On 3/6/10 9:12 AM, anon-e-moose wrote:
Harry wrote:
He Who Casts the First Stone

Texas Observer

A little over a year ago, Amarillo’s swingers geared up for their New
Year’s Eve party at Route 66 Party and Event Rental, a downtown
business owned by a prominent couple, Mac and Monica Mead. Few in this
conservative, church-heavy city knew about the weekend parties, and
the swingers liked it that way. “Everybody in the lifestyle has to be
very, very discreet,” says Mac, a leather-skinned truck driver with a
shaved head, piercing blue eyes and an earring.

The Meads enforced strict rules at the members-only club: no drugs, no
single men, no audio-visual equipment. Most couples, even ones who had
been in “the lifestyle” for years, are on a first-name basis only. The
location of the club is (or was) “to be kept strictly private.” So
imagine the swingers’ surprise when they arrived at their New Year’s
Eve bash to find two dozen protesters, local media in tow, holding
signs and singing songs. This was a most unwelcome coming-out party.

Some protesters, mostly young men in their teens and early 20s, wore
black hoodies and military fatigues. The men, Amarillo would soon
learn, were foot soldiers of Repent Amarillo, a new, militant
evangelical group that advertises itself as “the Special Forces of
spiritual warfare.” Their leader, David Grisham, a security guard at
nuclear-bomb facility Pantex who moonlights as a pastor, explained the
action. “We’re here to shine the light on this darkness,” Grisham told
the Amarillo Globe-News. “I don’t think Amarillo knew about this
place. This is adultery. This is wrong. There’s no telling how many
venereal diseases get spread, how many abortions.” The goal, Grisham
says, was not just to save the swingers’ souls, but to shut the club
down.

Dim lights Embed

It’s hard for the swingers to drum up powerful allies in Amarillo,
where real men worship Jesus at one of the biggest cowboy churches in
the world and conservative politics run deeper than the Ogallala
Aquifer. Citizens of Amarillo will tell you, with a certain pride,
that their city is the biggest little town in Texas. For all the open
space, it can seem like the walls are closing in.

For the past year, this Bible Belt city of 200,000 has been consumed
by a culture clash between Repent Amarillo and their targets, a list
that includes everything from gay bars to liberal churches. For the
Route 66 swingers, Grisham’s “special forces” have been a
near-constant presence. Jobs have been lost, families estranged,
assault charges filed and businesses shuttered. So far, no public
official has stood up to defend these businesses, which operate
legally. To the contrary, Repent Amarillo has managed to turn the
city’s own laws and employees into an effective weapon. Amarillo, it
turns out, doesn’t have the stomach to stick up for gays, swingers,
strippers or even Unitarians. Absent a peacekeeper, the conflict might
end up being settled the old-fashioned way, frontier-style. “This will
not end until somebody gets hurt, either us or them,” one swinger warns.

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My favorite part:

"Their leader, David Grisham, a security guard at nuclear-bomb
facility Pantex who moonlights as a pastor, explained the action."

Gee, should *that* alarm anyone? :)


These dimwitted christian fundies need to be treated just like the
taliban that they are...why send troops to Afghanistan to rid it of
taliban when for much less money we can rid Amarillo of taliban?

Practitioners of this sort of religious fundamentalism *hate* America.



Oh gee. Another of your favorite haunts coming under scrutiny. Thanks
for the inside poop.


Are you *sure* you aren't a loogy? You sure come across like one.

--
Which one is the girl?

http://tinyurl.com/ycpsnzz