SILENCING OUR CONSCIENCES:

It's Joe vs. abortionists (THOMAS ROESER, October 26, 2002, Chicago Sun-Times)

My friend Joe Scheidler is a racketeer. At least that's what Fay Clayton says. But he is a peaceable man, a devout Catholic who protests abortion. Scheidler a racketeer? Yes, says Clayton and the National Organization for Women. The Supreme Court will hear the case beginning in December. So to get all of us up to speed, a timeline is in order.

Thus the nation's top jurists will only consider whether the law allows nonviolent, political protest to be equated with racketeering and extortion. If the high court agrees with Clayton, all protests--for civil rights, peace and other forms of redress--will be severely changed. Were RICO in effect in the 1960s, Martin Luther King and any subsequent civil rights protesters would be tried as potential federal felons.

May it please the court: Every time I've marched with Joe, there was praying and singing, no violence. But he's undeniably a man of action. We were passing an empty playground while one TV crew watched idly. Joe moved in and started the swings swaying gracefully, a tribute to the unborn who will never play. It made for eloquent TV on the 5 p.m. news.

I've know him for 30 years, and Joe's no racketeer. Merely a saint.

We used to kill our saints, now we just treat them like criminals. Posted by Orrin Judd at October 26, 2002 12:15 PM