In reaction to the Mohammed comics debacle, I’ve heard and read a great deal of self-congratulatory language on the part of Americans, expressing relief and pride in knowing that here in the United States of America, we don’t react to being offended by sending out death threats and smashing things or anything like that. No, not in America.
Those who have expressed such relief and pride may want to reflect on the experience of Felicia Stockford. Ms. Stockford owns Spellbound, a lingerie store in Augusta, Maine. That’s right, Maine, the center of all things that are good, honest, true and homey in the good ol’ USA. As part of a Valentine’s Day promotion, Ms. Stockford hired two women to appear in a storefront window wearing provocative but relatively mild lingerie and dresses.
You may think such an act of expression is acceptable in a free society. You may be offended by it. You may harbor both feelings.
Conservative fundamentalist Christian organizations found the display offensive and began to demonstrate against it, as is their right. Michael Hein, member of the board of directors of the Christian Civic League of Maine, began to ratchet up pressure on Ms. Stockford’s business and filed charges although city officials said Ms. Stockford violated no laws, asserting that “people will continue to monitor her. She continues to make a mockery of community standards…. It’s a festering boil with our city.â€
Then came the death threats. Shortly after that, slashed tires. Ms. Stockford felt coerced into ceasing her act of free expression, explaining:
“It would be unconscionable to put her in a position where something might happen. It all boils down to slashed tires, violent threats, so we have to stop. And it stinks. I feel kind of sad that it’s over with for here, but as long as I’m here I don’t plan to do it again. I’m not having a good time anymore.”
Felicia Stockford comments at her blog:
I do hope the men who made those calls are crapping quite the brick right now. They should be. I don’t think this is a matter the police will ignore. I still feel badly about ending the live modeling though. I feel we made a statement about the beauty of all women by doing so. My models were not Barbies with implants, but real women. Thin, average, plus size, African-American, older, younger…you name it. I had a young woman who wears a size 22 in my window and she looked fabulous. A lot of women came in after that to buy, saying I had made them feel they too could look good in lingerie.
Felicia Stockford is closing up shop and moving from Augusta, Maine to a bigger town, one that she says will be “more liberal.” One that is more supportive of liberty.
This is America.
Gee. Three hours passed and not a single American who complained about religiously-motivated violence and censorship among Muslims has come by to comment on this one. Figures. There’s a good biblical word for the people who selectively complain about only other peoples’ religious zealotry: Hypocrites.
They’re not complaining selectively. They’re looking the other way selectively.
Wait a minute. I hate to be picky (and when you hear that phrase you know the next word will enevitably be …)… BUT… the title leads us to believe the story is about fundamentalist Christians getting violent. I was hoping for something really dramatic. But what was it? Violent threats. Slashed tires. That’s it? According to my dictionary, violence means “exertion of physical force…” A threat, although definately creepy, and probably something to take seriously, is verbal. Okay, I suppose slashed tires could be called “violence” but most people regard it as ‘vandalism’. Vandalism is an act of cowardice, done in secret by people who will not identify themsleves.
So where do the fundamentalist Christians come in? On reading the articles we find they were ‘demonstrating’ and ‘filing charges’, two of America’s favorite pastimes. We even have the name of the organization and its spokesperson. These are not people sneaking around at night. They have names and faces and everyone apparently knows who they are. Whether or not you agree with them, they are not cowards.
Who were the vandals? Were they fundamentalist Christians? IT DOESN”T SAY. Maybe there is someone else in town who models underwear in night clubs, takes topless photos for job portfolios, and sells sex toys who doesn’t appreciate the competition. I can put two and two together, and I will probably get five just like you did, but I don’t think you can really state it as a fact in the headline.
Like I say, I hate to be picky…
Peregrin, I just got home from work, so I couldn’t comment. Hell, I just SAW it.And, yes, it truly pisses me off, as well. Fanaticism is the same, be it Islamic, Christian, Athiest, political, or anything else that becomes the total focal point of an individual’s life. What is really evil is the fact that these “fanatics” usually have some “leader”, (spiritual, political, etc.) who will never be prosecuted for their violation or subversion of the Bill of Rights…after all, THEY never did these heinous deeds. All THEY did was condemn what “any Right-Thinking _______(you fill in the blank) would see as wickedness”. Affiliations are only meaningful as a reference point. The reactions are always the same, regardless: “Obey my belief system, or feel my wrath”. You know…terrorism.
Yep, Layla. making excuses.
The death threats and property destruction you incredibly harshly condemned when it was carried out by Muslims are to be excused when carried out in your own nation.
And what’s that theory? Maybe they were carried out by… another sex shop operator and underwear modeller in Augusta, Maine? Right. Do you know the size of that community? Maybe the smurfs did it. Yeah, the smurfs.
Look at what you’re saying. It’s embarrassing.
Thanks, Mike.
Jim, Jim, Jim, you know how I am your most fawning admirer and how I devour every word you write and sometimes even read it backwards too …BUT…. I just can’t agree with you on this one. I really hate to be so anal…
You weren’t there and you didn’t see what happened. So you can’t say for sure what happened. Was there an arrest? Was someone cited? Was there some kind of evidence? This isn’t like harrassing an abortion clinic or something where the actions are out in the open. You have motive, but you don’t have a smoking gun.
Now, if whoever wrote the original story story had asked a few more questions, like the content of those phone calls, I bet you would have the proof you need. And I think I know what was in those phone calls. They were singing “You Won’t Be Laughing When You Stand Before the Judgement Throne of Jesus.”
Yeah Jim!
Just like all the American Christians said when American embassies were destroyed in the Middle East over the cartoons of Mohammed: First of all, it’s “vandalism,” not “violence.” Hate to be picky, they said.
And death threats are creepy, they said, but threatening to kill a Danish editor over a cartoon isn’t “violence.” Let’s make that very clear, they said.
Then they said, hey, you weren’t there, so how do you know it was Muslims who burned those embassies and made those death threats? Did anybody get arrested? Was there some kind of evidence? Hate to be so anal, they said.
Not hypocritical at all. No sir!
Layla, I offer the same simple solution to all those out there who want me to abide by their pecular belief systems: If you don’t like the cartoons in the paper, DON’T BUY THE PAPER! If you don’t like the way the store advertises its wares, DON’T SHOP THERE! We have the freedom to choose here in the USA. We have the freedom to say,”I really find this and that offensive.” What we do NOT have the right to do is threaten life, limb or property, in order to get our way. The Nazis did that in Germany. The Ku Klux Klan did it here. Now we have Religious nutcases committing these crimes and hiding behind their “religion” in order to justify their actions. Sorry, kiddo, but I learned many years ago that, when it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, chances are better than good that it’s a duck. Oh, by the way, here in the USA, if you don’t like what the preacher is preaching, you can say,”This preacher is full of shit!” and go to another church, if you choose…or stay home on Sunday, and play with your kids or something. They call that “freedom”. I, and many others, put our asses in VERY dangerous positions to protect that freedom…and I’ll be damned if ANYONE will try to tell me what that “really means”. I’ll define it myself, thank you. And the only difference that I could see in the two cases was a matter of degree. Still terrorism, any way you want to cut it.
Sounds like they might have done it because they’re generally uppity people, not because of their religious beliefs, but then only a few days ago we agreed that people tend to use religion (and patriotism) as an excuse for their actions.
I repeat: You cannot say they did these actions. They did not admit to the action. You did not see them do it. Therefore, you do not know they did it. Motive, yes. Smoking gun, no. You do not have the facts. It is irresponsible to suggest otherwise.
Sure, dozens of foreigners getting killed in riots at the DANISH embassy is the same as one American getting her tires slashed.
The NYT article said “threatening phone call”; it did not say death threats. Other sources say they were lewd phone calls. Imagine that. You sit in a store window wearing a thong and a boa and then you get an obscene phone call.
The person who received the phone calls and the tires slashed was a model at the store, NOT THE STORE OWNER. She had also done modeling and sold X-rated toys at bars and nightclubs. If it was about the store, why was the store not the target. The model was the target.
Now for my next trick, watch this:
Here is the website of the Christian Civic League that held a peaceful demonstration at the lingerie store
http://www.cclmaine.org/index.htm
If you look at the member churches you will see a lot of Baptist and Nazarene Churches. Goosebumps? Check out the “facts about homosexuality agenda”–actually, don’t. I did, and it’s creepy. Then look at ‘TEI Political Alliance’ where you can read about how they support creationism, etc..
Then at the bottom of the page is a link to “Sacred Assemblies for the Unborn including the Jeremiah 19 Liturgy” at which you will find a “strategy for peaceful witness at abortion centers…”
I’ll give you the direct link to that page:
http://www.teihartford.com/sacredassemblies.htm
Does anyone else feel a sudden chill?
Wow, Layla. You really don’t get it, do you. You’ve got a double standard.
You didn’t ask all these picky questions when Muslims were accused of violence, but now that Christians are being accused of violence, you’re getting all particular.
Seems clear to me: You have two moral standards, one for your religion, and one for everyone else’s.
I think Layla has a very good point, that being, “innocent until proven guilty.” That’s a pretty important rule to go by too.
I’m not saying that the Christian group did not do anything in this case. They probably did. Then again, remember who many folks thought bombed the Murrah building at first?
I’m simply saying that while we should be quick to condemn those who rail against our freedoms, we should also be as accurate as possible, and not jump to conclusions too quickly.
Actually, I think it was a Jihadist sleeper cell that slashed those tires and made the phone calls.
Just kidding!!
Karl
Lankster,
No, YOU don’t get it.
The embassy deaths were in broad daylight, the same as an abortion clinic demonstration. With those, the leadership identifies itself and there are often cameras that catch the exact action. Like the footage from the embassy in Lebanon with a clearly identifiable imam turning back clearly identifiable rock-throwers. The picture is worth a thousand words. Leadership wants peaceful protest and has the will to enforce it.
Even better, the Jordan protest against the hotel bombings. Did you see the photos? Lots of Jordanian flags, pictures of King, and people with candles around the hotels. And women demonstrating, even members of royal family. How often do you see women in Middle East crowd scenes? No violence from this crowd.
What about Vietnem demontrations. I, and the thousands of others who demonstrated never engaged in violence afterward.
The only evidence you have for proving the tires were slashed by Christians is that you don’t like their views. In America, that has never been enough evidence for convicting someone.
I, for one, am not going to join your lynch mob.
Nope, no hypocrisy at all.
Hypocrites would treat threats and vandalism differently, depending on who did it. None of that here.
Hypocrites wouldn’t say the same things about Christian violence that they said about Islamic violence:
Don’t the Christians realize that they’re their own worst enemy?
Christianity has been hijacked by extremists!
What is it about Christian culture that nurtures this kind of violence?
These nuts actually think they’re going to be rewarded for this in Heaven?
But you know, since American Christians ARE asking these questions of themselves, it would be really really unfair to accuse them of hypocrisy!
“You say you’re supposed to be nice to the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians and the Methodists and this, that, and the other thing. Nonsense, I don’t have to be nice to the spirit of the Antichrist. I can love the people who hold false opinions but I don’t have to be nice to them.” –Pat Robertson
Tony,
And we know all Christians are tire-slashers in the same way we know all Italians are… now what is it we know about Italians? You and your buddy Pat have a lot in common.
And by the way, underwear should not be visible on a public street. That’s why they call it UNDERwear.
Well, that’s YOUR opinion and YOU’RE offended.
Is your position, Layla, that your moral standards should prevail over others’ freedoms?
Sounds awfully similar to the argument of censorious Muslims.
..which is exactly why American Christians never, ever assumed it was Muslims vandalizing Danish embassies and threatening Danish newspaper editors.
“Now, what is it we all know about Muslims?” they said. We better not make any assumptions, they said, because that would just show our own prejudice!
That’s what they said, all right. Just like they’re saying now.
Yes siree! Not the teensiest, weensiest bit hypocritical.
Are you saying Muslims had nothing to do with the fatwas and the demonstrations? Then who was it? Yet another Jewish conspiracy? Those insidious Yahood! Ya habibi! Haram! Just when you think the Jews have all been either killed or airlifted to Israel, thousands of them show up on an a Moslem street, speaking Arabic, dressed in Arab clothing, waving Saudi flags and Koranic sayings, cleverly disguised as Arabs in broad daylight for all the television cameras to see. Trying to make people think Moslems are oversensitive and don’t like a few cutesy cartoons. The nerve.
If you guys want to wear your thongs and boas, knock your socks off, but I wish you ‘d do it behind closed doors. It’s really WAY too much information for me.
Modeling underwear is not a freedom issue, it’s an economic issue. The people who make the money off of it always want someone else to bear the brunt of its down side. Not in my neighborhood.
Agreeing with Safety Guard here, “innocent until proven guilty” seems to be Layla’s message.
I think it would have been okay for the police to check out local extremist Christian groups first if they had done an investigation, but has that happened?
They need to be taken to a fair trial over the matter before they’re anything more than suspects.
Layla, what is the “brunt of its down side”?
Whether you like it or not, it’s expression. Either it’s free, or it isn’t.
As you write “Modeling underwear is not a freedom issue, it’s an economic issue,” recognize the Muslims who write “Drawing pictures of the prophet is not a freedom issue, it’s a respect issue.”
Get it?
I would think the local police would check out the model’s former boyfriends first. The store’s website advertised a competion, the prize being a date with one of the more popular models. Maybe someone wanted to date her and she wasn’t available.
Of course it’s great publicity for the store owner, who pays her models in underwear. She has gotten nationwide ah, exposure. She is probably laughing all the way to the bank.
I once lived in a building where one of the tenants worked as waitress in one of those underwear-modeling bars. The other tenants were always calling the police on her place for domestic violence. She didn’t have a phone. She kept taking the guy back every time he would come around sobered up and looking all pitiful. Those places attract losers.
If you want to get all miffed about sectarian violence, try this guy in Florida.
http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/death/US/hill873.htm
Caught in the act, made an immediate confession, and executed. Not even Jeb was willing to intervene. In case you’re thinking this guy belonged to a mainstream denomination, he had a break with his original denomination, supposedly over communion of infants (ho hum), and got himself out of the mainstream before deciding his vocation was murdering doctors who perform abortions.
Devil Dog Jim,
So you drew those cartoons to show disrespect?
Look at what the store owner said about her own motives: she did it to cash in on the Valentine Day sales, i.e., for the money.
Look at the community of Peabody, Massechusetts north of Boston. Used to be full of strip clubs. Then someone decided it was close enough to Boston to start redeveloping it and make it nice and yuppified. So did the nice wealthy people moving into the neighborhood say, ‘let’s keep all those strip clubs so we can have freedom”? Hell, no. The strip club industry has moved north to an economically depressed area where the residents don’t have the clout to prevent it.
Nothing like providing job opportunities for women, hey? I wonder if they get the same medical benefits as those big box mart chains.
If someone urinates on the street, is that freedom?
Yes, I drew those cartoons to show disrespect — disrespect of the commission of violence in order to shut people up. That’s my free speech right.
So she engaged in expression for money. Is that freedom of expression, or isn’t it?
Layla, you’re saying in fifteen ways that “sure, this is expression, but this is different, because I think it’s wrong.”
That’s what the Muslims we hear from are saying. You sound awfully like them when the shoe is on the other foot.
OK. Let me see if I’ve got this straight.
To suspect Christians of threats and vandalism only proves your own anti-Christian bias.
But NOT to suspect Muslims of threats and vandalism also proves your bias, because it’s anti-Semitic!
Like I said, no hypocrisy here!
Jim,
I agree completely with the way you drew the cartoons and the tasteful venue in which they were presented. You have my wholehearted support for saying something risky that needed to be said.
I seriously doubt you did it for the money. If you did, I’ll give you a clue: you’ll get richer over in the Republican camp.
Putting cartoons online is not the same as putting undressed people on a public street. It is not different because of whether I agree with it; it is different because of where it is presented.
If you take those cartoons and hold them up in the middle of a mosque, this is wrong. If you take the cartoons to an Arab neighborhood and stand on the street holding them up, this is wrong. If you put them on a website, the people who want to see them will look and the people who do not want to see them will not look.
Take the Mel Gibson film “Passion of Christ”. It offends me and I do not wish to see it. If you put it in a public place where I can not look away from it, this is wrong. If you shut down a theatre that shows the film because I do not agree with it, this is equally wrong. If I know something about the content of the film, I can decide for myself whether to see it or not, and everyone else is free to do the same.
Tony,
Ya habibi, how can I be anti-Christian?–I identify myself as Christian. Pat Robertson, however identifies me as AntiChrist, along with all Episcopalians, Presbyterians and Methodists. Pat Robertson has also had a lot of recent trouble with hurricanes, which he previously regarded as messages from God.
If someone burns an embassy in broad daylight while holding a flag with words from Koran, that is destruction in the name of religion. If someone who is a church leader shoots a doctor who performs abortions in broad daylight, then says at his murder trial he did it because he thinks God doesn’t want abortions, this is violence in the name of religion. If someone slashes the tires of an underwear model in the middle of the night, and no one saw who did it, well, it’s just that. No one saw who did it.
Here’s another one: after a team wins a championship, people go out into the streets all night and a taxi gets turned over and burned.
And another one: a black family moves into an all white neighborhood. The garage burns and someone sprays WP on the side of the house.
I know who did the second one. If you want to guess I’ll tell you if you were right.
Disagreeing with the idea that the human body can be as easily hidden and forgotten as a cartoon…
hare, would you see a difference in an underwear model in a store window across the street from where you take your daughter to buy a get well card for grandma and an underwear model in a bar with “underwear show at 9:00″ posted on the outside?
Would you want to live on or own property on the same street?
Underwear model Ms. Hunt, who hopes to be an actress and singer was quoted as saying, “I’m actually very comfortable in the window, even with people hooting and hollering at me.”
How sad.
…which is exactly what you took the pains to point out when Danish editors received anonymous threatening phone calls. “No one saw who did it, and that’s all.”
Let’s not assume they’re Muslim, you said, because that would be prejudiced!
Of course, you didn’t say that.
You said that, since nobody has been charged with a crime, assuming Christians to be guilty of threats and vandalism is anti-Christian (you accused ME of that, not the other way around, Einstein). You also said that NOT assuming Muslims to be guilty of threats and vandalism is anti-Semitic (who do you THINK did it, you asked? Jews? Of course I never even suggested Jews did it, you just made that up in your head).
Seems that “innocent until proven guilty” is for Christians but not Muslims.
Now you’re arguing that “would you want to live on the same street?” is sufficient grounds to rescind Americans’ First Amendment freedoms? Suppose I don’t want to live on the same street with that cross on the front of your church? Better put it where nobody can see it from the road!
Or does what some people want on their street trump the Constitution, while what others want on their street doesn’t? Well, how could we sort that out? Oh wait, I know! What Christians don’t want on their street overrides the Constitution, but everybody else is just going to have to tolerate the freedoms of others.
One set of rules for Christians, another for everybody else.
Not in the least hypocritical!
Just to clear something up, I really have nothing against people showing their underwear in public! Not that I enjoy all such “displays.” My local paper had some letters to the ed about the “tastefulness” of a Victoria’s Secret having a “more prominant” mannequin display in a mall.
Also, in an attempt to further muddy the waters, bare-breasted women are “legal” in OH! Oh my!
From here we could enter into the “pornography debate” with Dworkin and MacKinnon, et al. making “strange bedladies” with the “religious right,” etc.
Karl
Tony,
You still don’t get it. When it comes to the Danish cartoons, the Moslems WANT us to know it was them. Of course after 9/11 they said that was done by ‘the Jews’ (never ‘the Israelis’ of course), and now they say it was the CIA, so there has been a lot of effort collecting evidence on ben Laden.
I never said falsely accusing fundies was anti-Christian; it is anti-American, or it least it was before the suspension of habeous corpus. It’s probably anti-Moslem too since the Koran discourages gossip. Even Fundies are entitled to justice.
My church has no cross in front. There are several gargoyles and a frog, possibly a liberal pond-scum frog, but the frog is not visible from the street. We have no residential neighbors, but we hope City Hall is uncomfortable with us from time to time.
I don’t remember underwear in the constitution. It must be right next to ‘shouting fire in a crowded theatre’.
Safety Guy,
Why is it when we talk about underwear and nudity it is always female underwear and female nudity? Not even ‘drag’ races ala Monty Python, which if you think about it is still for male consumption.
The fundie viewpoint is that porn is not good for society, it creates chaos in the community by offending, and a pornography ban would help people be noble and good, the proper role of government. Of course the fundies feel qualified to determine that morality for everyone else, especially when it maintains hierarchies of subordination.
The teleological view is that porn subjugates women and reinforces illegitimate use of power by men. Here’s what Pat Robertson says about that: “The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians.”
Sounds to me like the kind of people who would oppose a few thongs and boas in a shop window. If we’re going to round up the usual suspects, we better put them on the list.
I fail to see anything offensive about human bodies, sorry.
Often seems to me that shops around beaches are rather popular, too, even though the people there are often wearing nothing more than swimwear and sandals.
It says “underwear” in the Constitution right next to the words “cartoons of Mohammed,” you genius.
Apparently the Bill of Rights protects the freedom to display things Muslims don’t like, but not things Christians don’t like.
Maybe that explains why blaming Christians is anti-American, but blaming Muslims is apparently as all-American as you can get!
Oh, yeah. I don’t get it. It’s different. Blah blah blah. Yeah, it’s different all right. It’s different because you’re a hypocrite with one set of standards for Christians and another for everybody else.
And now they’re shouting down Hindus.