Fwd: Moonie craziness almost defies belief...

Thanks to Dennis Brumm for forwarding this article. I am coming more
and more to believe that our civil liberties depend on the absolute
right to ignore and have no part in any religion, whatsoever. If that
sounds radical, it is merely and indication of how far we had slid
away from our basic Constitutional rights, of which this is one -- a
very important one. Rev. Moon and his beliefs are indistinguishable,
as far as I am concerned, from those of the Nazi Third Reich. and,
unfortunately, he has lots of other "upstanding" (would-you-believe
Christian?) operatives who are ready and willing to be grand poobahs
in his "kingdom." God help us! No, we had better start helping
ourselves, because we have only ourselves to blame if we permit this
nonsense to spread and grow further. -- RevRickM

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Dennis Brumm <brumm@brumm.com>
Date: Apr 17, 2006 5:08 PM

http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/34072/

Rev. Moon's Conjugal Visitations
By John Gorenfeld, AlterNet. Posted April 17, 2006.

We all know the religious Right wants to tell us what we can't do in
the bedroom, but no one asks what they want us to do instead.

Among the trendier gripes about why liberals lack power in American
politics is that there isn't enough tolerance for America's faithful.
A big problem, Rabbi Michael Lerner recently sighed, is that "the
Left's hostility to religion and spirituality has become such a major
stumbling block to the chances that progressive forces will ever win
enough power" to make a difference. So the new advice, from Hillary
Clinton to the New Republic's Gregg Easterbrook, is: Stop making
snickering remarks at Jerry Falwell's expense. Cheer the innovation of
$2 billion in federal tax money carted off to religious groups last
year. Drag the "Left Behind" series into your Amazon shopping cart.

And listen, I should add, to the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, owner of
the conservative mouthpiece the Washington Times and self-proclaimed
Messiah. Moon's warning to America is that we must have sex the way he
entreats us, in the positions he has designated, or else forfeit our
"love organs," as he dubs them, to the dark lord Satan.

We all know the Right wants to decide what we can't do in the
bedroom. But no one ever seems to ask what the Right wants us to do
instead.

"After the act of love," read the instructions from the Rev. Moon's
conservative Family Federation, "both spouses should wipe their sexual
areas with the Holy Handkerchief. Hang the handkerchief[s] to dry
naturally and keep them eternally. They must be kept individually
labeled and should never be laundered and mixed up."

Maybe the best explanation of our widespread ignorance of the
Washington Times owner's sex rites is liberal squeamishness. For those
of you who suckled on secular humanism and feminist tracts (which Moon
calls Satanic, by the way), these prescriptions from God might seem as
off-putting as a Castro Street postcard storefront to Dr. James
Dobson.

But in order to usher in a national dialogue on faith in the public
square, it's important to look beyond stereotypes of the Right to
understand the diverse philosophies behind public movements for
state-enforced morality.

Rev. Moon, whose Washington Times is a crown jewel of the
conservative media Death Star, offers the essential lessons. He's the
last man most Americans would associate with Republican power circles,
but is in his own secretive way as important a figure in the Christian
Right as Jerry Falwell, who's still in business thanks to a $3.5
million bailout from Moon in 1995, or Tim LaHaye of the Council For
National Policy, who took money to serve on the board of a group
rehabilitating Moon's image, and once wrote a letter addressing Moon
as "the Master."

Just how big is Moon's standing in the Right? The "Republican Noise
Machine" is a mighty edifice built with $3 billion in gifts from
various right-wing philanthropists. Moon's gift of the Washington
Times to the conservative cause alone places him in the club as a
charter member; the paper owes its existence to a staggering figure of
over $2,000,000,000 since 1982 in donations in Moon's mystery money.

Moon also also controls United Press International, one of the
world's largest wire news services. In addition to having a hand in
the creation of modern-day Christian Right politics, Moon has given
huge sums to Richard Viguerie, the "founding funder" of the Reagan
revolution; Terry Dolan, the pioneer of the "liberal bias" attack; and
George W. Bush, who received $250,000 from Moon in 2004.

By 1989, U.S. News & World Report was reporting Moon had built "a
network of affiliated organizations and connections in almost every
conservative organization in Washington, including the Heritage
Foundation," but that "conservatives ... fear repercussions if they
expose the church's role." In 2004, a veteran Christian Right
lobbyist, Gary Jarmin, arranged to have Moon coronated the "King of
Peace" in a kitschy ceremony on Capitol Hill in which he wore a
glittering crown and royal robes.

Moon, the first President Bush said, while touring South America with
the True Father in 1996, is "the man with the vision" whose newspaper
"restores sanity to Washington." So why must the gatekeepers of the
mainstream media bar his ideas from the public debate on morality? Why
does his own employee, Times editorial page editor Tony Blankley,
whose paper Moon says he mainly established to "tell the world about
God," hold back from telling the McLaughlin Group about the greatness
of Rev. Moon's plans for society?

In the interest of healthy public discourse, it bears upon us instead
to consider the philosophy fueling Moon, who has long acted on his
professed longing to see gays and "free sex" banished from America.
Moon's Federation offers an instruction manual explaining, among other
things, on which occasions the man should be on top, how Satan can be
banished with the spank of a wooden paddle and franker lessons still.

Recipe for love

There is, as Moon sees it, a profound sex crisis in America. "Satan,"
the Times publisher said in 2004, "is clinging to our sexual organs."
Women are a "line of prostitutes," who should be punished for
selfishness. "The concave organ [vagina] should be sealed with
concrete."

"The women are the problem in history," he said in 2004. "Women who
don't want to have children should cut away their breasts, bottoms and
love organ because the purpose for those was first for the children.
If they don't fulfill that purpose, then they are not needed."

"Woman's sexual organ is like the open mouth of a snake filled with
poison," he said in 1996. Men don't get off any easier. Keep pliers in
your pocket, he says, "and when you go to the bathroom, once a day,
pinch your love organ. Cut the skin a little bit as a warning."

Moon has even a darker vision for gay men. Moon told an audience he'd
like to see them removed in a "purge on God's orders.... Gays will be
eliminated, the three Israels will unite. If not, then they will be
burned. We do not know what kind of world God will bring, but this is
what happens. It will be greater than the Communist purge but at God's
orders." (No wonder the Times style guide puts "gay" in quotes.)

Far from being confined to his church, his philosophy has fueled
years of voter mobilization drives, state and local candidacies and
public campaigns opposing sexual liberties for nonmembers -- such as
birth control, sex education, gay rights. There have been
Moon-sponsored rallies for "pure sex" in the streets of Chicago,
featuring mascots dressed up as gonorrhea bacteria. So don't mistake
his sexual beliefs for a party to which you aren't invited. "By 2004,
we have to reach the level of Jesus occupying Rome," he said in 2001,
speaking of his American ambitions. "Invite me as master and owner, or
it all will fade away and be broken. The Capitol Hill, the U.N. -- I
should be the king."

The goal of getting involved in politics and social services, say his
clerics, is to cleanse Satan from humanity's bloodline. Meanwhile,
under George W. Bush's Healthy Marriage Initiative and abstinence-only
grants, his pastors have won nearly $1 million in public funding.
Moon's abstinence-only education group Free Teens USA, funded by the
Department of Health and Human Services, instructs school kids in New
Jersey: "It's not just your body, it's your whole lineage forever." In
a lesson plan featured online, a "family tree" exercise appears to be
inspired by Moon's teachings. And to teach that loving carelessly is
vile, youths are asked to drink from a cup of spit, according to a
lesson plan featured online.

Conjugal visitation

So let's say you've married a spouse chosen for you by the creator of
the Washington Times at one of his 2,000-couple stadium weddings.
You've gone through a Moon-ordained period of sexlessness, but now the
time has come to get down to business for the first time with your new
husband or wife.

Not so fast. At some date prior to the lovemaking, Moon's "indemnity
stick ceremony" is used to paddle Satan's spirit from your
lover-to-be. The evil spirit is present, according to one church
testimony, because "men and women misused each other's sexual parts,
for selfish purposes, [and] it gave birth to this resentment ... So we
receive three hits of the stick."

According to the Family Federation website, Satan will not be purged
until newlyweds carry out his "Three Day Ceremony" in specified sex
positions, in Holy Gowns, in front of his photograph. You're to meet
at a location that's "as holy a place as possible" -- one of Moon's
churches is OK. You should have a number of items on hand, according
to the instructions available online, including a Holy Handkerchief, a
church-supplied cloth, and a photo of the Washington Times publisher
and conservative benefactor with his wife, Hak Ja Moon. By now you
have embraced them as your True Parents, maybe even replacing your
biological mom and dad. Next the room must be sanctified to ward off
any potential Satanic comeback, with prayers, a candle and the
sprinkling of holy salt.

Over three nights, there must be three acts of sex. The first night,
the woman is on top. The second night proceeds much the same as the
first. But this time there is emphasis on the idea the man-on-bottom
has progressed to "Growth Stage Adam."

Night three: time for the "man to restore dominion." Missionary position.

Moon appears to recognize that not all men will be able to sustain an
erection during this procedure.

"The act of love should be a complete act (penetration and
ejaculation)," the anonymous authors make clear. "In the event that it
is difficult to achieve this, strive to achieve as much penetration as
possible and continue with the remainder of the ceremony.

"For the act of love, it is all right to caress each other. Insertion
must be accomplished. The couple should continue the act of love until
ejaculation, but if it is difficult to reach ejaculation, the act may
be stopped at that point. However, insertion itself must be
accomplished. If insertion is not possible because the husband does
not have an erection, the wife must take her husband's sexual organ in
her hand and guide it into her sexual part in order to successfully do
the ceremony. If the act of love is not fulfilled and it is delayed,
it must be fulfilled within 24 hours starting from the beginning of
the ceremony. It is not permitted to use a condom or any other
apparatus during the act of love."

In an America where the separation of church and state have widely
come to be seen as an urban legend, these ideas deserve as much
consideration as the Silver Ring Thing, until recently the inspiration
for a $1 million grant in Pittsburgh to push someone else's religious
crusade: "to saturate the United States," as the mission statement
said, "with a generation of young people who have taken a vow of
sexual abstinence until marriage and put on the silver ring. This
mission can only be achieved by offering a personal relationship with
Jesus Christ ..."

And this is the risk of inviting God into the public square. One
man's Silver Ring Thing is another man's Holy Handkerchief.