Posted on 08/13/2014 1:30:25 PM PDT by Morgana
A half-dozen strippers paraded topless outside a rural Ohio church as its parishioners entered and exited this Sunday as a counterprotest to the church's efforts to close their business.
A total of 30 dancers, friends, fellow employees, and strip industry executives gathered outside New Beginnings Ministries in Warsaw, Ohio, on Sunday, the second week the sex workers protested the evangelical church's strong moral stance.
The church, which has about 125 members in a city of 700, has protested the Foxhole North, located just nine miles down the road from its sanctuary, for years.
Thomas George who owns that location and the Foxhole South in the southeastern Ohio city of Zanesville, tried to get a legal injunction that would prevent church members from protesting within one mile of his business.
The evangelical church regularly holds prayer vigils outside the tiny, nondescript club, offering its employees God's love and a better life. Pastor Bill Dunfee said he regularly spoke with strippers. “I told them I will put a roof over their heads, their bills will be paid and their children’s stomachs will be full,” he said.
He added that at least one employee has left the industry as a result of his church's outreach.
But George told the Coshocton Tribune that the protestors' behavior was “not Christian-like, not what I read in my Bible.”
The previous weekend, about 14 people protested outside the Warsaw church. Dunfee told the Zanesville Times Recorder at that time that one dancer exposed herself to a woman who belongs to his fellowship.
The business faced no fines, since courts have interpreted Ohio statutory law as allowing men and women to go topless, requiring only that the lower half of their bodies be covered. Advertisement
This weekend, the church instructed its members - especially women and children - to come through the back entrance, behind a tarp that shielded them from the topless protesters.
As the bare-chested women marched down the sidewalk in front of the church, strategically raising and lowering their signs, members of the church sang "Amazing Grace" and marched backwards in front of them, holding up signs that blocked their breasts from public view. One of the church's signs said simply, "Lust is Sin."
Among those who took part in the latest protest is Greg Flaig, the executive director of Owners Coalition, a coalition of strip club owners which says its goal is to "improve the Adult business images in Ohio.”
The topless protests have been widely reported, stretching from the small Ohio town to the New York Daily News and USA Today.
The group's tactics are reminiscent of Femen, a group of women who protest topless, and often in a violent fashion, in favor of abortion-on-demand and homosexuality in Europe. The Ukrainian-based organization was first led by Viktor Svyatski, who hand-picked the most attractive women for maximum propaganda effect.
Its members attacked the Archbishop of Madrid, Cardinal Antonio Rouco Varela, in February, pelting him with – in their words – “a rain of panties soaked with the blood of our illegal abortions.”
The bare-breasted women also assaulted the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in Belgium, Archbishop Andre-Joseph Leonard, last April over his views of homosexuality. Archbishop Leonard humbly knelt and prayed as the angry activists doused him with water.
Dunfee has vowed not to back down, instead saying he will address the protests during Sunday School next week. The protests are “shameful,” he said, and only serve to strengthen his ministry and his efforts to stop the sex industry's inroads in Ohio. Advertisement
Facts you don’t know about most strippers.
Most have drug problems.
They have children to care for
99% have been sexually abused at some point in their life.
Most of their money goes to some man at home who is not their husband.
They suffer from depression, many commit suicide.
Many become lesbian because of the way men treat them, even though they were not lesbian when they entered the business of being a stripper.
wonder life NOT.
If they close the strip bar, where will the Saudi businessmen go for entertainment?
That little church might get full in the next couple of weeks from men getting a desire to want to goto church all of the sudden.
I don’t have any scientic basis, but based on my experience with the scrabbly side of life, I’d bet you were right.
Years ago, when I lived in East Texas, a technique utilized by anti-strip club protestors was to videotape patrons as they left the club. Today that could be done quite easily and then uploaded to the net. Sure cut down on married men visiting the establishment and reducing the income of places like this is cutting off their life blood.
Luckily it was a church and not a mosque .... could have been some serious stoning or heads could have rolled!
I’ve always wondered why they call these establishments “gentlemen’s clubs”...
BTW, re: this comment, “The Ukrainian-based organization was first led by Viktor Svyatski, who hand-picked the most attractive women for maximum propaganda effect.”
How come Monster.com never carries job openings like this?
Why do you assume that only the men might have gone to the strip club? A rather sexist attitude, no? ; )
There goes my summer job for next year.
bump
sad lives
where they belong!
bump
It’s very sad. Most of them don’t like men very much.
Yeah genius, having your strippers engage in a topless protest in front of a church is a BRILLIANT strategy for improving the image of adult businesses.
lol
exactly. a great point
The stupid it BURNS.
TTIUWP.
I’m sorry. I tried to stop...
5.56mm
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