Terry Jones, Superstar

Another Mudville eighth anniversary special - this one from September 26, just last year. "The whole thing's a story I was going to stay out of," I'd written previously. "But I got an email from a friend in Afghanistan..."

Excerpt:

Burning the Koran is going to fuck us all up over here. REALLY bad idea. Unless what you're trying to do is cause a mess. Be prepared for some serious shit that we over here seriously don't need. Not kidding.

And yes, the Afghans are aware and waiting to see what happens. No, they are not happy. Yes, it does matter. No, I'm not kidding and I've not gone native.

At that time, Terry Jones, the "pastor" of an obscure Gainesville, Florida "church" had become an international media sensation. "But how," I wondered, "does the leader of an obscure "church" with around two dozen members (mostly his kinfolk) - a guy who couldn't even stop voters in his own town from electing a gay mayor, a guy virtually no one ever heard of previously, pull off something like that?"

"Easy - he decides to burn a Koran," you might answer. "So if you or I did that," I'd ask back, "we'd get the same result?"

Of course not. What follows is part one of the answer to my first question. I'd finished up part two, also - the part that tracked this obscure character's weeks-long rise from local paper funny pages (as seen below) to the most important global security figure of the year - but never published it. Terry Jones didn't burn his Koran ("We will definitely not burn the Quran," the Rev. Terry Jones told NBC's "Today" on Saturday "Not today, not ever"), and faded back into obscurity without Afghanistan erupting in flames. In my mind it seemed best to let the story fade away.

Of course, the Westboro "Baptist" crowd burned a Koran anyway - but it didn't seem to leave much of a mark on history; see my second question above.

Enough preamble. Jones is back in the news - bigger than ever, but the remainder of this post was (and is as) originally published on 26 September, 2010. Though I hope you read (or re-read) it anyway, I'll give away the ending: "To be continued."

Terry Jones, Superstar

In which we ask the question: How does the pastor of an obscure Florida church become a major player on the global scene?

To me it was a surprise headline: Petraeus Condemns U.S. Church's Plan to Burn Qurans. I'd never heard of Terry Jones or his Outreach Center, but somehow hundreds of Afghans in Kabul were familiar with a story taking place not far from my home:

Hundreds of Afghans attended a demonstration in Kabul on Monday to protest the plans of Florida pastor Terry Jones, who has said he will burn copies of Islam's holy book to mark the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

As for how that information had gotten from Gainesville, Florida, to hundreds of Afghans to the Commander of ISAF troops in Afghanistan to the Wall Street Journal, the September 6 story offered only one clue:

Lt. Gen. William Caldwell, who oversees the effort to train Afghan security forces said he was informed of the planned Florida protests several days ago by a senior minister in the Afghan government.

Following that report, and seemingly from out of nowhere, Pastor Terry Jones and his Dove World Outreach Center were a global sensation - the President of the United States even addressed the issue on national TV. (Side note: interesting typo in that ABC url...) Not since CBS News' Mary Mapes and Dan Rather had introduced Lynddie England to the world in 2004 had such an otherwise obscure and unlikely candidate become such a major player on the international scene.

Here's how that came to be.

More than a year ago the July, 2009 headline in the Gainesville Sun told much of the story of the day: Anti-Islam church sign stirs up community outrage.

The church has received about 100 calls in the past 24 hours about the sign, Jones said. One was positive, he said Tuesday.

Since the sign went up, it reportedly has been protested by picketers, successfully torn down in another expression of protest late Sunday, quickly re-erected on Monday, and marred by spray paint before it was repainted and back in place Tuesday morning.

The president of the Muslim Association of North Central Florida was calm in his response to the church's sign.

Saeed R. Khan is a University of Florida professor and director of the Center for the Study of Lithiasis and Pathological Calcification at the College of Medicine.

"There are a couple of things on this that come to mind, and first there is freedom of speech," Khan said. "People are free to say, but then society has to think about it. When it becomes inflamed, the reaction on both sides can be detrimental to the people that live there. You have to make some kind of balance."

Khan said he was surprised such a sign would have been erected in Gainesville, a place where he has lived for 30 years without feeling oppressed or discriminated against for his beliefs.

"People generally - if they have something to say - they can come and talk to you," Khan said. "People here are maybe more tolerant of people who are different from you."

In the future, the message on the sign might change to express the church's beliefs against same-sex marriage or abortion, Jones said. The church also has posted messages on YouTube, he said.

"I think every pastor, every Christian pastor in this city, must be in agreement with the message. They might find the message a little bit too direct, but they must be in agreement with the message because the only way is the Bible and Jesus," Jones said.

When a local TV station reported the story, CNN picked up their video, and made it a sign seen 'round the world.

Based on the appearance of the sign, few such advertising efforts had achieved a more effective result at less cost.

But the story was quickly forgotten, and if CNN's efforts resulted in any growth for the then-obscure Dove World Outreach Center, it wasn't apparent from this September 11, 2009 report in the Sun documenting the group's protest at a Gainesville shopping mall:

About 30 participants weaved their way through the mall parking lot and went out on the sidewalk on Newberry Road shortly after 5 p.m. They were wearing T-shirts with the slogan "Islam is of the devil" on the back and carrying signs saying such things as "Jesus is not a liberal," "Islam Kills" and "Jesus is the only way."

While a crowd of 30 was described, a photograph accompanying the story captured only 10 protesters.

Though Jones' 15 minutes on the national stage were seemingly over, the local Gainesville press kept a watchful eye on his group. Stories headlined The church behind the signs and How did Dove World Outreach Center get started? followed the Sun's initial July, 2009 report. They offered details of Jones' troubled past in Germany and his use of ebay to sell furniture to raise funds. But by the end of the month, a story headlined New sign for Dove church: For sale indicated the group's difficulties hadn't ended with their departure from Cologne. (A year later, once Jones had become an international celebrity, Der Spiegel reported additional details on that past. In July, 2009, a CBN report on the church in Cologne - apparently from 2006 - appeared on youtube.)

In August, Dove made local headlines again:

More children from the Dove World Outreach Center arrived Tuesday at area public schools with shirts bearing the message "Islam is of the Devil" and were sent home for violation of the school district's dress code when they declined to change clothes or cover the anti-Muslim statement on their clothing.

...but following the September "mall walk" even local interest in the group's anti-Islam stance began to fade.

But Jones soon made good on one of his earlier prophesies:

The church has also angered the gay community by staging an "anti-gay pride parade" at the Gainesville Pride Parade and Festival last fall, according to the Independent Florida Alligator. Participants held signs with messages such as "Homos lead to Hell" -- a sentiment repeated on a sign near the church last month. Two gay rights groups took part in a Jan. 10 protest against the church, according to the Gainesville Sun. Shortly after that protest, the church tried to exploit the recent tragedy in Haiti, posting a sign reading, "Haiti Turn to God!" A post on the church's blog suggested that the Jan. 12 earthquake might have occurred because the country made a pact with the devil.

That anti-gay activity attracted the attention of the Southern Poverty Law Center in February, 2010 - but in Gainesville, Jones' activities provided a minor background story played out during an ongoing mayoral campaign. Among the candidates, openly gay Gainesville City Commissioner Craig Lowe. The drama would intensify - the result of the March 16th election would be another election:

Lowe got 40.13 percent of the vote, Marsh 29.17 percent, while Monica Leadon Cooper finished with 24.86 percent.
In the April 13 runoff, for the mayor's office, it will be the case of polar opposites -- Marsh a married, right-leaning window cleaner and Lowe an openly gay, left-leaning city commissioner -- who now have another four weeks of campaigning before Round 2.

While Lowe, with 4,073 votes, had nearly 11 percent more votes than Marsh, who got 2,960, he failed to get the 50 percent majority required to avert a runoff.

Within days, Dove World Outreach Center had a new sign:

On Friday, a sign at the church read, "No homo Mayor." One of the two remaining candidates in the Gainesville mayoral runoff, City Commissioner Craig Lowe, is gay.

"We don't feel as though the city should be represented by a homosexual," Terry Jones, senior pastor at Dove World Outreach Center, said Friday.

Mike Dobzinski, the Florida spokesman for the Internal Revenue Service, said without seeing the sign, he couldn't say how it might affect the church's status.

"I couldn't say officially whether that is or isn't political activity," Dobzinski said.
<...>
Contacted late Friday, State Attorney Bill Cervone said that, generally, speech is protected by the Constitution, "regardless of how offensive it might be to some people."

Unlike the Islam sign, the "no homo mayor" message didn't make a national splash. But in the wake of the Koran burning story, CBS (without reference to the political issue) would report:

Though the church once enjoyed tax-exempt status, it lost part of that status this spring, according to the Alachua County Property Appraiser's office. A representative from the appraiser's office visited Dove World Outreach Center March 25th, and determined the church must pay taxes on the 1,700 square feet of its property that is being used for the Jones' for-profit business. The church will pay $3,200 in property taxes this year.

At the same time the church drew the attention of the group "Americans United for Separation of Church and State":

Americans United for Separation of Church and State today asked the Internal Revenue Service to investigate a church in Gainesville, Fla., that posted a sign opposing a mayoral candidate.
<...>
The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United executive director, called the church's actions a blatant example of illegal politicking by a tax-exempt group.

"This is an open-and-shut case," Lynn said. "The church freely admits that it intended to intervene in the election in violation of federal tax law. I urge the IRS to act promptly."

The group adjusted it's attitude - slightly. Church changes 'No homo Mayor' sign to read 'No homo' said an early-April headline in the Gainesville Sun. Still other reports indicated the Church's financial woes were mounting. "Papers mailed to the church from RBC bank state due to the center's financial situation, they no longer want them as a client." - according to Jones, the bank was foreclosing.

Meanwhile, the SPLC continued tracking the group's activities:

Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville has been attacking City Commissioner Craig Lowe, one of two candidates vying for mayor in an April 13 run-off election. The church erected a sign on its property last month that declared, "No Homo Mayor." That was followed by a YouTube video in which Wayne Sapp, a pastor at the church, targets Lowe, whom he doesn't identify by name. The video begins with Sapp proclaiming "No Homo Mayor" and asserting that Gainesville is the 11th gayest city in America. "We're talking about the homos, the fags, the queers, and now we got one running for mayor of Gainesville, trying to convert Gainesville into Homoville," he says. "We can't have it." In the video, Sapp complains that Dove World Outreach Center called more than 100 churches to ask that they join a protest against homosexuals running for office, but none would do so. Sapp lashes out at some ministers and churches by name and urges churchgoers to oust pastors who won't take a stand. "Vote'em out of there," he says. "They're leading you to Hell, and you're following."

But as if God hadn't already punished Jones and Company enough, within days Craig Lowe won the runoff election, and became Gainesville's first openly gay mayor-elect. While the city somehow managed this without attracting any international news, that result did bring in more out-of-town attention - and the Dove group finally found someone who understood them:

Westboro Baptist Church began its Gainesville tour at the Trinity United Methodist Church, followed by a stop at the UF Hillel. They then went across town to Queen of Peace Catholic Church before rounding out the day at St. Augustine Catholic Church.

Phelps-Roper, whose father, Fred, is the pastor of Westboro Baptist Church, said the city is made up of rebels against God who are sprinting toward destruction.

"Your university is a beacon of disobedience that shines forth from this nation," she said. "[God] gave you that fag of a mayor because you're thankless."

Phelps-Roper was referring to Mayor-elect Craig Lowe, who briefly addressed a counter-protest at the Bo Diddley Community Plaza downtown while members of the Westboro Baptist Church picketed at UF.

At the counter-protest, which was called Love Conquers Hate: A Rally for Human Rights, Lowe spoke about ways gay and lesbian rights can be expanded in Florida.

"Let's commit together so that in Gainesville, Florida, love will conquer all," he said.

Lowe wasn't the only public figure speaking out against the Kansas church.

Former mayoral candidate Don Marsh picketed alongside the counter-protesters at the Trinity United Methodist Church protest.

Carrying signs that said, "While we were still sinners, Christ died for us" and "Prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you," Marsh made it clear that the church did not represent his viewpoints.

"These are not my people," he said.

But Wayne Sapp, a pastor with the Dove World Outreach Center stood with members of his congregation alongside the Westboro Baptist Church members at Trinity United Methodist Church.

Sapp's group and Westboro Baptist members sang songs such as "This Land is Going Straight to Hell" and "I'm Ashamed to Be an American," to the tune of "This Land is Your Land" and "I'm Proud to Be an American" respectively.

According to Sapp, the Westboro Baptist Church teaches the whole Bible.

"Churches like to talk about love and acceptance, but they forget to talk about rebuke and correction," Sapp said. "The world has rejected God. Now God is rejecting the world."

But one month later, on May 20, 2010, in a ceremony uninterrupted by earthquake, flood, hellfire, or global media attention, Craig Lowe was sworn in as mayor of Gainesville.

Within weeks, the nutjob down the road who couldn't even stop a deep southern town from electing a gay mayor would be a major factor in global security strategy.

(To be continued...)