Brianna Baxton and Kristina Garza, survivors of America’s abortion holocaust, were found guilty of trespassing on a public sidewalk in front of Murrah High School in Jackson, Mississippi. The case is being appealed and prayerfully will be won in the strong Name of Jesus. When the authorities start trying to “trespass” us on a public sidewalk for proclaiming the Gospel of Christ to high school students, we know the battle is waxing hot and the First Amendment is in great trouble. Amazing how intolerant of Christ and His precious preborn children our public schools have become!
Here the story via lifesitenews.com!
Flip
Our great brother in Jesus, Cal Zastrow, has fought in the courts and won a strategic Gospel battle to proclaim the Truth in the streets of Montana. Amazing what God can do through those who simply take Him at His Word and proclaim His Truth in the streets. Here it is!
Enjoy! ~ Flip
The wonderful saints in Orlando, Florida, have run into a new city ordinance that is designed to remove them from bringing the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the neighborhoods where abortionists live. It is totally unconstitutional, but it is what the abortion industry does to silence Christians who are giving mom’s a real choice at abortion mills.
Enjoy! ~ Flip
Here is a front page story in the “Local and State” section of the Charlotte Observer from Wednesday, August 22, 2012. Thank God that no matter how good or how bad a story is, it keeps the cause of Christ and His precious preborn children on the front burner in the minds of the citizens in Charlotte. Through your presence here during our National Event in July, and your prayers since that time, the airwaves in Charlotte and local media outlets have been filled with the exploits of God’s Church storming the gates of hell. This is just one more story.
Please note that in the story you will find that our attorney’s fought hard to prevent a “wanted” poster, covered with swastikas, a George Tiller Picture on it, and the number 30,000,000 in the middle, from being entered into evidence. It was a poster that none of us had ever seen before and never would have used. We did not know if it was ever used in Wichita. We did not know if any pro-life group or pro-choice group drew it up. We knew absolutely nothing about it. Yet Judge Turner allowed it in as evidence anyway. Why?
Why would a judge allow something like this into evidence? Because he knew very well that the poster we did distribute, “Wanted by Christ to Stop Killing Babies!” would never be construed as a “threat” to anyone. The prosecution knew this too. Unbelievably, the three Appeals Court Judges wrote, “The ‘wanted poster’ (Tiller’s) was relevant and its probative value outweighed any prejudicial effect.” Sure its probative. It prejudices everything else.
Of course it’s “probative value” (probative means to prove) was going to get them a conviction. It totally prejudiced the jury against us. Without this shocking “wanted” poster, the state’s case would have been shown for what it really was. Another failed attempt to remove the Gospel of Christ from the highways and byways of our city.
Here’s the story via the Charlotte Observer:
Anti-abortion minister to get new trial on charges he stalked doctor
On appeal, conviction of anti-abortion leader in 2011 negated on technicality
By Gary L. Wright
Posted: Wednesday, Aug. 22, 2012
The Rev. Phillip “Flip” Benham, an anti-abortion activist convicted in 2011 of stalking a Charlotte doctor, has been granted a new trial.
The N.C. Court of Appeals on Tuesday ordered the new trial after ruling that the judge in Benham’s trial made a mistake in instructing jurors before they began deliberations.
Benham, director of the Concord-based Operation Save America, was convicted in July 2011 of stalking a Charlotte doctor by distributing “posters with abortion doctors’ names and photos. He was accused of passing out hundreds of posters that said: “Wanted…by Christ, to Stop Killing Babies.”
He was placed on probation for 18 months and ordered to stay clear of Dr. ______’s home neighborhood and remain 500 feet from the three clinics where the doctor works.
Superior Court Judge Joseph Turner had instructed jurors that to find Benham guilty of stalking, the prosecution had to prove that the anti-abortion activist placed Dr. ______ in fear for his safety and the safety of his family.
Benham, in appealing his conviction, argued that the warrant charging him with stalking made no mention of ______’s family. The warrant only alleged that Benham had placed ______ in fear.
“The jury was instructed to find defendant guilty on a theory not included in the warrant,” the appeals court judges wrote in ordering the new trial. “The defendant was unable to prepare for trial on the theory that Dr. ______ was placed in fear for his family.”
But Benham said he’s not happy with the appeals court’s ruling. It has given him a new trial, he said, but has taken away his freedom of speech.
“What I do isn’t stalking,” Benham told the Observer Tuesday. “I’m exercising my First Amendment rights as a Christian to expose what is evil. This stalking law is devastatingly dangerous to free speech.
“They’ve gutted the First Amendment. We go all around the country and do this. We go to the abortionists’ homes, their practices and the abortion mills … . They want to censure the Gospel’s message. They want to get us off the streets. They want to silence our message.”
Benham, in appealing his stalking conviction, had also accused the judge of making a mistake when he allowed the prosecution to introduce evidence about a case that involved a “wanted” poster for a doctor who performed abortions in Wichita, Kan. That doctor, George Tiller, was shot to death in his church by an anti-abortion activist in 2009.
Benham argued that the evidence about Tiller was irrelevant and unduly inflammatory.
The appeals court judges disagreed. The “wanted” poster was relevant, they ruled, and its probative value outweighed any prejudicial effect.
Several doctors have been killed after similar fliers were distributed in other cities. In 1993, Dr. George Patterson was killed in Mobile, Ala., and Dr. David Gunn was killed in Pensacola, Fla. His replacement, Dr. John Britton, was gunned down a year later.
“Dr. ______ was concerned because other doctors had been murdered after similar WANTED posters were distributed prior to their deaths,” the appeals court ruling said. “The State’s purpose for introducing the Tiller poster was to show that Dr. ______’s fear regarding the WANTED poster bearing his photograph, name and information was reasonable.
“______ was a doctor who performed abortions … It was relevant for the jury to learn that the wanted posters in the past resulted in violence.”
Staff researcher Maria David contributed
Wright: 704 358-5052
This article written by Lisa Metzger, wife of Mark and home school mom of ten children, sums up the thoughts of most of us who attended Flip’s trial this past Friday, August 10, 2012. God’s hand was so very evident in all of the proceedings in the courtroom that day.
Miraculous Vindication for a Contender of the Faith
“The king’s heart is like channels of water in the hand of the LORD; He turns it wherever He wishes.” ~ Proverbs 21:1
As we read in Scripture, God directs and rules over those in authority. This past Friday, the Heavenly Judge directed a lowly mortal judge to rule in favor of a man of God.
Flip Benham had been erroneously convicted of stalking a Charlotte abortionist in July 2011, which has since been appealed and is awaiting a verdict by the appellate court. When the State’s prosecution filed a revocation of bond late last month, during the Operation Save America National Event, Flip was summoned to the Mecklenburg County Courthouse to defend his right to remain free on bond. Claiming that Flip violated the terms of his post-conviction release, the wording of the prosecution’s motion appeared to have already solidified the grim fate of this hearing. There seemed no way out of this legal snare.
Though all seemed bleak initially, God supplied a man for such a time as this. No longer did Flip need to rely on a public defender that lacked the spiritual conviction to argue such a case. David Redding, a commercial litigation attorney and Benham family friend, was called by his Savior to serve as a temporary criminal defender, just for this hearing.
On the morning of the bond revocation hearing, many of Flip’s friends, family and supporters arrived at the courthouse to pray for Flip’s exoneration, while many covered him in prayer from a distance. Though he trusted God for His Will to be accomplished, Flip realistically presumed that he would be leaving that courthouse in handcuffs to spend the next 75 days in the Mecklenburg County Jail.
Despite testimony from multiple accusers, including some who lied under oath, a very frustrated judge was lawfully obligated to rule in Flip’s favor. Why? Directed by God, Attorney David Redding found a statute in North Carolina that states: “A judge authorizing release of a defendant under this section must issue an appropriate order containing a statement of the conditions imposed, if any; inform the defendant in writing of the penalties applicable to violations of the conditions of his release; and advise him that his arrest will be ordered immediately upon any such violation. The order of release must be filed with the clerk and a copy given the defendant.”
During the initial sentencing, this same judge failed to serve Flip with written terms of his post-conviction release on bond. Therefore, Flip had no knowledge as to the specific conditions and stipulations of his bond, and therefore could not adhere to those specifications. In addition, Flip was never arrested for violating the conditions of the bond, which means that he was never observed in defiance of such, even though an officer testified that 50-100 percent of a city’s police force was present during the alleged violations.
Miraculously, these God-ordained details allowed for this unforeseen victory in an earthly court of law. God saw fit to use a Christian litigation attorney and a previously overlooked legal statute to vindicate a man of God who faithfully contends for the Gospel of Jesus Christ on the streets of the City of Charlotte.
“I felt compelled to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people.” ~ Jude 3
Our good friends at Jeremiah’s Call came to be with us at the court house for my bond revocation hearing. They took some video of the media interviewing me. Here is a little two minute excerpt from that interview. We could not give you the Channel 14 video because the abortionist’s name and picture appeared on the news clip at several different points. We are not allowed to post the name of the abortionist on our website.
Enjoy! ~ Flip
This short article was written by David Redding, our excellent attorney, who represented me during this latest illegal attempt by the city of Charlotte and the abortion industry to censor the Gospel of Christ from the streets of Charlotte. God raised David up for such a time as this. You will be amazed, as was I, at his Spiritual insight into what was happening in the courtroom this past Friday, August 10, 2012.
This is loaded with Truth. Enjoy! ~ Flip
Aye Brother, thank you for the encouragement.
I was explaining (or trying to) to Marjorie what happened in court yesterday and I showed her the governing statute. She said, “well, it’s obvious.” Of course it was. Your rights were not preserved. The judge and the prosecutor did not follow the law, which requires specific conditions and written warnings of the consequences of their violation to be given to you. None of that happened. Truly, you did not know the rules you were accused of breaking. That is why that statute was drawn up. And yet, that judge sat there for five minutes trying to find a way around it before he begrudgingly conceded that he was bound by the law. His pronouncement of same was mean-spirited and churlish, implying that you had skated by on a technicality. Even when I was an atheist (or a theist or whatever demonic thing cold hearted thing I was before I knew Christ) I didn’t like injustice and unequal scales, but here was a judge, prosecutor, two cops and some seemingly Nice Lady from the Peninsula who wanted you in jail despite the fact that you were treated unequally under the law. Their coldness was difficult for me to fathom. It felt dark in that courtroom to me.
We are in Ephesians 4 in my Friday Bible Study, and that morning (before the hearing) I led the discussion about Paul’s description of the Gentiles former selves–the ignorance, darkness, hard-heartedness and insensitivity of a people separated from God, whose lives have been given over to sensuality. A people consumed by greed. Paul’s implication is one of sexual idolatry, but of course it could be any sensual thing over which the Gentiles had passed themselves.
It occurred to me this morning that Paul’s description (perhaps, I know it is not mine to judge) was applicable to the judge et. als. They have given themselves over to a progressive worldview that has hardened their hearts such that they cannot see the irony in the things they say and do. The prosecutor who would see you incarcerated for advocating on behalf of the unborn herself was at least 5 months pregnant. The Nice Lady testified that it saddened her to see “children” handing out wanted posters was oblivious to the plight of the children destroyed by men whose faces appeared upon them. The Cornelius police officer who testified that his town’s entire police force was deployed as a “show of force” when notified about the Peninsula protest could not say why he was ordered to do so. Finally, the judge–the man charged with upholding the law exuded bitterness that it restrained him (just barely) from incarcerating you for exercising your right of free speech, a right so important that our founders enshrined it as the First Amendment to our constitution.
The Truth is a powerful and scary thing Brother. It cuts to the quick. The opposition I encounter to it rarely, almost never, comes in the form of a counter-argument–which is what you would expect from those who think the Truth as I see it is not so. In other words, if those things that comprise our worldview are not Truth, than one would expect a substantive argument from those in opposition. But rarely if ever is that so. What I encounter in opposition to Truth is generally a demand for silence. That is the best that the opposition can garner when faced with the Truth. Shut up. Be silent. And that is what these cold-hearted people wanted of you in court yesterday. They do not care about your right to speak (and by implication their own right to speak), they just want you to stop speaking because, having no counter-argument to the Truth they risk conviction by it–and then what?
Thus, the charade that your speech, just your words and the volume at which you say them, is a crime. To them, there is no crime in the legalized homicide of a human being with the bad timing to be drawing breath within rather than without the womb. But to question it? To declare publicly that despite abortion’s transient legality it is nonetheless a moral outrage (the precise thing the abolitionists argued in regard to slavery)–that, to them, is a crime so foul that at least two lawyers (judge and prosecutor) were more than willing to disregard the law yesterday, despite having sworn before God that they would uphold it.
It saddens me to say so, but I believe that this charade will never stop as long as there are hearts of stone that seek to resist the Truth by silencing it. Like the Wizards of Babylon they will search for any transgression upon which to hoist you and, finding none, they will fabricate one–if need be. For now, they have the power of the state at their disposal. For now. But we have the Truth. Which do you believe more powerful?
Aye.
Benham a free man after judge rules not to revoke bond
By: McKinsey Harris, Charlotte News 14
CHARLOTTE – Pro-life activist Flip Benham remains a free man after a judge ruled to not revoke his bond on Friday.
In 2010, Benham was charged and later convicted of stalking a Charlotte-area doctor. He’s currently awaiting the results of his appeals hearing and is out on post-conviction release. On Friday, he arrived at the Mecklenburg County Courthouse ready to be locked up.
“That’s fine with me. The venue of the ministry just changes and I’m in jail, but it’s the same ministry and I’m just thankful for that,” said Benham.
The prosecution claimed he violated the conditions of that post-conviction release.
“I never violated the court order. I have obeyed the court orders all the way through. They are saying there were people in Dr. _____ neighborhood, that Cornelius neighborhood, that went out and passed out brochures. I never went there. I had nothing to do with that, however, they were there,” said Benham.
Dr. _____ admits he saw an “Adopt an Abortionist” poster, with his picture on it. He also testified he heard Benham tell a group of people following the appeals hearing, “Let’s try to bring Dr. _____ back to God and stop killing babies.”
The judge, however, ruled for Benham after it was determined he never received a written order.
“He didn’t have that in the order. In fact, he didn’t have the order at all telling him what he could and couldn’t do. But the restriction of distributing posters, that wasn’t in the order anyway, so had he had the order, he still wouldn’t have known not to do it because it didn’t say that,” said defense attorney David Redding.
Benham left the courthouse a free man. He says instead of from jail, he’ll continue spreading God’s words in the streets of Charlotte, for now.
“Sometimes when you keep the law of God, you’re going to end up in jail. It’s just the way it is, and for us not to go out to abortion mills and not to do certain things would be a crime on my part, knowing what I know, to not continue to do it, no matter the cost,” said Benham.
Assistant District Attorney Kristen Northrup responded to this outcome by saying, “While we understand the judge’s decision, we are disappointed with the outcome.”