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BATTLING
SCIENTOLOGY'S ATTACK ON FREE SPEECH
Bob
Minton's speech at the Cult Information Service Annual
Conference
April
19, 1998
| Note:
The Cult Information Service would later change
its name to the Leo J. Ryan Education Foundation. |
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Transcript:
Thank you Paul
(Grosswald). It is truly a great honor to have been invited
to speak at this annual conference of the Cult Information
Service.
A Fiery Baptism
I won't be able to keep my secrets from you much longer, but
I am neither a public speaker nor do I possess any formal
training on the subject of cults. However, over the last three
years, and particularly in the last 9 months, I have received
a rather fiery baptism on cults and free speech from an organization
that Cynthia Kisser said "is quite likely the most ruthless,
the most classically terroristic, the most litigious and the
most lucrative cult the country has ever seen. No cult extracts
more money from its members.''
Yes, I am involved in a controversy with the Church of Scientology
over the most fundamental right in a democracy--the freedom
to speak. Scientology hypocritically cries that theirs is
a persecuted religion attacked by bigoted and intolerant critics.
Further, Scientology's mantra, repeated ad-nauseum throughout
their paranoid and delusional history, continues to be that
those individuals and governments who dare criticize their
anti-social goals, tactics and civil rights abuses of their
own members are engaged in some grand conspiracy to destroy
Scientology. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Seeking Reforms
I am just one of many persons working actively through the
internet, the Cult Information Service, FACTNet, the American
Family Foundation and in our own individual ways to force
much needed reform on Scientology. These reforms must acknowledge
that all of us, Scientologists especially, have an inalienable
right to criticize, oppose or scrutinize practices and tactics
used by their organization which we view as contrary to the
respect and dignity required towards our fellow man. Without
these most basic rights, there certainly cannot be religious
freedom, or in fact any freedom, in our democracy.
Scientology's own creed, which uses the phrase ''inalienable
rights'' seven times, states in part:
''That all men have inalienable rights to think freely, to
talk freely, to write freely their own opinions and to counter
or utter or write upon the opinions of others.''
These are very noble words but this is truly an organization
whose so-called leaders have no shame. When will their hypocrisy
ever end?
In the United States, many of us take our inalienable rights
for granted, because by definition they cannot be taken away.
But ask your own sons and daughters who have experienced Scientology's
orgy of thought reform or Paulette Cooper from New York, Larry
Wollersheim from Colorado, Stacy Young from Washington, Arnie
Lerma from Virginia or Frank Oliver in Florida if their inalienable
rights were in any way protected while in Scientology, or
if scientology has shown any respect whatsoever for any of
their rights since they departed.
Ask Lisa McPherson and Noah Lottick if their rights to life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness were sacred to Scientology.
Affirming Our Rights
A little known fact in our society is that we have no rights
under our constitution unless we are willing to stand up and
affirmatively assert them. This is a price that all cults
and litigious entities like Scientology force us to pay in
our society because they are so willing to strip their members
and critics alike of as many of our rights as we will cede
them.
Let me tell you a little about personal boundaries and how
an organization like Scientology tries to prey on and destroy
the personal boundaries of family members, friends, associates,
and yes, even children to stop the truth from being told.
Before detailing scientology's campaign of harassment and
intimidation against me, I want to share some thoughts with
you that I had in August 1997 when I actually began to doubt
some of the critics' stories I had heard about the incredible
harassment people had suffered at the hands of scientology.
By this time I had given financial help to a lot of critics,
and some of that help was public knowledge, yet I hadn't been
subjected to any kind of harassment, no threatening phone
calls, nothing. And I began to wonder if these people were
really as bad as everyone said they were. I honestly thought
that the critics must be exaggerating. But that was only the
calm before the storm, and now the veracity of critics' stories
rings true for me.
Scientology's View of Criticism
There is a scientology directive called ''Critics of Scientology,''
written by Hubbard in 1967, which has taken on particular
meaning for me over the past few months. This is, in part,
what it says:
We are
slowly and carefully teaching the unholy a lesson. It is as
follows: We are not a law enforcement agency. BUT we will
become interested in the crimes of people who seek to stop
us. If you oppose scientology we promptly look up - and find
and expose - your crimes. If you leave us alone we will leave
you alone.
It's very simple. Even a fool can grasp that.
And don't underrate our ability to carry it out.
I can tell you from
firsthand experience that you should not underrate the amount
of money scientology is willing to spend on private investigators
to try to dig up - or make up - some sort of criminal past on
someone they are trying to stop, as they are trying to stop
me.
Intimidation & Harassment
The intimidation began in September 1997, when I was contacted
by Elliott Abelson, a former Mafia attorney who now works for
scientology. Abelson said he was aware that I was funding Larry
Wollersheim and Ken Dandar, the attorney for the Lisa McPherson
estate. It was not the case with Ken Dandar, but now I thank
Mr. Abelson for giving me that idea, as I have since indeed
assisted Lisa McPherson's estate.
During the course of our conversation he warned that my family
stability and financial stability were at risk because I was
attacking scientology. I suppose I must have made it clear to
him that I would not capitulate. Within two weeks I heard from
some very distant relatives in Tennessee that scientologists
were there doing a background check on me.
In November I got a call from a woman at the scientology org
in Boston. In a subtle but firm way she said that if I did not
stop giving financial support to critics of scientology they
would attack me on five fronts, and she listed them for me:
Family Children Ex-wives Former business partners Federal and
state tax status
The morning after that phone call was the first time my children
were followed. That was not the only time.
Later this woman signed a declaration, witnessed by a colleague,
swearing she never said any of these things, but when you hear
what I have to say, you will know that they have done just what
she promised.
Their Attorney Speaks
Soon after that call I received the following letter from Elliott
Abelson:
November
18th, 1997
Dear Mr. Minton:
You appear to have undertaken the financial maintenance of
a significant number of litigants adverse to Scientology Churches
in the United States. You have even become the patron of ''dog
and pony show'' witnesses without legal claims, like the Youngs,
who instigate disputes and sell their testimony to the litigants
you underwrite. You're now even financing the travel of hate-filled
individuals, some of whom have already been prohibited by
courts from committing further acts of violence against members
of the Churches of Scientology, from across the United States
to the Church of Scientology's premises in Clearwater, Florida.
You are, in this manner, a responsible party in fostering
a climate of hatred in Clearwater, which endangers our staff
and parishioners who work and live there.
The distraction to Church ministers and parishioners engaged
in religious services by the potential hate crimes committed
by the individuals you are financing, would not be occurring
were it not for you going out of your way to foment their
irrational hatred. If you have not realized it before, then
recognize now that this creates a serious potential liability
for you. A number of those with whom you have associated yourself
through your patronage, such as Dennis Erlich and Keith Henson,
have engaged in threats and acts of violence, attempts at
intimidation and scandal-mongering.
Association with lawbreakers such as these, combined with
the monetary demands that inevitably accompany their involvement
in litigation or similar fertile areas for attempts of extortion,
make your actions of interest to the prosecutors to whom such
conduct has been referred.
My client holds you, your associates and backers, financial
or otherwise, personally responsible for any and all damages
it has suffered or will continue to suffer as a result of
your tortious, officious intermeddling in Church litigation.
The Church will not tolerate such conduct. I demand that you
imMediately withdraw all financial support for such matters
and am warning you that you and those you're financing have
crossed the threshold of legality.
I advise you to inform me forthwith what you have done to
cease fomenting and financing unlawful attacks against my
client.
Elliot J. Abelson
As I have done at
every step of the way, I detailed this harassing action by posting
this letter to the internet, to keep everyone abreast of what
was being done. It was also at about this time that I decided
it would be prudent to retain competent legal counsel, which
I did.
More Legal Harassment
In late November scientology subpoenaed me to be deposed in
the Lisa McPherson case in Clearwater. They told the judge I
was an agent of the German government funneling money into the
U.S to destroy scientology. They also told the judge I was trying
to substitute my agenda, which they perceived as putting the
entire church on trial, in the McPherson case, when in fact
scientology was trying to divert attention from the real issue-the
tragic death of Lisa McPherson. The judge eventually allowed
them to depose me in January to discover my motives.
Scientology flew three high-priced attorneys from Florida to
Boston, one paralegal from the Office of Special Affairs, and
Earl Cooley as their local counsel. Cooley, as many of you know,
is now the chairman of the board of trustees of Boston University,
a long-time scientologist, and a fierce defender of scientology's
rights to abuse, harass and intimidate critics. In addition
to a number of questions relevant to the funding of the Lisa
McPherson litigation, they also tried to use the opportunity,
as they always do when they depose someone, for intelligence
gathering, but I simply refused to answer such questions.
My First Clearwater Picket
In December I went down to Clearwater to picket in front of
the Ft. Harrison hotel, now the spiritual headquarters of scientology,
with 30 other internet activists on the second anniversary of
Lisa McPherson's death. While we picketed in Clearwater, scientology
did their first picket of my house in Boston. The picketing
of my house continued for the next two months, and about every
two or three days there would be either a picket or hateful
fliers handed out throughout Beacon Hill.
The picket in Clearwater was very significant because scientology
closed the Ft Harrison during the two days of the picket. Members
of the paramilitary wing of scientology, the Sea Organization,
weren't allowed to wear their Sea Org uniforms in Clearwater,
apparently because the scientology leadership was afraid these
violent picketers (that I had supposedly flown in from all over
the country) might attack them.
Instead of confronting the picketers, 4,000 Sea Org members
picketed the Clearwater police and St. Petersburg Times and
damaged scientology's own standing in the community even further.
A Moral Victory
The December 1997 picket in Clearwater was an incredible moral
victory for many ex-scientologists -- a turning point in the
battle with this organization. Scientology was so afraid of
exposing its members to anyone questioning its tactics and policies
that they seemingly have since felt compelled to hide when anyone
shows up for a picket, whether it's one person or fifty.
While I was in Clearwater in February to film an interview with
a German TV station, I met with Gabe Cazares, former mayor of
Clearwater who was harassed relentlessly by scientology because
of his criticism of them. He told me that before the picket
in December he was all but ready to give up on ever having an
opportunity to control scientology's influence in Clearwater.
But scientology's reaction to our picket, which was not to confront
us but instead to lash out at the community, created such animosity
among the citizenry that it set back scientology's public relations
in Clearwater by 20 years.
In March, I flew to LA for a picket for L. Ron Hubbard's birthday,
which is always a big event for scientology. In all, 50 picketers
flew in from all over the world to defy this organization which
is so consumed with its own self importance and so intent upon
silencing its critics.
Scientology Cannot Confront Picketing
Obviously scientology is not able to confront a handful of peaceful
picketers protesting an organization that has so devastated
many people's lives. They chose instead to put tarps up in front
of one of their buildings to keep the picketers away from the
staff, and they actually canceled a birthday party that had
been planned on L. Ron Hubbard Way and kept everyone off the
street as long as the picketers were there.
A much smaller group of picketers went to Hemet, the home of
scientology's fearless leader, David Miscavige. We saw nothing
but security guards at the gate, security cameras everywhere,
and people hiding behind closed curtains peaking out at us.
Not one person ever came out to confront us. Hemet looked like
the Ft. Harrison did in December - completely deserted.
This is an organization that literally cowers at the truth.
Scientology claims to be able to create supernatural powers
and enable people to confront any situation except one --- the
truth about their organization. Perhaps Jesus has an explanation
for this anomaly that can be found in (John 3:20-21) when he
warned:
For everyone
that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light,
lest his deeds should be reproved [exposed and rebuked]. But
he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may
be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.
The Media
Stories Begin
Proving that I was not afraid to shed light on the story I wanted
to tell, December started with articles in the St. Petersburg
Times, the Boston Globe, The Chicago Tribune, and the New York
Times. As these articles came out, I think I became far more
threatening to scientology because mainstream Media were looking
more closely at an organization that wants no scrutiny. This
seemed to heighten scientology's disdain for me and only intensified
the picketing and fliers.
In the week prior to the McPherson deposition, scientology hired
private detectives to visit my family members, my son, my mother,
my brothers, father, stepmother, aunts, uncles, and untold others.
In December, I was also on a WGBH show, Greater Boston with
Emily Rooney, and when scientology went to see my family they
took a copy of the videotape of that show with them as a ploy
for entering into a dialogue with my family members.
I was angry about the visits to my family - it was extraordinarily
hurtful, the fact that in such a short period of time some of
my own flesh and blood could so question my dedication to them
as a family.
It was like having been violated by these people when they went
into the homes and businesses of my family members simply to
antagonize me, to gather intelligence for their investigation,
and to further illustrate their willingness to harass and intimidate
someone who was prepared to help people stand up against them.
This is where I first felt, what I can only describe, as a cold
steel ball of fear in my gut.
Scientology even authorized someone to pass out scurrilous leaflets
about me in St. Bart's in the French West Indies while I was
vacationing there with my wife and daughters.
More Subpoenaes
In January I was served with two more subpoenas for depositions
in other cases, one a bankruptcy case in California where I'd
given financial support to Grady Ward, an internet critic who
was under totally unjustified attack by scientology; and the
other, involving a temporary restraining order against another
internet critic, Keith Henson who had been roughed-up by a scientology
detective, which they tried to get against him in Clearwater
to prohibit him from picketing.
More national Media began broadcasting or filming in January.
NBC's Dateline, CBS's Public Eye, ABC's Turning Point, and a
major German television station all have or plan to air major
exposes about scientology. In fact, the German show is airing
tonight in Germany, and an article based on that show was published
yesterday in a German newspaper and beamed all over the world
via the internet last night.
When these Media talk to scientology spokespeople about me,
they pretend that I am nothing to them, that I'm not important
and try to get the Media to lose interest in me. Yet in Clearwater,
when scientology public relations man Brian Anderson saw a German
TV crew filming me in front of the Ft. Harrison, he canceled
all Media that had been set up with that German crew because
the scientology leadership was offended that scientology had
not been told by the German crew that they would be interviewing
me for this documentary.
Meeting with United Nations
Following the article in the New York Times in December, I was
contacted by the United Nation's special envoy who is responsible
for preparing the UN's reports on Human Rights and religious
intolerance. I met with him at his request and presented the
other side of the scientology picture.
I believe my meeting with Professor Abdulfattah Amor was useful
and I was very pleased to see that his April report to the UN
on religious intolerance and discrimination denounced several
of scientology's rants. Specifically, he denounced scientology's
claim that Germany's treatment of scientology could be equated
with Jews in Nazi Germany as so ridiculous as to be purile.
Further,his report counters criticisms made by scientology,
and by the US State department in its annual human rights report.
International Harassment
In the meantime, the private investigators have tracked down
more of my business associates all over the world -- in Turkey,
in England, in Brazil and other countries. They have dug up
business associates of my wife's family, and the families of
my former business associates. People who have refused to meet
with them were themselves subjected to investigation.
Then their friends were visited and contacted by these private
investigators in an attempt to get them to comply with their
desires to talk with them. The really unnerving thing about
it is that in almost every case it has worked. These people
have ended up talking to these private investigators. These
are the boundaries scientology loves to violate.
I want to tell you some of the things they have said to my former
business associates:
First, scientology's private investigators show them a detailed
psychological evaluation of me, and say they are convinced that
I'm so unstable they're afraid I'll go into an org and shoot
25 to 30 scientologists at any given moment. And it goes downhill
from there. Every detail of my life, everything negative, everything
they can distort or paint in a bad light -- this is what they
tell my friends and associates, so these people will feel uncomfortable
with me, and then I will in turn feel that discomfort and eventually,
scientology hopes, I won't want to put everyone in my life through
this and will back off.
Increasing My Resolve
But every time they go after one of my friends or associates,
it increases my resolve. It's like waving a red flag in front
of a bull. The tactics they use against me and others who criticize
them are wrong. I'm just one in a long line of people they've
been doing this to since they have existed. Hubbard even did
this to his wife and children. These tactics and policies are
wrong and must be changed.
My experience, coupled with my friends' reactions, has made
it more understandable how what happened in Nazi Germany could
have occurred. People laughed at the nazis at first, then they
were scared and intimidated into total, utter silence. And then
there was nobody left to fight them and they took over.
People don't want to get their families involved in the type
of battle that I'm involved in. But it's a threat to all families,
not just mine. There is no better audience to understand this
than you people sitting here today, who have seen the results
of many destructive cults violating your own families.
Why Am I Doing This?
Sometimes I question why I'm doing this and whether I should
continue, knowing that there is no way that I personally am
going to force scientology to reform. But I keep doing it because
I want other people to get involved. It must be done.
The St. Petersburg Times asked, in March of 1997, ''Can anyone
stand up to the Church of Scientology?''
In response, Frank Rich of the New York Times wrote, in an op
ed piece on March 16, 1997:
The great
American religious saga of the 1990's may be the rise to power
of a church that has successfully brought the Internal Revenue
Service, the State Department and much of the American press
to heel even as it did an end-run around the courts.
To counter this
will require a tremendous amount of work for all of us. We
need to help educate the press to see what scientology is
doing and who it's willing to step on to do it. We have to
provide support to those who are on the front lines fighting
against this organization. We have to be willing to make personal
sacrifices in terms of money and time.
The Need for Exposure
Scientology concentrates only on the grand conspiracy, because
Ron Hubbard and scientology were products of the McCarthy
era and have never moved on. This organization lacks the mental
agility or resources to defend itself against multiple attacks.
So they need to be exposed from all angles.
I have never advocated the destruction of the Church of Scientology,
but I am seriously interested in reforming the tactics and
policies that abrogate the human and civil rights of its members
and critics. If scientology wants to be treated like a church,
it's high time they started acting like one.
As for myself, I do not intend to surrender my rights to Scientology
without an armed struggle. I will be armed with the stories
of abuse, betrayal, harassment, intimidation, fear, broken
families, neglected children, financial ruin, and the personal
and emotional devastation that so many ex-Scientologists have
suffered.
A Fundamental Law
The ''strategic thinkers'' at the top of scientology need
to understand a fundamental law of physics: ''For every action,
there is an equal and opposite reaction.'' This postulate
is equally true in life. No matter what form the hate that
scientology dishes out takes, they will always be on the receiving
end of intense and concentrated actions from an ever-growing
circle of critics.
This is precisely what scientology has done with me and many
others who are now major players in this mythological battle
between good and evil. As cult apologist J. Gordon Melton
said, ''They turn critics into enemies and enemies into dedicated
warriors for a lifetime.''
Scientology's Future
Given the current level of harassment, intimidation and abuse
dished out by this organization, my crystal ball sees scientology's
future as filled with more negative consequences in response
to their actions, including:
More press, more Media and more public speaking against scientology's
anti-social policies, abuse of the legal system, and total
disregard for the rights of others,
More organized and concentrated efforts to educate celebrity
victims being used and manipulated by scientology about the
true nature and origins of its evil and vile practices, including
targeting selected celebrities for personal intervention,
More specific efforts to reach individual members with the
truth about scientology's lies and hypocrisy, and
More fund-raising from an expanding array of talented and
capable people who will no longer tolerate the bullying policies
and tactics used by scientology management.
Conclusion
Standing up to the Church of Scientology has been an incredibly
enlightening and enriching personal experience -- a test of
my character at every step of the way. I've gotten to know
many former scientologists, and clearly they are some of the
nicest people I've ever known. While in scientology, these
very same people were taught to lie and betray and acquiesce
to having their own rights taken away from them. This proves
to me that even an organization as totalitarian as scientology
cannot strip away innate human goodness, and gives me hope
that we will get to know many more former scientologists as
our actions continue in the coming weeks and months.
Thank you for your attention.
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