Hate Crimes Against LSU Catholics

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ezekielwatching

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thought you might be interested in knowing about this hate crime, the destruction of 3000 crosses in a pro-life display costing $9000, which LSU police watched without making any arrests at the time. They arrested 5 for misdemeanor mischief, 1 for destruction of property. There is resistance on their part to classify it as a hate crime, perhaps because of the civil rights implications in their watching it. The Washington Times and Life News have picked up on the story, and Michelle Malkin on her blog and Brian Saint-Paul in the Crisis magazine e-letter are calling it a hate crime. I am posting Saint-Paul’s letter next. Below are the links to local coverage, including the letter from the ring leader and Louisiana’s hate crime statute.
<lsureveille.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/01/28/41f9dc0cc758e>
<lsureveille.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/01/28/41f9da9c2fe24>
<lsureveille.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/01/27/41f894dcde068>
<http://www.lsureveille.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/01/25/41f5eb5a8887d>
<http://www.lsureveille.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/01/27/41f89827bccce>
<legis.state.la.us/lss/lss.asp?doc=78262>

Please forward this to all your pro-life colleagues and any media contacts you may have. The vandalism of these crosses has been a national epidemic, and the LSU case may be our best chance of getting the law to back our right to freedom of speech.
 
(Permission to reprint granted earlier in the letter)

"Apparently, the right to free speech doesn’t apply to everyone.
Especially if you happen to be pro-life.

That’s the lesson the Louisiana State University Students For Life
learned recently. You see, last weekend, in anticipation of the
anniversary of Roe v. Wade, they placed 4,000 crosses on the campus
parade grounds. (The 4,000 figure represents the average number of
unborn children killed per day by abortion.)

It was a nice, silent witness to the atrocity of abortion.

But even that is just too much for some people. Around midnight
Monday morning, a group of pro-abortion students vandalized the
display, destroying 3,000 of the crosses and using some of the others
to spell “pro-choice” on the grass. All told the vandals did over
$9,000 worth of damage.

Amazingly enough, one of the university police officers saw them
doing it and ordered them to leave. But he didn’t arrest them. One
wonders if he would have acted similarly had he caught them
spray-painting graffiti on a dormitory wall.

The perpetrators were later arrested and charged with criminal
mischief – a misdemeanor. But is that enough? Richard Mahoney,
president of the St. Mary and St. Joseph Memorial Foundation and
owner of the vandalized crosses certainly doesn’t think so. The cross
is a religious symbol, he noted to The Daily Reveille (the student
newspaper of LSU), and “defacing a religious symbol is a hate
crime.”

In an amusing exercise in rationalization, John Philip Morlier, one
of the perpetrators, wrote a letter to the Reveille, defending his
actions:

“I engaged in what I believe to be an act of free speech. The
crosses were planted in an effort to join a debate, conversation. By
removing from the ground and disassembling the crosses, I was voicing
a counter point. I know that my actions were rash; however, the
statement made by the crosses was rash, inappropriate, invasive and
hostile.”

Where to begin? I wonder if Mr. Morlier would appreciate my own
“counter point” if I were to scratch the word “Idiot” into the side
of his car? Probably not. And yet, that’s the kind of reasoning he’s
using here with his vandalism-as-genuine-debate argument.

But it gets even better. He goes on to try to explain why he wasn’t
guilty of a hate crime… only to shoot himself in the foot in the
attempt:

“The crosses are not an invitation to engage in a give and take
debate on the issue, rather the issue is evasively hidden behind the
most powerful symbol in our community. Those crosses were a black and
while framing of a very complex issue veiled behind the threat of
hell; a wood and glue manifestation of the self-righteous, mislabeled
‘Christian’ mentality that fuels itself off of the punishment it
threatens or administers to those that it persistently persecutes.”

Did you catch his misstep?

When I first learned of the vandalism and the attempt to label it a
hate crime, I had my doubts. After all, the crosses were used in the
display to represent tombstones – objects that have taken on a
secular value in our culture. Most likely, I thought, the vandals
were reacting to them as such.

But Mr. Morlier shows that this is not so, thereby surrendering his
single best defense. According to his own statement, he DID consider
the crosses religious symbols. In defacing them, he was acting
against the spiritual message he thought they communicated.

And that sounds like a hate crime to me.

I’ll keep you updated on new developments in the story.

Have a great weekend,

Brian
 
Thanks for the info. This just shows how far the culture has to go. You wonder why they couldn’t be arrested for simple vandalism.

BTW, a couple of years ago pro-life Suzanne Terrell nearly defeated personally-opposed-but-I’ll-help-filibuster-judges Mary Landrieu for Senator. Terrell’s pro-life message nearly got her elected in Louisiana–it was only last minute politicing by Bill Clinton and Al Gore campaign-manager Donna Brazile that turned out the black vote for Mary Landrieu to squeak by.

I grew up in Louisiana and it’s a pro-life state. My guess is this vandalism will have some repercussions.
 
I don’t suppose the ACLU has offered to do anything to help the Catholics:rolleyes: Fredom of choice as long as it agrees with theirs,freedom of speech as long as it agrees with theirs,notice the perpetrators comments about the hidden meaning of the crosses,sounds like a guilty conscience to me.God Bless

PS.Please keep us updated.
 
Nothing official has been said, but it seems doubtful Baton Rouge DA Doug Moreau will pursue hate crime charges. Local media has really dropped the ball on this, so Moreau has no pressure on him to seek justice. Of course, that’s pending massive public outcry. The big debate is whether the crosses were political or religious. Let me point out these two links:

First, Daily Reveille conservative columnist Tobias Danna’s profile of the LSU Students for Life and defense that this was a hate crime against people expressing religious convictions.
lsureveille.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/01/28/41f9da9c2fe24

And second, the alleged hate criminal Morlier’s defense of his actions which destroys his best defense.
lsureveille.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/01/28/41f9dc0cc758e

Again, please push this story as best you can. Oregon State and Penn had similar incidences this week get less coverage than the LSU one did, and God knows where else this story is getting suppressed.
 
A couple clarifications to get the story straight:

Was this display authorized to be on the parade grounds? If so, the case is certainly stronger. If not, criminal mischief seems more like it. Of course, IANAL.

The claims on damages don’t seem to agree. One says more than $9000, elsewhere we read that only 3000 out of 4000 crosses were destroyed, and that the entire display cost $9000.
 
LSU Students for Life were the only ones authorized to be in that section of the parade grounds during the display period (Sat. -Wed.) The vandalism happened Sunday night. The crosses cost $3 a piece, $ 9000 in damages.
 
until now, I thought I was part of a small group of those of us who are pro-life AND believed the the concept of hate crimes. I’m glad the family is larger than I thought!
 
I was interested in another contradiction in John Philip Morlier’s defense of his actions defacing the crosses.

First he says:* I engaged in what I believe to be an act of free speech. The crosses were planted in an effort to join a debate, conversation*.

But later says: The crosses are not an invitation to engage in a give and take debate on the issue, rather the issue is evasively hidden behind the most powerful symbol in our community.

Now were they or were they not an effort to join in debate??
 
If yo uare interested in reading a good book about why situations like this still exist…

**
**The New Anti-Catholicism: The Last Acceptable Prejudice
**
Click to expand...
by Philip Jenkins
Anti-Catholicism has a long history in America. And as Philip Jenkins argues in The New Anti-Catholicism, this virulent strain of hatred–once thought dead–is alive and well in our nation, but few people seem to notice, or care. A statement that is seen as racist, misogynistic, anti-Semitic, or homophobic can haunt a speaker for years, writes Jenkins, but it is still possible to make hostile and vituperative public statements about Roman Catholicism without fear of serious repercussions. Jenkins shines a light on anti-Catholic sentiment in American society and illuminates its causes, looking closely at gay and feminist anti-Catholicism, anti-Catholic rhetoric and imagery in the media, and the anti-Catholicism of the academic world. For newspapers and newsmagazines, for television news and in movies, for major book publishers, the Catholic Church has come to provide a grossly stereotyped public villain. Catholic opinions, doctrines, and individual leaders are frequently the butt of harsh satire. Indeed, the notion that the church is a deadly enemy of women, the idea of Catholic misogyny, is commonly accepted in the news media and in popular culture, says Jenkins. And the recent pedophile priest scandal, he shows, has revived many ancient anti-Catholic stereotypes. It was said that with the election of John F. Kennedy, anti-Catholicism in America was dead. This provocative new book corrects that illusion, drawing attention to this important issue.

**
 
Ezekiel…do you go to LSU? I live in Zachary…just north of Baton Rouge and talk about local media dropping the ball…I haven’t even heard about this…this is crazy. I am going to have to write some letters to local media outlets expressing my concern as to why this didn’t get covered. I am going to try to go to law school or Vet School next fall at LSU…I used to date a girl at LSU. What Parish do you go to? Take care, DSS
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ezekielwatching:
Nothing official has been said, but it seems doubtful Baton Rouge DA Doug Moreau will pursue hate crime charges. Local media has really dropped the ball on this, so Moreau has no pressure on him to seek justice. Of course, that’s pending massive public outcry. The big debate is whether the crosses were political or religious. Let me point out these two links:

First, Daily Reveille conservative columnist Tobias Danna’s profile of the LSU Students for Life and defense that this was a hate crime against people expressing religious convictions.
lsureveille.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/01/28/41f9da9c2fe24

And second, the alleged hate criminal Morlier’s defense of his actions which destroys his best defense.
lsureveille.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/01/28/41f9dc0cc758e

Again, please push this story as best you can. Oregon State and Penn had similar incidences this week get less coverage than the LSU one did, and God knows where else this story is getting suppressed.
Click to expand...
 
Louisiana is a solid “red state” so I expect the Evangelicals and the Catholics down there to play this up—as they should.
 
just for curiosity, if this was indeed a hate crime, was it directed against Catholics, or against pro-lifers–who include Catholics, Evangelicals, other Christians, and other denominations in their ranks, some of whom adopt the Cross as a meaningful symbol, some of whom do not.
 
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katherine2:
until now, I thought I was part of a small group of those of us who are pro-life AND believed the the concept of hate crimes. I’m glad the family is larger than I thought!
Click to expand...
Excuse me??? Pro Life??? Didn’t I just read a thread in which you cheered Sen. Clinton, the Pro Abortionist, speaking at a Catholic (well almost…its Jesuit) college?
 
As to whether this was a hate crime against Catholics, Tobias Danna explains the nature of the SFL protest was Catholic, co-sponsored by the St. Mary and St. Joseph Family memorial Foundation, although it has not been mentioned that they have non-Catholic members. Morlier’s letter shows it is a hate crime against narrow-minded Christians like us.

I am a student at LSU, and this is being suppressed. The coverage from the Reveille has been the best in town. I hear people clammoring for Danna to be dismissed as a columnist after his column used strong pro-life imagery:“All those little crosses that were really there were now missing, just as nearly a third of our generation has been slaughtered in abortion mills. All those little crosses once whole now left broken and alone by their violators, an act strikingly similar to the way the $400 million a year abortion industry leaves desperate women. All those little crosses lit aflame in an act of Klan-styled terrorism, they serve as a reminder of the beautiful African-American little girls and boys who will never inherit Martin Luther King’s dream. All these fools for Christ, picking up the pieces of the culture of death’s destruction with smiles on their faces and love in their heart toward all those who mock them.”

If you could follow the link to his column, and post some positive feedback. I know him. He is a good guy - he converted to Catholicism after graduating from a Pentecostal Bible College, working on a real degree now, and doen’t need this mess touching him so close to graduation.
<lsureveille.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/01/28/41f9da9c2fe24>
And please keep this story alive all over the net.
 
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lsutigereye:
I hear people clammoring for Danna to be dismissed as a columnist after his column used strong pro-life imagery:“All those little crosses that were really there were now missing, just as nearly a third of our generation has been slaughtered in abortion mills. All those little crosses once whole now left broken and alone by their violators, an act strikingly similar to the way the $400 million a year abortion industry leaves desperate women. All those little crosses lit aflame in an act of Klan-styled terrorism, they serve as a reminder of the beautiful African-American little girls and boys who will never inherit Martin Luther King’s dream. All these fools for Christ, picking up the pieces of the culture of death’s destruction with smiles on their faces and love in their heart toward all those who mock them.”

If you could follow the link to his column, and post some positive feedback. I know him. He is a good guy - he converted to Catholicism after graduating from a Pentecostal Bible College, working on a real degree now, and doen’t need this mess touching him so close to graduation.
<lsureveille.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/01/28/41f9da9c2fe24>
And please keep this story alive all over the net.
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Thanks, Tigereye. Toby Danna is a friend of mine, and while I seriously doubt that the Reveille is looking to sell him out, I know his bosses monitor the feedback he gets. One current post calls him , “a bastion of closed-minded stupidity” and insists the Reveille’s credibility is damaged by having him on board, but he’s pretty thick skinned. I will tell him about your support the next time I talk to him.
 
TFP students from across the country are petitioning Chancellor O’Keefe to take thi seriously. As I learn more I will let you know. In the meanwhile, District Attorney Doug Moreau has yet to announce hate crime charges. His contact information can be found at ldaa.org/roster/moreau.html, if anybody cares enough to raise their voices.
 
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ezekielwatching:
In the meanwhile, District Attorney Doug Moreau has yet to announce hate crime charges. His contact information can be found at ldaa.org/roster/moreau.html, if anybody cares enough to raise their voices.
Click to expand...
All hate crimes must stop. And people who deny there is such a thing as hate crimes do not serve justice.
 
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