Flip the Stalker
26 July, 2011
Flip the Stalker
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/07/02/2423347/anti-abortion-activist-guilty.html
On 2 July, 2011, the Charlotte Observer reported as follows:
A Mecklenburg County jury Friday found a local anti-abortion activist guilty of stalking a Charlotte doctor by distributing posters with abortion doctors’ names and photos and bearing words “Wanted.”
Flip Benham was charged with misdemeanor stalking after authorities said he passed out hundreds of posters, saying: “Wanted . . . By Christ, to Stop Killing Babies.” But any honest person can see that Flip did not evil. He did, however “stalk” the abortionist because every abortionist has reason to think that as long as there are righteous people in the land there is the possibility that he might be stalked and terminated at any time. The abortionist has reason to live in fear. If, therefore, Flip wishes to pose as such a righteous rescuer, he can expect to be mistaken for what he represents. The abortionist may mistake him as his “stalker” and possibly his “murderer.”
Indeed, from the perspective of the dark side, Flip is more than a “stalker”; he is a “terrorist.” So say those on the dark side:
“For too long, Benham and his organization have been able to stalk and terrorize abortion providers and their families with impunity,” said duVergne Gaines, legal coordinator for the Feminist Majority Foundation, which provides legal and security assistance to the Charlotte doctor’s clinics.
For him to protest that he is a man of “non-violence” -a gentle dove who would harm no one – and argue that he ought not to be regarded as a real stalker is to deny that he expects anyone who listens to his protests against abortion to take him seriously. It is as if he is saying, I am just a mouth out here blaring sound and fury and signifying nothing. “Do not believe what I say.”
The fact is that ANY man who believes that abortion is the slaughter of an innocent child has the capacity at any time to decide to rescue any given child. That is the hard truth. It is the awkward and pressing reality we live in as we abide a holocaust. But it is a truth which Benham has not been able to work into his system of thought, his doctrine of God, law, man, and justice.
Mr. Benham is a man who walked up to an honest man – a man of truth, humility, and integrity – and rebuked that man. Flip Benham walked up to Paul Hill on the streets of Pensacola in 1993, rebuked him publicly (in my presence), and taunted him to go out and shoot an abortionist if he was going to stand on the street and defend the actions of Michael Griffin of March 10. (To be sure, Paul Hill was not taunted into performing his deed of justice and mercy. He acted on his own by the grace and inspiration of God.) Flip Benham never apologized to Paul Hill for that public slander after Paul demonstrated the truth that he was proclaiming through the sacrifice of his own life.
The apology is long overdue.
Paul Hill was no murderer, if babies die in abortion clinics. But if Flip allows that Paul is a “murderer,” than he must allow himself to be called a “stalker” (and even a “terrorist”).
It may be, in the eyes of many of us, a badge of lesser rank, but at least it signifies that he has done something. Wear it well, Flip. You were a stalker if not a rescuer.
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