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Reprinted from The
Miami Herald, June 1, 1998.
Christian Group Plans To Confront Gays
By Phil Long
Herald Staff Writer
ORLANDO -- As a militant Christian group heads for Orlando and a showdown this week
with gay revelers, abortion clinics and a national book chain, security in the tourism
heart of Florida is at its highest.
Operation Rescue National, a Dallas-based anti-abortion organization that has recently
targeted gays and Barnes and Noble, plans to confront gays at Walt Disney World and other
venues of a four-day "Gay Day 98" celebration of gay pride month.
Organizers are expecting 80,000 at the eighth annual event, which will feature parties,
nightclub shows, theme park visits and other entertainment at more than a dozen sites
around Orlando.
Operation Rescue's leader, the Rev. Flip Benham, said the group also plans protests at
two Central Florida Barnes and Noble stores over five books the organization opposes as
containing child pornography.
ORN plans to also picket four abortion clinics in Orange County. One of them was
recently the target of an acid attack. Within the past two weeks, 10 Florida clinics have
been attacked, including five in Miami-Dade County. Operation Rescue leaders say such
attacks are counterproductive and denied any involvement. Nevertheless, clinic owners,
police and others are worried that this week's protests may attract violence in Orlando.
"They may be nice little church people praying on the street, but not everybody
they attract is like that, hence the butyric acid attacks," said Tammy Joy
Sobieski,
owner of an Orlando clinic that was doused with acid, a mixture that smells like vomit.
The smell so heavily penetrates everything that carpet, furniture and contents must be
removed and destroyed.
Attacks on clinics have become much more violent in recent months, said Eleanor
Smeal,
an expert on clinic defense and president of the Foundation for the Feminist Majority. An
off-duty police officer was killed earlier this year and a nurse severely injured in a
bombing attack on a Birmingham clinic. That bombing was linked to one last year in an
Atlanta clinic which is part of an investigation that includes a bombing at a gay
nightclub in Atlanta.
"You must take this very seriously," Smeal said. "They are getting more
lethal. It's got us very worried." Smeal's organization has assigned several staffers
to Orlando, where they will organize scores of clinic volunteer defenders.
Although officials will not discuss details, state, county and city police say their
intelligence units have been working overtime and they have called in the reserves for
this week. An extra 100 to 150 Orlando police officers are poised to reach any of four
sites within minutes, said Sgt. Jeff Goltz, a spokesman for the department.
"I think everybody is taking precautions for this one," said Fred Hobbs, a
Florida Department of Law Enforcement agent in Tallahassee who specializes in clinic
violence issues.
Disney will have extra security in place.
"First and foremost we are in the business of trying to make sure our guests have
a good time and that they are safe and secure," said Bill Warren, spokesman for
Disney.
"It is not so much that we worry about Operation Rescue," said Bob King,
volunteer manager of the Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Central Florida. "It's
the splinter groups and radicals that might join forces with them."
Benham said Operation Rescue supporters will move throughout the park, handing out
leaflets and trying to persuade gay men and lesbians to change.
"It is going to be one-on-one evangelism where we talk with the kids," Benham
said. "We think this is a travesty for young people to begin to believe that they are
somehow born homosexual."
Gay Day 98, like White Party in Miami and Memorial Day Weekend in Pensacola, is a major
event on the social circuit. This year it will feature more than 50 events, including
theme park activities, dances, cocktail parties, beauty contests, dinner shows, gospel
music and floor shows. More than 15 of the activities are scheduled at Disney parks or
Disney nightclubs.
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