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Reprinted from The Orlando Sentinel, June 4, 1998.
National Abortion Protester Arrested
By Mike Oliver and Lenny Savino
of The Sentinel Staff
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GEORGE SKENE /
THE ORLANDO SENTINEL |
| At abortion clinic protest.
Flip Benham, 50, national director of Dallas-based Operation Rescue, is arrested
Wednesday. |
The national leader of Operation Rescue and a Bradenton anti-abortion activist were
arrested Wednesday outside an Orlando abortion clinic after playing music on a portable
speaker in violation of city rules, authorities said.
Police arrested Flip Benham, 50, national director of the Dallas-based Operation
Rescue, and Tom McGlade, 46, whose two sons were arrested earlier this week in a protest
at another Orlando clinic.
They were being held at the Orange County Jail late Wednesday on $2,500 bond.
The men were charged with violating a city injunction, which outlines several
prohibitions for the protesters, including the use of amplified equipment within 1,000
feet of an abortion clinic. The music was to accompany a mime performance held in
conjunction with the protest at the Orlando Woman's Center on Lucerne Terrace.
"They didn't want to be arrested," said Linda
McGlade, McGlade's wife.
"They were setting up for an evangelistic drama that was going to be performed."
Benham tried unsuccessfully to argue with police that he was beyond the 1,000-foot
mark, but police said the speaker was only about 250 feet away from the clinic.
The McGlades and their seven children have been involved in Operation Rescue
demonstrations for 10 years and have dozens of arrests among them. Two of their sons,
Eric, 12, and Keith, 17, were arrested Monday on charges of obstructing a road and
resisting arrest without violence.
Marti MacKenzie, a spokeswoman for the clinic's owner, Dr. James
Pendergraft, said it
was business as usual at the clinic as nine scheduled appointments were kept.
"We think it is really sad that they've had to impose these kind of restrictions
(on the protesters)," Pendergraft said. "But it's the terroristic acts that have
created what some would say is a restriction of free-speech rights."
In all, about 75 people protested outside the clinic Wednesday, singing and praying, as
police stood elbow-to-elbow in front of the clinic.
The arrests of Benham and McGlade brought the total to seven at midweek of a weeklong
series of protests planned by Operation Rescue. Leaders say the demonstrations will
culminate later this week with a protest at the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World for
what they call gay-friendly policies.
Later Wednesday, Operation Rescue protesters stood peacefully in pairs along a
four-mile stretch of U.S. Highway 192, Osceola County's tourist strip. They carried
placards reading "Just Say No to Disney."
Some motorists honked in support, while others jeered the 50 protesters standing on the
shoulder of the road from Hoagland Boulevard to Polynesian Isle Drive.
About a dozen Osceola County deputy sheriffs stood by.
"We told them that as long as they stay off private property and the road, they
won't go to jail," Lt. Ken Hughey said. "They haven't given us any problems. Our
main objective here is just to keep everybody safe."
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