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The Lynchburg Story
| God's Judgement on Lynchburg? | A Lynchburg Pastor Speaks! |
| Injustice by Judge Miller! | Why was Flip in jail? |
OPERATION RESCUE NATIONAL LEADER RELEASED FROM JAIL
Reverend Flip Benham, National Director of Operation Rescue, was released Friday morning, May 8, 1998 from the Lynchburg City Jail in Lynchburg, Virginia. He served a one-year sentence (six months suspended) for misdemeanor trespassing. This severe sentence was issued because he and 300 students from Liberty University dared to bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the public sidewalk outside E.C. Glass High School in Lynchburg. The Liberty students sang, prayed and passed out Gospel tracts to high school students entering the school.
School officials were outraged at this heinous act. Though there were no arrests made and no citations issued during the event, indictments were brought against Reverend Benham and two students 30 days later by a grand jury. Benham was tried, sentenced, and jailed in February of this year. Benham's attorney, American Family Association Law Center General Counsel Bruce Green, said, "I've never seen such heavy-handed treatment of individuals convicted of a misdemeanor. I think the school and city are trying to send a message that this kind of speech is not tolerable." Assistant Commonwealth Attorney Ethan Onjes confirmed Green's observation when he told The Lynchburg New's & Advance that the severity of Benham's sentence was meant "to send a message" to those who might have similar plans.
THE MESSAGE IS CLEAR. An ominous and ubiquitous cloud of censorship is slowly moving across the highways and byways of America. This cloud is darkening the rays of Jesus Christ. F.A.C.E., RICO statutes, judicial injunctions, unconstitutional city ordinances, frivolous lawsuits, and draconian jail sentences all point to the eclipsing of the Gospel. Our government is sending a powerful and dangerous message that whoever brings the Gospel to the streets must be stopped at all costs. It is becoming increasingly evident that, in a nation where "tolerance" has become a God, there is one group of people who will not be tolerated. Those, in a nation that highlights tolerance as the greatest virtue, have really become the most intolerant of all.
