Crossing the Line

Repent Amarillo's Spirtual MapThe internet is abuzz with reports of an extreme Christian group in Amarillo, Texas that has used aggressive measures to punish sinful behavior to prevent their town from becoming a "demonic stronghold."  Repent Amarillo's views of what constitutes immorality are no different than many other Christians, but their methods are on the extreme fringe.  In an expose entitled "He Who Cast the First Stone" the Texas Observer recounts a year of intimidation against a private, middle class swingers club:

Repent has been at every swinger get-together in the last year—32 times, according to Monica [Mead, the owner,].

When the cops showed no interest (on-premises sex clubs are legal in Texas), the group filed complaints with the fire marshal and the city’s code-enforcement division. As in many cities, Amarillo code enforcement is primarily complaint-driven. While it makes a certain amount of sense to focus on violations being noticed by the public, this case shows how easily the system can be manipulated. The city did find some minor violations, like the lack of separate-sex bathrooms. The club was shut down for five months while the Meads sank $20,000 into bringing the building up to code.

In June, when the building reopened, Repent Amarillo became an almost-constant presence, shouting through bullhorns, blasting Christian music, haranguing club members, following swingers in vehicles and sticking video cameras into people’s faces. The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission has been called out twice. Police records show that nearby businesses have called frequently with noise complaints.

At first, the swinger community was mystified by the attention. On the 60-some hours of surveillance footage the Meads have, a swinger can be heard telling a Repent member that the swingers haven’t done anything to bother them.“You’re going to hell, and it bothers me,” Grisham responds. “What bothers me is you’re going to hell.”

 People lost their jobs because their private lives were exposed by Repent's fanatical stalking, which included using license plate numbers to obtain the identities of club patrons, telephoning employers and setting up a website listing patron's name, address, employer and a photograph.  

Swinger were not the only targets.  A scheduled performance of Bent, a play about homosexual persecution in Nazi Germany, was cancelled when Repent Amarillo called the fire marshall on the venue. Repent Amarillo has a hit list on its website of future groups it will focus on:

Some of the possible missions that these two groups may be called upon to work will be some of the following:

1. Gay pride events.
2. Earth worship events such as “Earth Day”
3. Pro-abortion events or places such as Planned Parenthood
4. Breast cancer events such as “Race for the Cure” to illuminate the link between abortion and breast cancer.
5. Opening day of public schools to reach out to students.
6. Spring break events.
7. Demonically based concerts.
8. Halloween events.
9. Other events that may arise that the ministry feels called to confront.

I grew up in a devoutly Christian household and so some aspects of this "ministry," if ruining peoples lives qualifies as the lord's work, is familiar to me: the martial themes (I went to "Believer's Bootcamp" in high school) and the targets (I've passed out church invitations outside a strip club).  Fundamentally, I respect the First Amendment right of Christian's to tell people about their faith, even if it is unpleasant for their targets.  The First Amendment protects the unpopular speech, not the popular, which needs no protecting.  However, the use of legal intimidation and stalking as reprisals for behavior that Christians find unacceptable goes beyond the limits of what civil society can tolerate.

This sort of behavior is counterproductive, Christians!  The point of ministering to sinners is to convince them to accept Christ, not to foster a hatred of him and his followers.  Intimidating people for moral breaches is anti-American and an ugly mirror of the tactics used by Islamic fundamentalists - in fact, Repent Amarillo's slogan "Army of God" is a rough translation of "Hezbollah."  People have the right to sin, your God gave them that choice and it isn't up to you to take it away.  Sane Christians that don't want to be tarred with this brush, should speak up for freedom of religion when it isn't their religion.  Because if you think being a Christian is tough, imagine being a swinger in Amarillo.

Comments

[Alison Cox]

The internet is abuzz? This is the first I've heard of it.

Stupid on their part, but no less offensive than the gay community's actions on people who speak out against them. Or PETA, they're pretty wild.

Thankfully we still live in a nation where people have the legal right to fight back. People speak, people tell them to shut up.