Posted on 07/22/2007 11:21:44 AM PDT by monomaniac
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- As protests on both sides of the abortion debate continued Friday in Birmingham, police said the director of Operation Rescue/Operation Save America was been arrested.
Flip Benham was taken in on a noise ordinance charge.
Police said he was using sound equipment he did not have a permit for and they had given him numerous warnings to stop using the equipment.
What was he using, an “unlicensed” bullhorn?
“Unlicensed” bullhorn.
I sincerely doubt you need a license to us a bullhorn in Alabama. Otherwise the civil rights movement would have never happened.
>>“Unlicensed” bullhorn.
I sincerely doubt you need a license to us a bullhorn in Alabama. Otherwise the civil rights movement would have never happened.<<
could be its trumped up.
But it could be that he had a permit for the protest and in the application you had to list sound equipment that would be used.
And yet the police everywhere flaunt the law daily by operating high powered radio transmitters (radar guns) with little training and no valid licenses.
You can be arrested for using a megaphone at a protest.
However, you cannot be arrested for using a vacuum cleaner to suck a living human being out of his or her mother, tearing them limb from limb and killing them.
Odd world we live in. Odd set of 'rights'.
Police said he was arrested when he refused to stop using a public address system after authorities warned him he didn’t have a permit to use it. Police said the noise was disturbing people inside the clinic and in neighboring businesses.
http://www.11alive.com/news/article_news.aspx?storyid=100440
http://media.newtimes.com/id/272929/0
Benham was a saloon owner until his conversion in 1976. He then began a career as a Christian minister and pro-life activist. He has been arrested, by his own count, “less than a hundred, more than 50” times.
Benham and his organization volunteered their time to provide food and supplies in Mississippi after that area was ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. Although other organizations accepted funding from the government for their efforts, Benham stated that his organization would never accept money from the government.
In 1994, he confronted Norma McCorvey, best known as “Jane Roe” in the landmark Supreme Court abortion case “Roe v. Wade”, at a book-signing. He shouted at her that she was “responsible for the deaths of over 33 million children,” and six months later he opened Operation Rescue’s national headquarters next to A Choice for Women, the reproductive health care clinic where McCorvey was working at the time. McCorvey initially resisted any contact, but eventually started to talk to Benham during her smoking breaks. During one friendly banter, McCorvey goaded Benham, “What you need is to go to a good Beach Boys concert.” Benham answered, “Miss Norma, I haven’t been to a Beach Boys concert since 1976.”
McCorvey later reported that this seemingly innocuous response shook her to the core and that, quite suddenly, Benham became human to her. She later accepted an invitation to visit their church and within a year, McCorvey converted from being pro-choice to being pro-life, which she has remained.[citation needed]
On August 8, 1995, Benham baptized McCorvey in a Dallas backyard swimming pool. The baptism was filmed for national television.
I don’t know the man personally, but I would venture to say that the arrest is not a big deal to him. Had a girl friend once who would stand and pray on the gravel road in front of one of these killing centers. She was 8 months pregnant. A local cop walked up to her (she was a sweet as could be, really) and pushed her hard face first onto that gravel street. She was cut up and bleeding and had not put one foot onto the clinic’s property.
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