OSA
Bible
The Streets
Press Releases
Newsletters
Articles
Legal
Links
Home

Our Purpose
Our Director
Support Us
Contact Us

email OSA
Web problems or suggestions?
Bend it Like Benham


The Texas Observer

Political Intelligence: 10/7/2005

Bend it Like Benham

Everyone seems to have a theory about why the major hurricanes Katrina and Rita ravaged the Gulf Coast recently. Some have blamed global warming; others fault the federal government. Few, however, can match the doomsday visions of Rev. Phillip “Flip” Benham.

Benham is the director of the Dallas-based anti-abortion group Operation Save America (formerly Operation Rescue). In Benham's view, the Lord cast down Katrina and Rita upon America as a warning that we must stop the sins of abortion and “homosexual sodomy.” (Note to our hetero readers: Benham was very specific about the homosexual part, so it looks like you're off the hook on the sodomy end of things until further notice.) Basically, we must repent all our other sins or the Lord will rain down ever greater horrors upon us.

On September 23, Benham put out a press release that reads in part, “God is roaring to us in America. Can we hear Him now?” The good reverend's statement continues, “This time He is using Rita to get our attention. He has something to say to a nation that ‘legalized' child sacrifice. We have been warned, we have experienced His judgments [those being Katrina and Rita]… Our call as a nation is to repent—not rebuild. REPENT! He will not be silent. God has more disaster than our federal government has relief!”

Benham hasn't always been so preachy. In 1970, he received a BA in political science and international relations from that noted outpost of piety Florida State University (consistently rated the nation's top party school). After a stint in the Army, Benham bought and ran the Mad Hatter Saloon in Kissimmee, Florida, before a religious epiphany in 1976. In 1994, he took over Operation Rescue, known for its aggressive protests of abortion clinics.

In a phone interview with the Observer, Benham said his organization has distributed thousands of pounds of food and water and medical supplies to victims of hurricanes Katrina and Rita. “We're bringing bread with one hand, and the bread of life with the other—that's our Lord Jesus… Jesus is the one who died for our sins, not Buddha, not Allah, not any of the others. It was Jesus.” He continued, “[The storms] are judgments. If you don't stop child sacrifices—if you look all through the Bible—you'll see that if you didn't stop child sacrifices, that nation has ended.”

We need to note here that more than 30 years have passed since abortion was legalized in America. No matter, contends Benham. “People shouldn't mistake God's patience,” he says. “We will pay the price… Blood will fill the streets. There's no police force who can stop that.