Bloodless Coup

Religious Extremists with Cameras

From Feministing, the story of a Fargo ND man who, though barred from getting close to a women's health clinic by a restraining order, decided to get close anyway. With close-ups of people entering and exiting the clinic, that he will post on the internet.

An anti-abortion activist is posting Internet pictures of women entering an abortion clinic here.

Martin Wishnatsky, who is banned from going within 150 feet of the Red River Women's Clinic, said he usually stands on a street corner to take the photos.

"I have a little zoom lens," he said.

"I felt it would really give the average person who doesn't visit there a firsthand view of what it looks like to someone who is there," Wishnatsky said. "I hope this might contribute to turning people's hearts back to life."

Along with the photographs, Wishnatsky has posted the license plates of cars driven by people entering the clinic.

Give the average person a firsthand view. Right. If that were the case, then what he would publish would be a photo from the perspective of a harassed women stopping to get a pap smear and renew her birth control prescription, as she spots the slavering wingnut with an unhealthy interest in her vagina spying on her from across the street.

The clinic is advising women not to park across the street and to wear a hat, scarf or sunglasses and no distinctive clothing, she said.

Women have to wear a disguise to get checkups, cancer screenings, and prenatal care. So much for the idea of healthy women/healthy babies.

Jennifer Ring, the director of American Civil Liberties Union Dakota chapter, said a number of tactics have been used to identify abortion clinic staff members in other parts of the country. She said they can endanger the lives of the staff, and "can get very scary, very quickly."

Especially when the scope switches from lensfinder, to rifle.

Ring said she would speak to an attorney about Wishnatsky's activities.

"My first instinct is, as disgusting as it is and as dangerous as it is, it's probably legal," she said.

Women entering the clinic are not necessarily there for abortions, Ring said.

"How does he know that one of these people isn't, for instance, delivering coffee for someone who works there?" she said.

Not that the extremist in question would make a distinction, because consorting with the enemy is sin enough.

But let's get back to the legality question for a moment. It seems our dear Mr. - or should I say Dr. ("...my name is Martin Wishnatsky. I am a resident of Fargo and hold a Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard University.") - Wishnatsky, is no stranger to law and the courts.

It seems he has a bit of history (PDF):

Martin Wishnatsky is a resident of Fargo, North Dakota, with a history of commenting on matters of public concern.

That seems to be an understatement.

He wants to get "pagan" statues out of the courthouse (note the third link below the statue link... the series on "homo-fascism").

Themis, the ancient Greek goddess of law and order, traditionally has been a symbol at U.S. courthouses, her eyes blindfolded and holding the scales of justice. Her statue has been atop the Grand Forks County Courthouse for nearly 90 years.

"As a Christian, I find such representations of pagan religious figures in public places very distressing," Wishnatsky wrote to Rovner.

...

"Unfortunately, I do not possess the expertise properly to research the pagan religious origins of the Themis statue and to present the facts demonstrating its roots in heathen worship," Wishnatsky wrote Rovner. "I request the assistance of the clinical education program in developing a lawsuit on the same basis as that granted to the atheistic North Dakota State University professors to bring suit against the city of Fargo over the Ten Commandments monument."

I wonder if it's not just the Greekness, but the, you know, womanness of the statue that's so offensive.

Not only did he want to sue, but he wanted to be provided with free legal counsel from the local law clinic. !!!

Let's see, moving on... He was a write in candidate (11 whole votes!!!) for President in 2004.

And let's not forget his testimony to the ND legislature:

There are two solutions for abortion: we outlaw it, or God deals with us over it. There is no third alternative of continuing to sin and avoiding the penalty.

What is your responsibility as a legislator? Representative Sandvig at Peter Crary's request has forced the issue: Shall we have abortion in North Dakota, or shall we not? They are responding to the urgency of God on this matter. They are a prophetic voice: repent or perish.

It is not the abortionist, nor indeed even the Supreme Court, which shall bring the wrath of God on America. It is the consent that we as citizens of this state give to their acts and decrees by allowing these practices to continue that will seal our judgment.

This is very exactly-drawn legislation. It creates legal equivalency between the born and the unborn. It treats the unborn exactly as the born. It erases the line of demarcation between person and non-person. It ends the lethal discrimination against our own brothers and sisters in the womb, and applies to them the full protection of the law.

Under HB 1242, deliberate killing of an unborn child is the same grade of crime as intentional killing of a born person: first-degree murder, a Class AA felony.

I can assure you that this legislation satisfies God's requirement for exempting North Dakota from his judgment for the abortion holocaust - because it ends the abortion holocaust in North Dakota, decisively and unequivocally.

Then there is the more mundane, frivolous waste of taxpayer dollars. He tried to barge into someone's office, and had the door shut in his face. Apparently, this was quite traumatic (emphasis mine, as always):

[¶9] Wishnatsky responded to Huey's motion for summary judgment with an affidavit of Crary and with his own affidavit stating in part:

1. I am a born-again Christian and cultivate holiness in my life. [A]s a result I am very sensitive to evil spirits and am greatly disturbed by the demonic. However, in Christ there is victory.

2. On January 9, 1996, Mr. David Huey of the North Dakota Attorney General's office, visited the ministry where I was working at 16 Broadway in Fargo, North Dakota with an ex parte court order.

3. The following morning I entered the office of Peter Crary, an attorney for whom I do paralegal work, to give him certain papers that had been requested. Mr. Crary was speaking with Mr. David Huey at the time. As I began to enter the office Mr Huey threw his body weight against the door and forced me out into the hall. I had not said a word to him. At the same time, he snarled: "You get out of here." This was very shocking and frightening to me. In all the time I have been working as an aide to Mr. Crary, I have never been physically assaulted or spoken to in a harsh and brutal manner. My blood pressure began to rise, my heart beat accelerated and I felt waves of fear in the pit of my stomach. My hands began to shake and my body to tremble. Composing myself, I reentered the office, whereupon Mr. Huey began a half-demented tirade against me and stormed out into the hall. I looked at Mr. Crary in wonder.

Oh dear! Rising blood pressure, racing heart and waves of fear! Oh my!

The response of the courts?

[¶10] We certainly agree with the Supreme Court's determination that when Wishnatsky attempted to enter the room in which Huey was conversing with Crary, "Huey apparently reacted in a rude and abrupt manner in attempting to exclude Wishnatsky from that conversation." Wishnatsky v. Huey, 1997 ND 35, ¶ 15, 560 N.W.2d 878. As a matter of law, however, Huey's "rude and abrupt" conduct did not rise to the level of battery.

[¶11] The evidence presented to the trial court demonstrates Wishnatsky is "unduly sensitive as to his personal dignity." Restatement (Second) of Torts § 19 cmt. a (1965). Without knocking or otherwise announcing his intentions, Wishnatsky opened the door to the office in which Huey and Crary were having a private conversation and attempted to enter. Huey closed the door opened by Wishnatsky, thereby stopping Wishnatsky's forward progress and pushing him back into the hall. The bodily contact was momentary, indirect, and incidental. Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to Wishnatsky, and giving him the benefit of all favorable inferences which can reasonably be drawn from the evidence, we conclude Huey's conduct in response to Wishnatsky's intrusion into his private conversation with Crary, while "rude and abrupt," would not "be offensive to a reasonable sense of personal dignity." In short, an "ordinary person . . . not unduly sensitive as to his personal dignity" intruding upon a private conversation in Wishnatsky's manner would not have been offended by Huey's response to the intrusion. We conclude that Huey's conduct did not constitute an offensive-contact-battery, as a matter of law, and the trial court did not err in granting Huey's motion for summary judgment dismissing Wishnatsky's action.

You might wonder why I spent so much time detailing the antics of one clearly disturbed and obviously lunatic fringe extremist who is dancing on the border of Ted Kacinzki territory. It's because this is what I meant by emboldended. These are the people who want to make laws representing a mythical covenant that has nothing to do with the history or founding principles of this nation.

And before someone says that Dr. Wingnutski is drawing on the founding fathers' judeo-christian ethics, let's take a look at how he feels about his past as a Jew, when the testmony of a Christian led him from Judaism...:

...from darkness to light, from the power to Satan to Jesus Christ.

Well, it's good to know that Harvard PhDs in political science are putting those degrees to good use, writing about the evils of Mormons:

It has not been easy to tell the truth about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — to conduct a controlled extraction of the teeth of this cunning dragon. The Ku Klux Klan, by comparison, is a model of sincerity. Under the pretense of "bearing a message from Jesus Christ," Mormon missionaries seek to lure the unwary into an oath-bound organization from which there is no escape except on terror of death. At least an initiate into the Ku Klux Klan understands the nature of the institution he is joining.

Or if you're not interested in the Mormons, how about how Sherlock Holmes is a Christian ideal:

The enduring attraction of the Holmes stories, I believe, is not related solely to Holmes unusual power of reasoning but also to the attractiveness of his moral character which is grounded in the Christian civilization in which he lived. Not only Holmes, but also the other protagonists in the stories, share a common Biblical vision of reality. Holmes virtues as well as his mental ability create a well-rounded character -- morally and intellectually. His pursuit of justice and his Christian humility make him a small, albeit fictional, hero of the faith. His sins, especially the use of hard drugs, are overbalanced by his recognition of the common frailty of others. His suspicion of pride is particularly attractive in one as mentally gifted as he is. He also eschewed the grosser sins of the flesh...

The grosser sins of the flesh. Once again, it comes back to the nastiness of human carnal desire. The idea that someone, somewhere, might be having teh s-e-x.

Although Wishnatsky can't seem to look in the mirror and see the pride and arrogance of one who claims to know what everyone else should be forced to do.

Martin Wishnatsky letter: Fornication is fruit of cohabitation
The Forum - 01/19/2005

Far from being "hypocrisy at its worst," (Forum editorial, Jan. 14), the North Dakota cohabitation law is sensible public policy aimed at deterring people from living as married when they are not. The fruit of cohabitation ("fornication") is abortion. Society is entitled to discourage irresponsible behavior which is often fatally harmful to children (85 percent of abortions are performed on unmarried women).

If the cohabitation law is gutted, landlords will have no recourse to refuse to rent their properties to fornicators. In 2001, the North Dakota Supreme Court refused to force landlords to rent to cohabiters solely because the criminal law prohibited the behavior. North Dakota Fair Housing Council, Inc. v. Peterson, 2001 N.D. 81, 625 N.W.2d 551. If § 12.1-20-10 of the Century Code loses its current cohabiting prohibition, landlords will be forced, as they are in California and Massachusetts, to rent to those whose behavior offends their religious principles.

The Forum's habitual and wearisome attack on morality is consistent with its general support of abortion and sexual perversion. The community deserves better than to have its remnants of morality further shredded by its daily newspaper.

Martin Wishnatsky

Fargo

It's not just anti-american to impose religious orthodoxy in this way, it's anti-human.

This guy is but one of the people, who are trying to change the law of this country to restrict not just the liberty of women, but the rights of anyone who departs from their worldview. The feminist, the liberal, the gay, the contracepting married couple. This is the movement emboldened by the party in power, and which is scurrying out from the dark corners of their obsession with sex, obedience and authority to try to control what the rest of us do with our bodies, our religions, our families, our lives.

Shine the light on it. Shine it bright and shine it long.

One man who shines with the light of a blowtorch, via Clean Cut Kid.

Posted by binky at March 13, 2006 01:28 PM | TrackBack | Posted to Extremism | Reproductive Autonomy | Shine the Light on It