FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - JUNE 6, 1998
CONTACT: Mike Doughney or Lauren Sabina Kneisly,
888-217-8770, barf@barf.org, http://www.barf.org

BARF WITNESSES EXPLOITATION OF CHILDREN BY OPERATION RESCUE NATIONAL (ORN);
PLANS INFORMATIONAL PICKET AND PRESS CONFERENCE AT ORN'S HOST CHURCH SUNDAY
MORNING

KISSIMMEE, FLORIDA - The Biblical America Resistance Front, a small research
group that for the past year has documented and reported on the activities
of Operation Rescue National (ORN), will hold an informational picket and
press conference at the church which hosted ORN for the past week.  The
picket will begin at 10:30 am, followed by a statement to the press at 11:00
am, at Good Shepherd Free Methodist Church, 1701 N. Thacker Avenue in
Kissimmee.

"We've watched Operation Rescue National go way beyond the usual limits this
week," said Lauren Sabina Kneisly, co-founder of BARF, "and what we're
seeing is inhumane.  We've often noticed that many children of ORN
participants, often too young to understand the political and social nature
of ORN's agenda, seem to be bored and uninterested in participating.  It's
long been clear that these children must endure years of religious
indoctrination that justifies their presence at ORN and similar events.  But
nothing we've seen from them compares to the outright exploitation that
we've seen in recent days."

About 40 Operation Rescue participants, including several minor children
without their parents, were left scattered along four miles of the Route 192
strip in the 95-plus degree heat on Wednesday afternoon for at least one
hour, holding anti-Disney signs and distributing an ORN flyer to occupants
of passing cars in apparent violation of Florida law.  Most of these people
did not carry anything to drink; some of those who were drinking had
purchased drinks at adjacent convenience stores.  Apparently, those without
money, or who thought they might miss their bus by walking away from the
roadside, risked serious dehydration in the record heat.

"Operation Rescue spent the entire morning out in the middle of Lucerne
Terrace, on a section of street with little shade," Kneisly continued.
"They were already tired and dehydrated from being out in the sun since 8:30
in the morning.  We heard some of them call their lunch of thin sandwiches
and Gatorade, served out on the street, 'jail food.'  Why were they sent
back out on the highway?  Are they putting their political ideology ahead of
personal needs, ignoring their human limits?"

"Has Operation Rescue devolved into a religious cult while it expands its
targets to include Disney?" asks Mike Doughney, Kneisly's partner.  "I use
the word 'cult' here specifically to mean a group which uses coercive and
abusive means of manipulation to control its members.  We've watched ORN use
these methods this week, including leaving people isolated and dependent on
transportation provided by the leadership, limiting access to food and
water, causing physical exhaustion and sleep deprivation, combined with
intensive religious indoctrination and emotional overload.  These are the
kinds of things that are associated with 'high-demand' groups that exploit,
abuse and eventually consume their members.  The children of people involved
in such groups don't have the option of walking away from these situations;
some Operation Rescue children are even encouraged to be arrested, to the
delight of their parents."

In light of these documented abuses, BARF will be holding its informational
picket to hold the host church accountable, and to insure that the members
of this church are informed about the nature of the events that occurred,
and were enabled by them, this week.

Biblical America Resistance Front (BARF) is the research team of Mike
Doughney and Lauren Sabina Kneisly.  Since July 1997, BARF has followed the
activities of Operation Rescue and other organizations of "Biblical
America," their term for a social movement that aims to use its particular
reading of the Bible as the basis of governance and American society.
Doughney also hosts the "ex-cult archive," an Internet website at
http://www.ex-cult.org which offers resources for those affected by
religious and political cults and other "high-demand" groups. BARF may be
found on the Internet at http://www.barf.org.

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