October 4, 2016
Holy hell. This is nearly an unbelievable story, but here it is: Abortion Florida has launched a petition calling for an amendment to the state constitution that deems medical termination of a pregnancy to be a premeditated murder under Florida state law — making women who have abortions and their doctors eligible for the death […]
via Florida Christians Push For The Death Penalty For Those Having An Abortion — Godless Cranium
If Christians legislated abortion laws.
May 21, 2014
Chum
Appearing on a nationally syndicated daytime talk show five days after losing a parent is not a good idea. Indeed, I am sure that nine of 10 grief counselors would agree that subjecting oneself to a live studio audience less than a week after your father has been murdered is most assuredly unhealthy. When you compound the death with a handgun murder, multiply it by a controversial subject such as abortion, and cube it by a guest list which includes someone who you know is anti-abortion, it can only yield pain. Not your typical blunt object to the gut pain but anguish that leaves you crying open mouthed with no sound.
I was ill-prepared to say the least.
I flew to New York City from Nashville the Sunday before the show aired, or it could have been that same Monday. I don’t really remember. In fact, I have remarkably little recall of the show. I do remember meeting Phil Donohue. He was a fixture in my life since childhood. My mom watched his show daily when I was smaller—I’d say I was a child, but I was pretty much a child on that day though I thought I was so much more at the time. I guess everyone looks back on their past selves and says, “damn was I a dumbass.” Perhaps not. I do it constantly.
In addition to Phil, I met the producers and the other guests. I do recall what they called the “green room,” getting the hair and make-up treatment, someone saying “time will go by quickly,” and thinking to myself, “you will not break.” In fact, one of my most vivid memories of that day is parroting that simple phrase mantra like over and over again.
Honestly, from a choreography standpoint, the producers did an excellent job. The cast included the following players: Susan Hill, a strikingly beautiful Southern clinic owner and co-worker of my dad’s; Ron Fitzsimmons, a tough but pragmatic lobbyist and head of NCAP (National Coalition of Abortion Providers); Tavey Crist, a no bullshit OB/GYN and abortion provider who chartered his own plane to get to New York to serve as a panelist and advocate for his fellow besieged doctors; and me, the open wound. Then there was the as yet unknown anti-abortion activist named Paul Hill. In fact, we almost appeared in that order left to right on the stage, but someone—I believe Dr. Crist—was strategically placed between Hill and I.
The choice side of the cast knew one another and had worked together for some time. I was new and had only recently talked to Susan—she was instrumental in convincing me to go on the show. No one knew Paul Hill, but we all knew he was decidedly of the anti-abortion persuasion likely (as many in the anti-abortion crowd had already done) to explain how unfortunate dad’s killer’s actions were and to placate those ready to label the anti-abortion crowd as zealots with passive qualifiers, half hearted indignancy, and self serving non apologies.
I knew Paul was there to speak for the other side—the producers told me an anti abortion spokesperson was on the panel prior–and wondered nervously how the show would go, how I’d hold up under Phil’s and the audience’s questions, and whether I’d keep my promise to remain solid.
When we went live, I blanked out. I have never had an out of body experience or amnesia of the non-drunken variety; however, I honestly have no memory of the show other than small slices. When Paul Hill uttered the soon to be famous words “justifiable homicide,” though, I woke up from my somnolence and remembered why I agreed to go on the goddamned show in the first place.
My formative years were spent in abortion clinics. I visited my first clinic when I was 14, attended my first pro-choice rally at 15, witnessed protesters and their ever growing ire for the better part of my life, and lost my dad to a religious terrorist’s gun, but I had never heard someone argue it was justifiable, and I was woefully emotionally unprepared for Paul Hill and his advocacy for what he claimed he wanted to prevent: murder.
When he uttered the phrase “justifiable homicide,” it was as if Ross Perot’s giant sucking sound removed all air from the room. We were in New York City with a predominately female New York City audience confronted by a Southern, Presbyterian minister openly advocating for the murder of a doctor.
Silence typically predicates an eruption, and most of the audience was aghast at Hill’s remarks. He, though, seemed to relish the attention. My clearest memory of that day was his analogy about the “justifiable” actions of my dad’s assassin. I’m paraphrasing, but he coldly explained that dad’s assassin was no different than someone who, when confronted with a mad gunman picking children off at random in a playground, elects to kill the murderer in defense of innocent life. In his view, abortion providers deserved death and deserved it immediately, without remorse, and without consequence.
I did not break. Perhaps a combination of shock and exhaustion prevented the proverbial dam from bursting, but I did not break. I maintained my composure. I did not give in to anger and hate. I did not become Paul Hill.
I did realize, though, that Paul was right about one thing: If you believe abortion is murder, then you believe doctors are murders. If you believe in an eye for an eye type justice as most on his side do, it is only logical to conclude what Paul concluded and said on 15 March 1993: abortion is murder; abortion providers are murderers; murderers deserve death; hence doctors deserve to die. It is very simple syllogistic logic. It is terrifyingly simplistic. It is most assuredly absurd and fucked up logic, but to those of Hill’s ilk, it makes perfect sense.
Maybe someone prior to Hill and dad’s murder silently advocated for a doctor’s murder? I certainly believe Michael Griffin—dad’s assassin—did not suddenly become an anti-abortion murderer and terrorist. I think what Hill expressed that day on national television five days after the first abortion provider was murdered was said in private by many on his side for years; however, on that day, he let the genie loose. He had the appalling courage to say what many believed and were waiting to hear. In one hour of daytime drama, the bait blood clouded the water and a national spokesman was born.
Simultaneously, a palpable shift occurred in the audience. It was a man behind the curtain moment. They watched in person how the debate immediately changed, and they recoiled at Hill’s arrogance. Doctor. Crist spoke forcefully on behalf of doctors. Susan and Ron remained calm but effective in their defense of clinic owners and staff as well as in their condemnation of Hill. I simply did not break.
I know I participated in the conversation. I have fleeting memories of telling dad’s story, talking about the murder, peeling back the skin of the open wound, and allowing a small voyeuristic glimpse of my pain; yet, I did not break. As much as Donohue and the show’s producers wanted the money shot, I did not weep. I was not provoked to hysterical anger.
I never viewed the show. I never will. It was the show that launched a murder epidemic which continues to this day. We did not know, nor could we predict, at the stage how serious Hill was and that he eventually murdered a doctor, his escort, and seriously wounded the escort’s wife.. We do now, and his influence is as palpable today as it was 21 years ago.
As a result of my performance on the Donohue Show, I suddenly became abortion rights chum the antithesis of Hill’s pro-murder anti-woman blood bait. He and I crossed paths many times over the next year while the sharks circled concentrically.
February 18, 2014
Looking back, the felicity with which the media tracked down victims in a pre-internet world was unsettling. After my Dad’s assassination on March 10, 1993, my mom, sister, friends, and I huddled around the television watching news coverage of the killing, and it did not strike me as significantly odd when the phone started ringing with reporters on the other end. After all, there were phone books and news reports indicating Dad had family in Birmingham—how they knew our location is another mystery as they thought and reported, incorrectly, that we were from Pensacola for some time—and Gunn is a fairly uncommon name. So some persistent wrong dialing would eventually result in a match right?
Yet, when we finally worked out the details of the funeral and opted to bury Dad in Tennessee next to my matriarchal grandfather, we headed out to Winchester on March 11, and I assumed that moving northward would lessen the phone’s incessant din and give us an opportunity to grieve before having to face any media additional media blitz.
The visitation was on Friday, March 12, and the funeral was scheduled for Saturday, March 13. Our planning was complicated by a familial dispute over where the actual funeral and burial would take place. Dad’s family wanted him moved to Benton, Kentucky so he could be close to them; however, after the apocalyptic Thanksgiving just four months prior when Dad cut all ties with his patriarchal family, my sister and I a) did not envision an occasion that would bring us to Benton so a burial there meant we would not be able to visit dad in the future, and b) we felt it best to keep him with the family that did not abandon him and Winchester, we felt, was the best location.
Secondarily, but no less importantly, getting the body from Pensacola, Florida to Winchester, Tennessee while simultaneously getting us and our friends from Birmingham to Winchester proved hazardous given an approaching winter storm unlike any experienced in the South. In fact, were it not for the blizzard in Alabama and southern Tennessee, the funeral would have truly become a national media circus.
Alas, just as they did in Birmingham, the national media found us in Tennessee. People magazine had reporters on the ground asking for interviews as we tried to organize visitation and funeral services. In fact, they caught us on the steps of the funeral home, wanted to interview us on the spot, and quickly snapped some photos outside the picturesque antebellum home converted to funeral parlor and chapel. Similarly, the visitation was punctuated by reporters from everywhere, looking to talk with one or more of us family to get our personal reaction to recent events. In fact, I have vivid memories of talking with a reporter in the funeral home’s basement breakroom while the visitation was ongoing. Having never experienced anything even remotely close to these requests, I tried to be accommodating and polite while silently wishing for some peace. I just wanted to be with my Dad.
The snow hit Winchester the night of the visitation after everyone staying with us made it back to my grandmother’s house. We wondered if the funeral service could continue given the weather developments, and for a few moments the incessant phone ringing abated. While my friends and I toasted my Dad with bourbon and Coors Light we shared stories, laughed, and forgot about the real for a few moments.
On Saturday, March 13 we buried Dad in a snow covered cemetery in Winchester, Tennessee. Of course, media were on hand and they obtained a number of grieving money shots to litter their pages the next day. Some reporters wanted to talk and asked for comments, but it was cold, we were listless, tired, and veritable emotional vegetables so we finished at the graveside, said goodbyes, and huddled back to my grandmother’s to eat, drink, and blunt ourselves so we could get some much needed mental and physical rest.
I’ve never attended anything but a Southern funeral so I do not know if the food avalanche which follows the graveside service is a regional thing or something which is region neutral, but we had a houseful of guests who all brought comfort food for the family. As on the previous night, my friends and I ate and then retired downstairs and engaged in some subdued grief laden mild debauchery. As the day progressed, alcohol flowed, pipes glowed, and I finally relaxed to an extent thinking the gadfly reporter circus moved on to the next American tragedy when the phone rang again.
Mimi’s downstairs phone was one of those old Ma Bell wall mounted affairs with the eight foot spiraled cord and rotary dial. Someone yelled from upstairs where the adults had congregated since I was six and told me the phone was for me. I hesitated before answering, not wanting to answer another question about how it felt, how it feels, what would you say to Griffin, and other questions designed to draw a tear or presage a breakdown.
I answered the phone, leashed myself to the receiver, and walked into an adjoining bedroom closing the door which remained slightly ajar due to the umbilical tying the hand piece to the base. On the other end of the line was a warm sounding woman with a familiar southernish drawl. She introduced herself as Susan Hill and told me she knew Dad. She owned a number of abortion clinics and my father had worked at one or two of them over the years. Though we had never met, I had been in her clinics since I was 14.
She expressed her sympathy and explained how she and many others wanted to be at the funeral but were kept away by weather. She asked how I was holding up and I told her I was okay (lie) and waited to see what came next. In three days I learned when someone called to talk about the “tragic event” it typically meant some quid pro quo was coming. She then explained that a producer from the Donahue Show, a national talk show, had contacted her, requesting that she appear as a clinic owner, and asked if she knew how to reach someone from my family. She and I talked for quite some time about the benefits of going on the show, and I wondered privately and out loud if I would do my Dad, my family, and myself a disservice by continuing to publicize the event. She gave me the number for the producer, and I asked her to give me some time to think things over. Time, she explained, was an issue as they wanted to broadcast the show Monday—it was now Saturday night.
I spent the next few hours thinking and talking things through with friends and family. By this time, I heard my Dad’s brother was booked on another morning talk show which caused considerable angst since I assuredly did not want him speaking on my Dad’s behalf, or using his appearance to mystify and blur the lines about Dad’s death.
I believe I spoke with Susan again later Saturday night and told her I was leaning toward attending the show. She seemed pleased and told me to call her if I wavered. I then tried to reach the producer to talk through the details.
When I reached her, I did not think to ask why they wanted me on the show, I asked who would be the other guests, and I almost said no when they said an anti-abortion representative would be on hand. I was angry. I blamed the entire anti-abortion community for what happened, was sick of hearing—what would ultimately become a mantra for the antis—“well, he wasn’t a Christian,” or “I’m pro-life and I don’t support what he did,” and “Michael Griffin doesn’t represent all of us.” As far as I was concerned, they could fuck all with their qualifying apologies and excuses, and I wondered if I had the emotional readiness and/or intelligence to appear on a nationally broadcast TV show with sensationalistic tendencies, five days after the worst day in my 22 year old life. Add to that the fact that I would have to sit beside someone whose beliefs I felt contributed to my father’s death—even if in some small way. Had I known that Paul Hill was slated to be the anti-abortion co-guest, I would have turned down the invitation, but the producer was shrewd to withhold details of his ideology and plan prior to the show’s taping two days later. You see, Paul Hill felt my father’s murder was “justifiable homicide.”
Ignorant as I was of the kick in the face to come, I agreed to do the show, and they made arrangements for me to fly from Nashville to New York on Sunday, March 14 to attend the show’s taping/broadcast on Monday. I packed what I had, said goodbyes to my family, and headed out to Nashville to make my plane. Snow covered and lined the roads from Winchester to Nashville. What is typically at two and a half to three hour trip, seemed to take forever. While I drove, I wondered if I was doing the right thing, and I thought hard about what I would or could accomplish. From my perspective, few knew the absurd grief of politically motivated assassination, even fewer understood anti-abortion intolerance, hatred, and moral superiority, and slightly less knew the extent to which these people went to terrorize providers and their families. Ultimately, on that long snowy drive, I decided putting my personal grief on hold, to become the symbolic open wound, and to take advantage of the platform this tragic event proffered, I might actually help others like my Dad and our family. I knew Donahue reached a wide audience, and I thought perhaps we could reach some folks and change this insanity for the better.
On the other hand, though, I seriously wondered if I could maintain my composure, keep the tears and emotions at bay, and refrain from throwing chairs at Phil Donahue or the other guests. I certainly did not want to re-create the infamous Geraldo moment, and I seriously worried whether appearing on a daytime talk show would lessen the impact of Dad’s assassination; moreover, given it was a mere five days after his murder, I felt guilty about the performance as though I was doing a disservice to Dad and taking advantage of his death. Finally, I valued my privacy. Having recently left a small town where everyone knew everything about everyone, I was selfishly reluctant to give that privacy up even if was only for 15 minutes of fame.
With all that in mind, I continued on to Nashville, then New York, and made my television debut on March 15, 1993 two days after saying my final goodbyes to my Dad and friend who died too early. I felt confident I could make some small contribution by telling his story, as long as I could restrain myself from tossing a chair Donahue’s or Hill’s way.
December 4, 2013
Open or closed? His question hung in my head, a mental metronome undulating. Open or closed? It did not serve as a mantra used to focus the mind. No, the attendant’s question precluded focus and only intensified mental molestation as it required an answer. One would think we could agree upon an answer with relative ease. For me, though, still reeling at the thought of another funeral, the question hung weightless. I knew before asked I preferred closed; yet, there was my mother and sister to consider as well as those only a few months ago dad shunned after the nuclear Thanksgiving not yet four months past but who were certain to come, understandably, to bury their boy. Open or closed? After mom decided we would have a “proper” funeral, after struggling with the patriarchal Gunns on the funeral’s location, and after, against my wishes, a cremation was vetoed, open or closed was the last pressing question. We already viewed the casket show room, kicked the tires if you will, and settled on a practical and accommodating model. We perused the menu of services and opted for the large chapel as we anticipated a crowd. Though dad was not religious, I did not object too harshly when my maternal grandmother offered up her preacher to perform the service. It was yet another peace offering of sorts to the other family who would most assuredly object to a more secular service. Open or closed, though, remained unsettled. My steadfast closed opinion was due to the ghost of funeral’s past. I still remember the first time I touched a dead body, a husk of what was. I was seven or eight years old at my great-grandmother’s funeral. I was intrigued by death as the too young often are, and my cousins and I dared each other to touch her one last time. I remember only cold. Over the intervening years, I attended other great aunt’s, uncle’s, grandparents, and eventually friends’ funerals with some regularity. Coming from a small town as I do, when a teenager dies, you know them even if you don’t, and you attend the funeral in any event as you would any other social or church function. There is no question. You go. 
When I was 15 a friend shot himself with a .22 caliber rifle ending his relatively young life—he was 22, coincidentally, I believe—and I vividly remember his lifeless body and how obviously different he looked. I cannot see his animated face for the memory of his death face and the obvious attempts to mask the bullet in the head. Four years later after other suicides and drunk driving tragedies, at another open casket affair after my 20 year old friend killed himself and his girlfriend in a drunken single car wreck, I watched his father wrench his carcass from the coffin attempting to shake him back from Tartarus or wherever. I was a pallbearer and even at 19 understood this father’s grief at the loss of his son though I was unnerved by this large and strange man’s sudden grief-epiphany. Closed. I am decidedly closed. My mom and sister both want to see dad, to say goodbyes, to grieve in their own way. I am sure others want the same. Who am I to selfishly deny others what may bring some peace? We reach a compromise. Visitation for family and close friends is open, but the funeral itself is closed. I attend the visitation, but my last vision of dad remains the day he left my apartment three days before his murder, and I never see him lifeless and still. Closed. The visitation and funeral itself could have been one like any other but for the facts of dad’s death, the media frenzy which followed, and the freak southern blizzard of 1993 which significantly impeded what otherwise promised a SRO funeral. In fact, many people I later met and subsequently befriended told me they fully intended to come to Tennessee for the funeral but were snowed out. Before we even confronted the impish funeral director’s open or closed query, the media landed, a harbinger of the coming real storm. Back in ’93 I still had some fairly strong illusions of privacy, and we were amazed at the speed with which the press located us in Winchester, Tennessee when dad was killed in Pensacola, Florida, and my sister, mom, and I lived separately in Birmingham, Alabama. Yet, they sherlocked us down looking for the human interest angle to a controversial and promising long term story. They started calling, obviously, the day the assassination occurred. It did not relent as we prepared for a memorial and funeral. Open or closed, indeed. Press from all over the country flocked to the Moore-Cortner funeral home. People magazine grabbed mom, Wendy, and I for photos and an interview on the funeral home steps. Print reporters mingled with the visitors looking for us and others to quote hoping for bi-lines and copy. I do not recall video cameras at the visitation though I spoke with as many of them as I did friends and family or so it seemed. The media presence and my heightened stress at seeing the patriarchal Gunns lent a surreal air to the proceedings. As if out of ether, they were in the home. I spoke but do not remember what was said and whether it was comforting, remorseful, or cold. Now it seems I felt only a sense of sadness bordering on pity for the parents who lost a son twice before his time: once while alive after the prior fall’s Thanksgiving fiasco and once more with violent finality this time. As the visitation spectacle continued, the family stress mounted, and weariness turned to exhaustion. A caravan of friends from Birmingham was staying at my grandmother’s. We retreated to her house where the proper adults congregated upstairs and the “kids” (we were 22 and younger) hit the finished basement as we had on so many reunions in the past to comfort each other with our company and contraband, “Drink! for you know not whence you came, nor why: Drink! for you know not why you go, nor where…” Snow covered the new spring grass and fresh oak tendrils on the day we buried my dad. The freakish blizzard almost postponed the burial, but we soldiered on through the real and metaphorical storm inside and out, open and closed. I have almost no memory of the chapel service. Hollow words and “only God knows” pedestrian rationale from a holy man I did not know held no meaning for me whatsoever. All I knew was my dad was gone; the world as I knew it ended, and beyond there seemed nothing. My mom asked me to deliver a eulogy of sorts, but I was steadfastly closed and refused this request. It may be my one regret from those two days which seemed a lifetime. Of course, the carrion crow cameras flittered about as we were graveside. I laid a last rose on the coffin which was now firmly forever closed. We said graveside goodbyes to those who were not snowbound and stranded and returned to grandmothers for more comfort of one sort or another. In a paper somewhere is a photo of my then partner and I sharing a graveside embrace. The next morning I received a call from a woman I’d never met but who seemed warm enough. She explained she owned the clinic in Columbus, Georgia. This clinic was about sixty miles northeast of my second Alabama home town, dad worked there for years, and it was the first clinic I visited with him. That shared bond gave trust to the conversation. She explained how a friend of her and she were invited to appear on the Donahue show to discuss dad’s murder. She relayed the producer’s interest in having a family member attend as well. I had mixed emotions about discussing such a private matter in public, but also felt a responsibility, a naïve one perhaps, to share dad’s story in hopes no other family would be forced to answer the riddle of open or closed as a result of anti-abortion hatred, fear, and moral superiority. On this point, I opted for open and an ending proved a beginning.
October 26, 2013
Abortion – Christian Terrorism
Sudden violent death creates concentric ripples which spread ever wider washing and crashing over the immediate family on to extended family, friends, and colleagues. Those ripples ebb back to the deceased’s family. Sometimes, what rolls back is sympathy and genuine compassion. In other instances, a dangerous rip tide threatens to pull the family back into gothic familial deep water where the recently aggrieved find themselves struggling to maintain their footing and keep from drowning in those passive aggressive human voices whose motives are more self-centered than benevolent, more angry than comforting.
The men from my dad’s side of the family met each Thanksgiving weekend at a hunting cabin in Pickens County, Alabama. It is in actuality an old farm house adjacent to the Tom Bigbee River surrounded by grazing land for cattle and a combination of pulp and hard wood trees unique to the south. What started as a weekend of hunting and drinking two generations prior was now an occasion for the patriarchal Gunn family to meet, enjoy supposed fellowship, watch football, talk politics, and share a few meals—the drunken part of the weekend long banished once my grandfather became the family head. He and his eldest son, my uncle, devoutly subscribed to fundamental Christianity of the hair shirt variety so drunkenness was soon off the weekend’s agenda.
My history with my dad’s side of the family was strained at best due in large part to events prior to my birth. My grandfather expected his children to remain close in proximity and obedient to his will even in adulthood. Most of my aunts and uncles never left Benton, Kentucky a rural western Kentucky town that remained segregated as late as the 1980s which was the last time I had any reason to visit where they were born and either entered into the family insurance business or started other business ventures funded with grandfather’s wealth. Though his parents pushed dad to take up medicine as a career, I always felt they wanted him to return home to practice after meeting the right woman (meaning one they approved), marry, and live their idea of an idyllic Christian American lifestyle.
While an undergraduate at Vanderbilt, my dad met my mom. It was an odd relationship bordering on taboo in that they were distantly related and even shared the same last name. As if out of some stereotypical Appalachian folk tale, their father’s knew each other, had grown up together in rural Tennessee, and dad’s grandfather and father fucked my mom’s dad in a business deal which haunted my mom’s dad and tainted his relationship with his cousin/future in law for the rest of his life. I do not know when the respective parents found out about the illicit relationship, but I know neither side approved initially. My mom had to tell her parents when she found herself pregnant in the late 60s with what was to be my older brother. Her father, looking out for his daughter’s welfare, concerned what people would say (about the relationship generally and a child out of wedlock specifically), and distrustful of the paternal half of the relationship, offered her a way out of the pregnancy. Though abortion was illegal, he knew people and offered to arrange one for his young pregnant daughter to save her the embarrassment of single motherhood in 1968 and to prevent a stigmatized union with a family he strongly mistrusted.
Ultimately, mom and dad married and opted to have Chuckie. My mom’s parents accepted the marriage and though dad’s family feigned happiness, looking at how events developed over the years, I believe they never accepted or supported the marriage and looked on their children—and future grandchildren–as abominations. When my older brother died in a car crash as an infant, I think dad’s family secretly hoped it would end the shameful marriage that compromised their beliefs and socially embarrassed them. I also believe they felt it was the result of some divine justice for a sinful relationship. Chuckie’s death, though, kept my parents together, and as my dad finished medical school at the University of Kentucky, I was born in the fall of 1970.
After entering into what his parents considered an incestuous relationship, dad broke the unwritten family code by moving his family out of Kentucky via Nashville, TN to south Alabama upon completion of his residency at Vanderbilt University Hospital in 1977. For an old southern patriarch with deep religious convictions, this decision, I believe, solidified the rift between son and father: a rift my sister and I would suffer though we had no part in its creation but because we were the embodiments of dad’s sin and betrayal.
The Faulknerian twists of my family took years to unravel and now that most of the principals are gone, I still have only a fraction of what I can only describe as something resembling understanding; yet, I realized by early adolescence I wanted limited interaction with my paternal grandparents. After turning away from their faith at an early age and in light of their distance toward my sister and I, my summer visits stopped just before I turned 13 leaving the Thanksgiving get away my only regular contact.
By the Thanksgiving trip of 1992, I attended college in Birmingham and was dating a woman who asked that I spend the holidays with her family. Dad called me on Monday Thanksgiving week and asked that I go with him to the cabin. I refused and told him I had plans, adding that I did not want to see those people (his family) anyway. He asked again to the point of telling me I was going whether I liked it or not. Our relationship was strained, at best, since he and my mom divorced when I was 13, but we were making in roads toward piecing it back together. Due to his persistence and despite my reservations, I agreed to meet him in Aliceville with the intention of spending the long weekend with his family.
This year’s trip was mere days after Clinton defeated Bush 41 and with that victory came the hope that 12 years of harsh, trickle down conservatism was at an end. Conservatives nationwide were shell shocked and angry to the point of histrionics similar to what our current president experiences. Anti-Clinton propaganda and conspiracy theories were rampant even before he took office. The country was seriously divided then—almost foretelling how it is now, and the anti-big government conspiracy theorists’ tales only heightened a pejorative Clintonmania. In this atmosphere, my dad and I drove up to the cabin where our bathed in blood Christian Conservative moral majority relatives waited.
The first night went well enough. Sons, brothers, and cousins exchanged some slightly barbed jabs but the conversations remained civil enough, and we shared some laughs. I went to bed that first night thinking maybe I misjudged my relatives. It had been a year since I last saw them, and I thought this trip could be different.
By lunch, the next day, I could feel antipathy as clearly as I could smell the beginnings of Thanksgiving dinner—that recognizable mix of celery, carrots, and onion. I noticed my dad mixing a drink early from the back of his car, and thought how odd that a 47 year old man had to hide a mixed drink, and there was palpable disapproval in the air. It was not necessarily disapproval of the drink, or the current political developments, but a morally superiority that tinted and tainted the air as the Jack Daniels darkened the water in my dad’s glass.
I stayed outside most of the afternoon avoiding the heated political debate going on indoors. As night came on, the conversation grew louder and more heated. I walked back into the cabin where my dad was seated in a recliner obviously buzzed if not just plain drunk. His father and brother were on his left, and his cousin and brother-in-law were on his right. It looked as though he was holding court, but besieged on all sides. Everyone around dad described how Clinton would destroy the country, how more regulation would kill small business, and how a pro-baby killing president would ensure the country’s damnation.
I realized it was time to leave as voices got louder and it looked as though things might get physical. I remember my dad saying something derogatory about the Pope, at which point his brother had heard enough. Though he was no Papist, my dad’s defense of abortion outraged my uncle. As I continued to pack, he approached my father as though he intended to hit him. There existed between them an odd brotherly rivalry which bordered on sadism. Dad had polio as a child which limited and stunted his physical development and also, I think, impacted the brothers’ relationship. Instead of violence, he looked into his brother’s eyes with hatred and told him, “if you keep talking this way, there will be no one to bury you.” I was done at this point, told my dad we were leaving, and we spent the night in a hotel away from the abuses of his closed minded family.
Four months later, an anti-abortion protester named Michael Griffin assassinated my father. According to dad’s side of the family, they were unaware he performed abortions though he performed them for the better part of two decades in part or exclusively. After years considering his motives and silence, I think I finally have some degree of understanding. If his family was willing to write him off over a presidential candidate and some offhand remarks about the pope, then they clearly would have disowned and damned him to hell for murdering babies. He hid the abortion portion of his career, not out of shame or fear, but as some perverse familial life preserver. He wanted and needed that familial connection and feared he would lose it if his family knew the truth. Ironically, they disowned him over vagaries as opposed to the issue that took his life.
He never spoke to or saw his family after that November night in Aliceville. Though my mom and dad had long ago divorced and he was remarried, he opted to spend his last Christmas with us at my maternal grandmother’s house in Tennessee. Whether he was too proud to call his brother and father, or whether pride held back their hand makes little difference: he was dead to them and they to him.
My first conversation with any of my dad’s family was later in the afternoon of 10 March 1993 when my uncle called to ostensibly see how we fared. I do not remember him expressing any sympathy for the loss; rather, he wanted to tell me how we (meaning he) would arrange the funeral. He wanted to control all arrangements and return the prodigal son, in body only, to his old Kentucky home. I was initially dumbfounded that my uncle, the supposed adult in the room, was more concerned about a dead body than his niece and nephew. In his mind, he knew best, I was a child, and I should simply obey. In clear terms I told my uncle to fuck himself, that we had things under control, welcomed him, as well as the rest of the family, to the funeral we planned, and asked that he kindly leave us alone unless he had some honest assistance or sympathy to offer.
We buried dad during the worst winter storm in recent southern history. It was in mid-March less than two weeks prior to spring’s beginning, but Winter Storm ’93, as the media dubbed it, hung coldly over the funeral and attendant proceedings. Though my dad’s parents attended, they refused to sit with the family in the chapel of Cortner’s Funeral Home in Winchester, Tennessee—an antebellum home converted into a funeral parlor whose walls are as familiar to me as a childhood home given my 40 year history of funerals in that discomforting comfortable ritual death house. Moreover, they did not attend any of the mandatory post burial potlucks which may or may not be uniquely southern. Instead, they sent two of my cousins as emissaries seeking information but providing little. They ensured my sister and I need not worry, our grandfather had our interests at heart, and he would see we were protected (she was 17 and I was 22). Of course, these entreaties proved false.
The family rift which began as a small fissure before my birth evolved into an unbridgeable canyon in death. A murder which should have strengthened family ties unalterably crushed what little connection remained. I never had any meaningful exchanges with my father’s side of the family after that November night in 1992.
Almost 150 years ago, two brothers from the Gunn family donned uniforms: one was grey and the other was blue. Family lore holds at their last meeting they crossed swords, turned, and walked away never seeing each other again. Twenty years ago, in a somewhat devalued sense, history repeated rendering a family into bits due to one brother’s adherence to outdated traditionalism and religious fundamentalism while the other looked forward toward equality and inclusion. They did not realize at the time, though perhaps they should have, that the future was murder. Dad’s politically and religiously motivated murder perfectly reflects the harsh and unbreachable polar divide which is increasingly entrenched and present in our country today. Micro recapitulates macro on occasion does it not?
My children know their uncles, aunts, and cousins as phantoms, if at all—their great grandmother and father died long ago. Like me, they must live with the repercussions of choices and actions which occurred well before their births. While my eldest once expressed interest in meeting the family he’s never known, my youngest may not even know they exist. Surely, I bear responsibility for their ignorance; however, I selfishly never pursued reconciliation though there have been overtures. Unfortunately, I doubt the sincerity of such invitations and after 20 years of solitude from those who were my family, I choose exile over guilt riddled reconciliation. It is not an exile of hatred but of indifference which is admittedly worse I suppose.
August 27, 2013
A few days ago we were driving along the pine and oak dappled streets passing the brick and wooden houses we pass everyday on the way home. We saw ranchers, split levels, and A-frames as well as the odd gentrified monstrosity that was formerly a 50s, 60s, or 70s styled family home but is now some garish example of conspicuous consumption out of place among the two and three bedroom homes in our neighborhood. Those houses. Damn, they reek of pride and anticipation that soon, very soon, they shall overcome their common surroundings occupied by elderly holdouts and first time buyers as if they are a giant extended middle finger to those adjacent and across from their projected omnipotence.
We rounded Teller Lane turning left as we passed the soccer and basketball goals in the yard of the family on the corner.
She was beside me in the passenger’s seat and had not said much since I liberated her from those dastardly day care teachers—she hates daycare because they only give plain chips for snack, and though I appreciate her sentiment since I’m no vanilla chip fan, I’m glad her primary school stressor is chips because the pending divorce keeps her sufficiently distracted, confused, and just plain sad. Typically, she is abuzz with grade school drama or wiped out from hard play—she is a self professed tom boy after all; however, today she was a bit pensive and hesitant. I could tell something was clearly on her mind, and it appeared she was working out how to unwind the thread of thought as if in some Theban labyrinth. I prompted and prodded her about her day without getting overly interrogational. She is adept at avoidance.
She could sense our proximity to home meaning dinner anxiety, homework, and distraction combined with parental tension. Quickly, and in a sense angrily, she unburdened herself, “Why don’t I have gandpas?”, she asked. Her shoulders slumped forward slightly but her eyes engaged mine—as if my eyes regarded themselves—in fixed, intense precision awaiting parental profundity.
I was not surprised by the question. She has asked it before and asks some form of it regularly. Perhaps, after learning to live in two separate houses as opposed to the one she’s known for seven years, she hoped to immerse herself in the past longing for heritage’s familial fealty; or, she could have merely been curious. Who truly knows the motivations of others much less those of the ones we love, and I love her to the moon and back which obviously means I’m an utter failure at discerning her unstated motivations.
I navigated these waters when the man-boy—your grandson is 16, 6’5’’, is a brunette Pa, and I’d describe him as an old soul if I believed in one—was growing up, and I attempted to answer his inquiries with honesty as opposed to supposed soothing southern platitudes ending in “better place”, “God’s ways are…”, and/or “you’ll reconcile one day”. Yet, he knew his mom’s dad, had a close relationship with him for seven years, and, therefore, knew life with a cantankerous yet playful grandfather. Michael’s death was the first man-boy experienced and it shook him terribly just as the recent death of our traditional family shakes my daughter who’s now the Inquisitor.
Prior to having my own children, I seriously studied and in some way practiced how I would answer the inevitable questions. Unlike the deaths of other forbearers, details of yours are as loaded as the gun that killed you. I knew I had to tell the grandchildren the truth at some point, and, if nothing less, thought a written record would best address the problem of evil I had to narrate. In the event I croaked prematurely, I wanted them to hear the stories from me—or in my words, but never mustered the courage to write the answers until now.
I, therefore, am left looking at your granddaughter on an otherwise typical sunny and humid southern Friday in August. I look into her eyes which are mine, her brother’s, and yours. I try to summon the wisdom to explain a religiously motivated and condoned murder while searching for a method to breakdown how your job, controversial to some but legal and protected nationwide, was the primary cause of your death while realizing an understanding of that fact is the only way to make any sense of the senseless.
She should not know the term abortion though she’s heard it. Likewise, it is incomprehensible how she, through no fault of her own, must grapple with the issue at such a young age if I tell her the whole truth. She does not yet have any sexual understanding, but her tender years are hardening and hastening toward experience quickly especially as she struggles to understand a murdered grandfather, let alone one whose murder has the implications of yours. Relatively soon—too soon in my eyes assuredly–abortion will be an all too real and relevant issue for her as a burgeoning young woman. It remains to be seen whether or not she has the freedom other women have enjoyed for 40 years. She lives in dangerously fundamental times in an even more dangerously fundamental state. If I know anything about your granddaughter, it is that she has your strong will and hunger for justice. Though I cannot predict with certainty where she lands politically as she develops her own identity, I have little doubt her convictions will remain consistent with yours and mine.
Her brother, eight years her senior, knows you were assassinated and understands it was an act of terror. I had to share the causes and conditions of your assassination with him, and he carried that burden as I did before him and continue to do twenty years later. I do not remember at what age I told him the whole truth. I asked him if he recalls, and he doesn’t. Simply stated, he’s always lived with abortion just as I did. Fortunately, or unfortunately, he also realizes the motives of your assassin and has grown up under that shadow. I am happy to report his dedication to our family’s cause.
On that Friday two weeks ago, I mitigated the facts and told Sam again you were killed without getting into the whys and wherefores; instead, I simply said someone killed you and that he is still in prison. She asked why. Why is what I dread for her at such an early age. She’s beginning to learn the mythos of our civilization. While I will facilitate her struggle to differentiate facts from fiction in what she is taught, on this particular Friday, I decided she was not yet ready to learn the whole truth of your assassination or that it was an assassination. It is sufficient and tragic enough to know of and contemplate murder which she has done since she can remember. No granddaughter, regardless of her grandfather’s profession, should have to ask, “but why was he killed.” No father, in the land of the free, should be forced to provide that answer even if the whole answer must wait for the time being.
April 15, 2012
Paul Hill Convicted Anti Abortion Pro Life Christian Murderer
It might have come down to a simple question mark.
On July 29, 1994 anti-abortion advocate Paul Hill killed Doctor John Britton and his body guard, James Barrett, as they pulled into the parking lot of the Ladies Center in Pensacola, Florida. Hill just calmly walked up to the pick-up truck, took out a shotgun and, aware that the Doctor was wearing a bullet proof vest, shot him in the face. Hill was quickly arrested, tried and convicted. He died by lethal injection on Sept 3, 2003.
Several months before the murders, I was at the White House when President Bill Clinton signed into law the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. That law prohibited the “use of physical force, threat of physical force, or physical obstruction to intentionally injure, intimidate, interfere with …any person who is obtaining reproductive health services or providing…such services.” That law also included language confirming that anti-abortion protestors could exercise their First Amendment rights without fear of prosecution. Of course, how one defined the right to protest was subject to interpretation.
Bill Clinton Abortion Rights Advocate
Once the law became effective, pro-choice groups started lobbying the Department of Justice to use it against protestors who were considered particularly dangerous. Paul Hill, because he believed that it was “justifiable homicide” to kill an abortion doctor, was very high on the list.
A long-time presence at the Ladies Center, Hill was known for carrying with him a very large sign that read: “EXECUTE MURDERERS ABORTIONISTS ACCESSORIES?” The sign caught the attention of many in the media, it intimidated patients and it terrified the clinic staff. When the National Coalition of Abortion Providers held a memorial service for Doctor David Gunn at the site of his murder in March, 1994, Paul Hill was quietly walking back and forth with that very sign.
Pro Lifer Murder Threat Today!
Pro-choice groups were very concerned about Hill (as were some anti-abortion advocates), but the lawyers at the DOJ were not sure what they could do about him. In June, 1994 I had a conversation with one of their attorneys and he said that he had not crossed the Free Speech line because he was not saying out loud “I am going to kill a doctor.” Instead, he was “merely” expressing his views on the issue, i.e., saying that he thought it was “justified” to kill an abortion doctor. When I raised the issue of the sign, the attorney directed me to the question mark at the end of the sentence. I had never noticed it. Paul Hill was “merely” posing the question.
Department of Justice
Was Paul Hill really that smart? Did he understand how far he could push the First Amendment? We’ll never know. We do know, however, that Hill was being watched very carefully by the authorities but that sign – and his very ugly speech – was not actionable.
I often wonder what the authorities might have done if there was no question mark on his sign.
I wonder if a case could have been made under the FACE law?
I wonder if the lives of two people could have been saved?
December 4, 2011
Butyric Acid Attacks by Pro Life Terrorists
Sitting in my office one day at the National Coalition of Abortion Providers, I took a call from the administrator of the Cincinnati Women’s Services clinic. She was very upset and through the sobbing I could hear her say things like “pungent smell…the clinic will be closed for days…they made us take our clothes off to scrub us down…”
It was the first time I had heard about butyric acid and it was the beginning of yet another tactic in the campaign of terrorism against abortion clinics. When the administrator regained her composure, she told me how when she approached the clinic that morning she could smell something from the parking lot that smelled “like one of those high school chemistry experiments.” The smell got worse as she got closer and when she opened the door, it was like a “wave” hit her. Other staff followed her in and, despite the horrific smell, they started calling the police and their patients. Unfortunately, the local police had no idea what to do but when officials from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms arrived, they immediately diagnosed the problem. They ordered everyone out of the building, set up make-shift outdoor showers and ordered all the staff to take off their clothes to get scrubbed down. They then started the multi-day clean up of the building, which ultimately cost the owners a lot of money because they had no insurance for such an incident.
Anti Abortion Terrorists
Butyric acid is a clear, colorless liquid with an unpleasant, rancid, vomit-like odor. Anti-abortion extremists began using it as a weapon against abortion facilities in early 1992. The goal, of course, was to disrupt services, close the clinic, and harass patients and staff. Depending on the amount used, the butyric acid could cause thousands of dollars of damage, requiring clinics to replace carpeting, furniture, and conduct extensive cleanup of the facility. Even after the cleanup, the smell remained months after the incident.
Over the years, there were about 100 butyric acid attacks throughout the United States and Canada, causing in excess of $1 million in damages. From May to July 1998, nineteen abortion clinics in Florida, Louisiana, and Texas were hit with butyric acid, which the perpetrator simply injected through the keyhole of the clinic’s front door with a syringe. Clinic staff and patients were sent to hospitals with respiratory problems and nausea.
Abortion
The problem in those days was that the federal government had no jurisdiction to prosecute those who were involved in these attacks, so they had to rely on state and local officials whose inquiries were limited because the investigators could not cross state lines to pursue links among the crimes. And, candidly, many local officials just didn’t give a darn if the local abortion clinic had some problems.
Finally, however, after passage of the FACE Act, federal grand juries in Oregon and Eastern California returned indictments in 30 cases against Rachelle “Shelly” Shannon, who is now sitting in a jail in Kansas on state charges for the attempted murder of Wichita physician George Tiller in 1993. In 1995, she was sentenced to 20 more years by Federal District Court Judge James Redden who, when sentencing her, called her a “terrorist.” The sentence was set to begin only after Shannon’s 10-year incarceration for shooting Tiller is completed.
History often repeats itself, so I believe it’s important to remind (or, in many cases, inform) those who are reading this blog of the days when the violence was rampant, when clinics and their workers were under regular attack by domestic terrorists. So, on a regular basis I will continue to share and document the stories of those horrible days.
We cannot forget the past. And we must remain vigilant.
August 15, 2011
Emotional Terrorists
It seems that every once in a while, we get a new, energized abortion rights advocate who starts screaming about how every pro-lifer is a “terrorist.” They usually also add how the Catholic Church has murdered more people than any other religion in the world, but I don’t have the time or energy to research what the Catholic Church has done over the centuries so I don’t opine on those comments. However, I do have some experience in the world of abortion, so I would like to chat a little about whether or not all pro-lifers are “terrorists.”
I guess the first thing one needs to do is define “terrorist.” In my head, the true terrorists are, of course, the folks who fly crowded airplanes into buildings, who blow themselves up in crowded market squares and who plot the death of innocent civilians or government workers. You know who I am talking about: Bin Laden, Timothy McVeigh, and that nut ball up in Norway who recently killed all of those kids. Then there are the Micheal Griffins, James Kopps and Paul Hills of the world. True terrorists, they.
But then, way on the other end of the spectrum, are those pro-lifers who just sit in their house, avoiding all demonstrations and who rarely opine about their position on the abortion issue. They might pray at home or in church for an end in abortion and send some money to their local pro-life organization, but I have a very tough time calling them “terrorists” and I suspect that most pro-choicers would also be reluctant to affix that label to them.
Where I get stuck is when I think of those folks who go to their local abortion clinic on a regular basis and publicly demonstrate. Are they “terrorists?” Let’s talk about their motivations and their actions.
I guess your average protestorgoes to the clinic in the hopes of stopping an abortion, whether it is by engaging in prayer (don’t even ask me how that would work) or, if they chance, talking one on one with the women as they approach the
Angry Protestors = Terrorism?
abortion facility. Once they identify the woman, they might start screaming at them. Some even resort to the use of a bullhorn. Now, a woman who has made an appointment for an abortion usually is warned by clinic staff that there may be protestors outside so when she sees the anti-abortion folks out front, she knows they smell blood. Then scream at her that she is “killing your baby!” They may make a crying baby sound and shriek “Mommy, don’t let them pull my legs off!” Sometimes it is just a simple “Murderer!” The woman may have been warned, she may have seen demonstrations on television, but she is rarely prepared for this scene. And, to top it off, she doesn’t want to be at the clinic in the first place.
Over the years, I have seen this scenario played out in the front of many clinics. The unique perspective that I have, however, is that on a number of occasions, I have walked with the women passed the protestors into the actual clinic. Some gave me permission to accompany them through the entire abortion process. I have seen (and the protestors haven’t) how upset the women are when they sign in, whose blood pressure has risen because they are so angry at these strangers outside the clinic who don’t know her or anything about her personal situation. I’ve seen women who have already shed a few tears as she contemplated her decision shed even more tears in the waiting room. And then, after all of the theatrics outside, I’ve then seen them have their abortion.
Not all pro-lifers are terrorists. That’s a silly statement. But I would conclude that to the women who walked the anti-abortion gauntlet, who could feel the hatred, who heard the screaming, who would prefer to be just with alone with their loved ones – I would say that those particular women were indeed “terrorized.”
January 17, 2011
Lobbyists on Capitol Hill
“We must stand up to the special interests in this country!”
How many times have you heard a politician utter this phrase? Invariably, it is always followed with a rousing round of applause, perhaps even a standing ovation. Yes! Let’s get those blood sucking, sleazy lobbyists who represent those blood sucking, sleazy special interests! Lynch ‘em!
I don’t know who is more stupid – the politicians or the voters. Or maybe they both deserve each other.
So, who are these “special interests” that we all hate so much? Well, in the context of this world famous blog we need to recognize groups like the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League and the National Right to Life Committee. These groups spend hundreds and thousands of dollars (if not millions) each year promoting their agenda and/or fighting the other side’s scurrilous attempts to bring down our Republic. So, when President Obama or Speaker Boehner assure us that they will no longer cow-tow to the special interests, what exactly does that mean? I mean, it sounds really good, doesn’t it? But let’s get past the rhetoric and play this out for a second.
First of all, EVERYONE has some kind of special interest in something, don’t they? Of course they do. And, if I recall the First Amendment, EVERYONE has the right to express those interests to their Member of Congress or any other elected official. So, if Mark Jones of Brooklyn, New York writes a letter to his Congressman opposing higher taxes, he is expressing his views on an item of “special interest” to him. When Billy Bob Horsehide of Butte, Montana sends an email to his Senator about gays in the military, he is conveying his “special interest” in that issue. EVERYONE has a special interest in something so I don’t understand why everyone says we need to eliminate the “special interests.”
Then, let’s say that Mark Jones is also anti-abortion but he doesn’t have the time or perhaps inclination to write a letter expressing his opposition to the “legal killing” that is going on in this country. Instead, he sends $100 to the National Right to Life Committee. Then, the NRLC sends its cadre of lobbyists to Capitol Hill to meet with Members of Congress to express their concern for the “unborn.” Mark is only using a larger organization of like-minded individuals to convey his position on an issue of importance to him. What the hell is wrong with that? Is the NRLC one of those “special interests” that pro-life Speaker John Boehner would seek to eliminate? I think not.
Lobbyists
Then let’s take Obama. He also has made a big deal out of promising the American public that he also will eliminate those nasty “special interests.” Let me show you how absurd that notion is. Say pro-life Congressman Chris Smith introduces a bill that eliminates abortions after 24 weeks and the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee indicates that he would like to move the bill for a vote. The committee is primarily pro-life so there’s a good chance that the bill will pass. Are you telling me that when a staff person at the White House hears about this bill, he is just gonna sit back and not give it another thought? No way, Jose. In the real world, he will pick up the phone and call – dare I say it – the LOBBYIST for NARAL to get their thoughts on the prospects for this legislation which ultimately could wind up on the President’s desk. The staff person will ask the “experts” about the impact of the bill, he will ask if the pro-choice Members of Congress on the committee should offer some amendments to mitigate the impact of the proposal. In other words, the White House staff will actually strategize with their allies in the pro-choice movement. They may even have a meeting in the Old Executive Office building with all of the pro-choice lobbyists!
Indeed, that’s how it worked years ago when I was a LOBBYIST for the abortion provider movement. I was constantly in touch with President Clinton’s liaison with the “women’s groups.” The point is the White House or those on Capitol Hill do not work in a vacuum. Nor should they. So, all of this stuff about getting rid of the “special interests” is horse hockey, pure and simple. In fact, I would take it a step further – “special interest “ groups are part of our democratic system, they are a way for the little guy to join other like minded little guys and convey their message to their elected officials.
What the heck is wrong with that?
Abortion - Abortion Clinics, Abortion Pill, Abortion Information 