Pro-Choice Forces Fizzle In `Night Of Resistance'
DEMONSTRATORS were supposed to bring whistles and other noisemakers to drown out church services. The Women's Action Coalition (WAC) said it was bringing its "drum corps." Fliers posted around town to draw a major crowd urged demonstrators to "dress to shock AND/OR IMPRESS; come in costume and show your rage." But I counted only one or two whistles, no drum corps, and just one demonstrator either shocking or impressing us, by dressing as a demon.
This was the pro-choice "Night of Resistance" in Chicago. Rallies were taking place around the country to mark the anniversary of the murder of abortion doctor David Gunn. The Chicago demonstration was outside Armitage Baptist Church during its regular Wednesday service. Armitage, located in a huge former Masonic temple on Logan Square, is a center for pro-life activities. All three pastors have been arrested in clinic protests; one of them 11 times.
To much of the congregation, sitting down in front of abortion clinics is a form of nonviolent civil disobedience worth going to jail for. Victoria Leyva, a community organizer and member of the congregation, says, "We don't scream at women and call them murderers, though I've seen that happen. We have to shout - the other side is blowing whistles - but we shout that there are alternatives - let us help."
Rallies that stress rage, street theater and church disruption tend to be the ones sponsored by radical groups, and that was true here. The sponsors included Queer Nation, an anarchist youth group, Sister Serpents (an underground women's collective) and the National Committee to Free Puerto Rican POWs and Political Prisoners. A few demonstrators wore patches that said, "Feminist Witch," and "Support Vaginal Pride." One placard, the only nod toward humor, showed the face of Michael Griffin, killer of Dr. Gunn, with the slogan: "Life - what a beautiful sentence."
The church was expecting trouble. In 1992, a dozen members of Queer Nation were invited as guests to the Easter services here. They interrupted the sermon, blew a whistle and put condoms in the collection plate. Six were arrested.
Since then, car tires have been slashed, cars vandalized, and pro-gay or pro-choice graffiti sprayed on the church. The night before the rally, "Choice or Else" was sprayed on the church, and the church reported that rocks were thrown at the glass doors. No damage was done - the doors had unbreakable glass panels.
The building bristled with security people with walkie-talkies. The police were there too, cordoning off demonstrators from the church steps. About 30 men from the congregation clogged the steps to prevent an invasion by demonstrators. But the air of tension dissipated rather quickly. The demonstrators seemed disorganized. With weeks of preparation and 10 sponsoring groups, only a hundred or so people had turned out.
The most common chant was "Racist, sexist, anti-gay/born-again bigots go away." The "racist" charge is particularly weird. The Armitage congregation is about 40 percent white, 30 percent black and 30 percent Hispanic. For "born-again bigots," the congregation has made an unusually successful effort to cut across racial lines.
While the crowd was still chanting about racism, a group of young black men showed up wearing long red jackets that said "SHS security." They were from a Southside black Baptist church, Sweet Holy Spirit, here to protect a fellow evangelical church.
The woman with the bullhorn tried to lead the crowd in singing "Little Boxes," a song about suburban conformity popularized by Pete Seeger in the 1960s. This may have been an attempt to mock the small coffins sometimes used in the burial of dead infants and fetuses.
Next, five yellow buses rolled up and a seemingly endless stream of people poured out. "They're bringing in the homeless," one demonstrator said in dismay. But no, they were evangelicals from a second Southside church, mostly black families, showing up for the service. More than a thousand people were then in the church.
The security men had been singing all along, picking fast-paced music that almost matched the volume of the demonstrators. Then they gave way to a choir of black kids. The demonstrators were done for. The kids were too good and too loud.
The rally trailed off strangely. At the bullhorn, a lesbian announced that her sexuality is so hot that when she has an orgasm, "the pillars of patriarchy crumble." This was too much for one cop, who turned aside quickly and broke up laughing.
Sunny Chapman, a rally organizer, said later, "I was surprised at how strongly they responded, how threatened they were by our presence." . . . "We had no intention of having any type of confrontation."
What they did intend, Chapman said, was to apply pressure on members of the church to stop protesting at abortion clinics. Instead, the church just called in sympathizers. So it goes. Another inconclusive skirmish in the abortion wars.
(Copyright, 1994, John Leo)
John Leo's column appears Tuesday on editorial pages of The Times.