shooting. But the doctor’s violent death was the latest in a string of shootings and bombings over two decades directed against abortion clinics, doctors and staff.
Long a focus of national anti-abortion groups, including a summer-long protest in 1991, Tiller was shot in the foyer of Reformation Lutheran Church. Tiller’s attorney, Dan Monnat, said Tiller’s wife, Jeanne, was in the choir at the time.
The slaying of the 67-year-old doctor is “an unspeakable tragedy,” his widow, four children and 10 grandchildren said in statement. “This is particularly heart-wrenching because George was shot down in his house of worship, a place of peace.”
The family said its loss “is also a loss for the city of Wichita and women across America. George dedicated his life to providing women with high-quality health care despite frequent threats and violence.”
Stolz said all indications were that the gunman acted alone, although authorities were investigating whether he had any connection to anti-abortion groups.
Tiller’s Women’s Health Care Services clinic is one of just three in the nation where abortions are performed after the 21st week of pregnancy. The clinic was heavily fortified and Tiller often traveled with a bodyguard, but Stolz said there was no indication of security at the church Sunday.
Anti-abortion groups denounced the shooting and stressed that they support only nonviolent protest. The movement’s leaders fear the killing could create a backlash just as they are scrutinizing U.S. Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, whose views on abortion rights are not publicly known.
“We are shocked at this morning’s disturbing news that Mr. Tiller was gunned down,” Troy Newman, Operation Rescue‘s president, said in a statement. “Operation Rescue has worked for years through peaceful, legal means, and through the proper channels to see him brought to justice. We denounce vigilantism and the cowardly act that took place this morning.”
President Barack Obama said he was “shocked and outraged” by the murder. “However profound our differences as Americans over difficult issues such as abortion, they cannot be resolved by heinous acts of violence,” he said.
At Tiller’s church, Adam Watkins, 20, said he was sitting in the middle of the congregation when he heard a small pop at the start of the service.
“We just thought a child had come in with a balloon and it had popped, had gone up and hit the ceiling and popped,” Watkins said.
Another usher came in and told the congregation to remain seated, then escorted Tiller’s wife out. “When she got to the back doors, we heard her scream, and so we knew something bad had happened,” Watkins said.
He said the service continued even after an associate pastor announced that Tiller had been injured. “We were just really shocked,” he said. “We were kind of dumbfounded. We couldn’t really believe it had happened.”
Tiller had in the past endured threats and violence. A protester shot Tiller in both arms in 1993, and his clinic was bombed in 1985. More recently, Monnat said Tiller had asked federal prosecutors to step up investigations of vandalism and other threats against the clinic out of fear that the incidents were increasing and that Tiller’s safety was in jeopardy. Stolz, however, said police knew of no threats connected to the shooting.
In early May, Tiller had asked the FBI to investigate vandalism at his clinic, including cut wires to surveillance cameras and damage to the roof that sent rainwater pouring into the building.
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.
Tiller began providing abortion services in 1973. He acknowledged abortion was as socially divisive as slavery or prohibition but said the issue was about giving women a choice when dealing with technology that can diagnose severe fetal abnormalities before a baby is born.
Nancy Keenan, president of abortion-rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America, issued a statement praising Tiller’s commitment.
“Dr. Tiller’s murder will send a chill down the spines of the brave and courageous providers and other professionals who are part of reproductive-health centers that serve women across this country. We want them to know that they have our support as they move forward in providing these essential services in the aftermath of the shocking news from Wichita,” Keenan said.
The last killing of an abortion doctor was in October 1998 when Dr. Barnett Slepian was fatally shot in his home in a suburb of Buffalo, N.Y. A militant abortion opponent was convicted of the murder.
Tiller’s clinic is fortified with bulletproof glass, and Tiller hired a private security team to protect the facility. Once outside the clinic, Tiller was routinely accompanied by a bodyguard.
At a recent trial, he told jurors that he and his family have suffered years of harassment and threats and that he knew he was a target of anti-abortion protesters.
Federal marshals protected Tiller during the 1991 Summer of Mercy protests, and he was protected again between 1994 and 1998 after another abortion provider was assassinated and federal authorities reported finding Tiller’s name on an assassination list.
Tiller remained prominent in the news, in part because of an investigation begun by former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline, an abortion opponent.
Prosecutors had alleged that Tiller had gotten second opinions from a doctor who was essentially an employee of his, not independent as state law requires. A jury in March acquitted Tiller of all 19 misdemeanor counts.
“I am stunned by this lawless and violent act, which must be condemned and should be met with the full force of law,” Kline said in a statement. “We join in lifting prayer that God’s grace and presence rest with Dr. Tiller’s family and friends.”
Posted by rogerhollander in Barack Obama, Human Rights, LGBT.
Tags: anti-gay, Barack Obama, church state separation, church-state, Civil Rights, civil unions, Colin Powell, don't ask don't tell, don't ask/don't tell, evangelical bigots, faith based, faith-based initiatives, gay discrimination, gay military, gay rights, josh dubois, lesbian rights, lgbt, religious bigots, robert gibbs, roger hollander, same-sex marriage, steve clemons
“Dances with Bigots”
(Roger’s note: more Obama broken campaign promises)
Steve Clemons
www.opednews.com, May 10, 2009
Barack Obama has appointed a hyperactive director of faith-based initiatives, Josh DuBois, and sees little problem continuing the blurring of church and state that George W. Bush and Bill Clinton initiated in their terms. I remain very uncomfortable with evangelicals and other preachers — many of whom have narrow and bigoted views of America’s 21st century civil rights challenges.
That said, I realize that faith-based initiatives are here and part of the scene. I get it.
But there needs to be equal time for some of the victims of this cozy relationship between the oval office and anti-gay religious adherents.
Same sex marriages are now a real part of the scene too — something allowed in the enormous state of California for a short time until the day that Barack Obama himself was elected nationally and won the California vote.
Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine, and Iowa are the five leading states that endorse and provide for same sex marriages. New York and Washington DC (at least for 30 days) recognize these marriages. And New Hampshire is likely to be the sixth state to provide for same sex marriages.
Eventually, California will be back in the same sex marriage column.
This is happening as the weeks unfold — and President Barack Obama has said NOTHING.
Yesterday, White House spokesperson Robert Gibbs had an exchange with ABC’s Jake Tapper:
“No, I think the president’s position on same-sex marriage is — has been talked about and discussed,” Gibbs curtly replied.”He opposes same-sex marriage?” Tapper asked.
“He supports civil unions,” Gibbs said, not really answering the question.
Obama is basically ducking the issue for the time being — voting the proverbial “present” without indicating support or opposition as he basks in Oval Office power — present, there, watching — but doing nothing.
For him, it’s a states rights issue — not a civil rights issue at the federal level.
I can’t quite believe that our first African-American President is sitting this one out — but I do get the politics of it, to a point. What I don’t get is his withdrawal from other key gay community issues.
What is directly in Obama’s purview — as not only a federal issue but one directly linked to the office he holds — is the “don’t ask, don’t tell” order regarding discrimination against gays in the US military. Obama promised during his campaign to end this hypocrisy that leads to the expulsion of a full brigade a year from the armed services. Those thrown out are qualified men and women who are replaced in part by those needing criminal file “moral waivers.”
In fact, Aaron Belkin points out that Obama is about to preside as Commander-in-Chief over his national security bureacracy’s first firing of a gay Arab linguist.
Obama’s position of total silence on this fast and historic expansion of gay marriage rights could be offset if he finally asked the Joint Chiefs of Staff to conduct a new impact study of what gays in the military (and they are in the military if anyone cared to look — in very, very large numbers) would do to “morale.”
General Colin Powell has said that it is time to review this issue — and is keeping his powder dry until such a review by the Joint Chiefs is done. Former Senator Sam Nunn — who fired two of his own personal national security policy staff in the 1990s for being gay — has also said that “times have changed” and that it is time to review the policy.
And yet… what did President Obama do?
As John Aravosis recently shared, Obama’s transparent presidency significantly weakend the Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell commitment and policy position from the White House website.
This is unacceptable. I don’t like but do understand the internal debate inside the White House on the issue of “civil union” vs. “marriages”. Obama’s view is now behind the times as many states leap frog forward into the 21st century in a way that Obama is not doing.
But there is no excuse at all — none — for allowing the bigotry and harassment of gays and lesbians in the armed forces to stand. Gays populate the armed services now.
Obama’s silence is disturbing and wrong. While he may not be able for political reasons to move on marriages, to do nothing on the military front — which is in his portfolio — deserves serious criticism.
http://www.TheWashingtonNote.com
Steven Clemons is a Senior Fellow and Director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation, where he previously served as Executive Vice President. He is also publisher of the popular political blog, more…)
Kan. abortion doc killed in church; suspect held May 31, 2009
Posted by rogerhollander in Health, Religion, Right Wing, Women.Tags: abortion clinics, abortion doctor, anti-abortion activists, anti-abortion bigots, anti-choice, anti-choice bigots, assassination, george tiller, late abortion, naral, operation rescue, religious bigots, roger hollander, roxana hegeman, scott roeder, women's health, women's rights
add a comment
WICHITA, Kan. – Dr. George Tiller, one of the nation’s few providers of late-term abortions despite decades of protests and attacks, was shot and killed Sunday in a church where he was serving as an usher.
The gunman fled, but a 51-year-old suspect was detained some 170 miles away in suburban Kansas City three hours after the shooting, Wichita Deputy Police Chief Tom Stolz said.
Although Stolz refused to release the man’s name, Johnson County sheriff’s spokesman Tom Erickson identified the detained man as Scott Roeder. He has not been charged in the slaying and was expected to be taken to Wichita for questioning.
Police did not release a motive for the shooting. But the doctor’s violent death was the latest in a string of shootings and bombings over two decades directed against abortion clinics, doctors and staff.
Long a focus of national anti-abortion groups, including a summer-long protest in 1991, Tiller was shot in the foyer of Reformation Lutheran Church. Tiller’s attorney, Dan Monnat, said Tiller’s wife, Jeanne, was in the choir at the time.
The slaying of the 67-year-old doctor is “an unspeakable tragedy,” his widow, four children and 10 grandchildren said in statement. “This is particularly heart-wrenching because George was shot down in his house of worship, a place of peace.”
The family said its loss “is also a loss for the city of Wichita and women across America. George dedicated his life to providing women with high-quality health care despite frequent threats and violence.”
Stolz said all indications were that the gunman acted alone, although authorities were investigating whether he had any connection to anti-abortion groups.
Tiller’s Women’s Health Care Services clinic is one of just three in the nation where abortions are performed after the 21st week of pregnancy. The clinic was heavily fortified and Tiller often traveled with a bodyguard, but Stolz said there was no indication of security at the church Sunday.
Anti-abortion groups denounced the shooting and stressed that they support only nonviolent protest. The movement’s leaders fear the killing could create a backlash just as they are scrutinizing U.S. Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, whose views on abortion rights are not publicly known.
“We are shocked at this morning’s disturbing news that Mr. Tiller was gunned down,” Troy Newman, Operation Rescue‘s president, said in a statement. “Operation Rescue has worked for years through peaceful, legal means, and through the proper channels to see him brought to justice. We denounce vigilantism and the cowardly act that took place this morning.”
President Barack Obama said he was “shocked and outraged” by the murder. “However profound our differences as Americans over difficult issues such as abortion, they cannot be resolved by heinous acts of violence,” he said.
At Tiller’s church, Adam Watkins, 20, said he was sitting in the middle of the congregation when he heard a small pop at the start of the service.
“We just thought a child had come in with a balloon and it had popped, had gone up and hit the ceiling and popped,” Watkins said.
Another usher came in and told the congregation to remain seated, then escorted Tiller’s wife out. “When she got to the back doors, we heard her scream, and so we knew something bad had happened,” Watkins said.
He said the service continued even after an associate pastor announced that Tiller had been injured. “We were just really shocked,” he said. “We were kind of dumbfounded. We couldn’t really believe it had happened.”
Tiller had in the past endured threats and violence. A protester shot Tiller in both arms in 1993, and his clinic was bombed in 1985. More recently, Monnat said Tiller had asked federal prosecutors to step up investigations of vandalism and other threats against the clinic out of fear that the incidents were increasing and that Tiller’s safety was in jeopardy. Stolz, however, said police knew of no threats connected to the shooting.
In early May, Tiller had asked the FBI to investigate vandalism at his clinic, including cut wires to surveillance cameras and damage to the roof that sent rainwater pouring into the building.
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.
Tiller began providing abortion services in 1973. He acknowledged abortion was as socially divisive as slavery or prohibition but said the issue was about giving women a choice when dealing with technology that can diagnose severe fetal abnormalities before a baby is born.
Nancy Keenan, president of abortion-rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America, issued a statement praising Tiller’s commitment.
“Dr. Tiller’s murder will send a chill down the spines of the brave and courageous providers and other professionals who are part of reproductive-health centers that serve women across this country. We want them to know that they have our support as they move forward in providing these essential services in the aftermath of the shocking news from Wichita,” Keenan said.
The last killing of an abortion doctor was in October 1998 when Dr. Barnett Slepian was fatally shot in his home in a suburb of Buffalo, N.Y. A militant abortion opponent was convicted of the murder.
Tiller’s clinic is fortified with bulletproof glass, and Tiller hired a private security team to protect the facility. Once outside the clinic, Tiller was routinely accompanied by a bodyguard.
At a recent trial, he told jurors that he and his family have suffered years of harassment and threats and that he knew he was a target of anti-abortion protesters.
Federal marshals protected Tiller during the 1991 Summer of Mercy protests, and he was protected again between 1994 and 1998 after another abortion provider was assassinated and federal authorities reported finding Tiller’s name on an assassination list.
Tiller remained prominent in the news, in part because of an investigation begun by former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline, an abortion opponent.
Prosecutors had alleged that Tiller had gotten second opinions from a doctor who was essentially an employee of his, not independent as state law requires. A jury in March acquitted Tiller of all 19 misdemeanor counts.
“I am stunned by this lawless and violent act, which must be condemned and should be met with the full force of law,” Kline said in a statement. “We join in lifting prayer that God’s grace and presence rest with Dr. Tiller’s family and friends.”