Wayne Besen

The Busybodies Are Bushwhacking

Once upon a time, busybodies were seen as invasive gossips with bad form. As insufferable nosey neighbors, with an ear to the wall and an eye to the keyhole, they were reviled for making everyone’s business their own. Then, the busybodies organized and formed a powerful political lobby. Now, their rotten manners are touted as religious morals and their freakish voyeurism is spun as family values. Nowhere is the rise of the snoop more evident than in the nauseating and utterly revolting exploitation of Terri Schiavo.

It is indubitable that she has been in a persistent vegetative state for 15 years. Clearly, anyone who thinks Terri would have recovered has watched too many miracle segments on Rev. Pat Robertson’s 700 Club. Her husband, Michael, said that Terri indicated to him in conversations that she did not want to live long-term on life support and Michael has tried to honor his wife’s wishes. However, the sanctity of marriage, it seems, is respected only when it scores political points for preachy politicians.

Terri’s well-meaning parents, sadly, do not want to accept reality and dragged this case though the Florida courts and beyond to its logical and merciful end. Of course, due process and the rule of law wasn’t enough to keep moralistic meddlers from butting into this very personal family tragedy.
Scandal-laden House Majority leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, slithered out from beneath his slippery stone to lead the congressional charge to undermine his much-beloved states rights and pass an emergency law that switched jurisdiction of the case to the federal courts. DeLay even accused Michael Schiavo and the judges who decided this case of committing “an act of barbarism”.

So, it was uncommonly grotesque and unusually sickening to read in the Los Angeles Times that DeLay did not object when his family pulled the plug on his comatose father, Charles DeLay, 16 years ago. According to the medical report, “extraordinary measures to prolong life were not initiated”, and his bedside chart said, “Do not resuscitate.”

Obviously, this political charade was never about rescuing Terri, but a desperate effort to deflect the stench of scandal from the corpse of corruption that surrounds DeLay, and a cynical effort to resuscitate his comatose moral authority as a conservative leader.

Equally foul were the busybody leaders who under the cover of religion handed out the home address of Judge George Greer who ruled in favor of Michael Schiavo. To give out personal information on a judge, in the wake of the murder of U.S. District Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow’s family in Chicago, is particularly unconscionable and sets a dangerous precedent.

The inflammatory pronouncements of the self-proclaimed defenders of the right to life, make one question whether some of these leaders are trying to provoke their followers into committing acts designed to intimidate the judiciary: Consider these statements:

• Speaking of Judge Greer, Focus on the Family’s James Dobson told Fox News that, “This man is wicked.”

• Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry told USA Today that, There will be hell to pay”, if Terri dies.

• Rev. Pat Robertson called the recent court decisions, “judicial murder.”

Not to be outdone, puritanical protesters coerced their own children into getting arrested for civil disobedience in front of Terri’s hospice. Many of these “loving” do-gooders have called Michael Schiavo an “adulterer” because he has rightfully moved on with his life. Never mind the fact that Michael spent the first sixteen days and nights by Terri’s bedside when she was first hospitalized or that he cared for her for many years and after that visited her daily.

If there is a silver lining to this sick circus it is that some protesters are blaming Gov. Jeb Bush, the man who started this whole mess in the first place. In 2003, he stuck his nose where it didn’t belong and helped pass “Terri’s Law” that originally allowed him to interfere in state court proceedings and have Terri’s feeding tube reinserted. The law was later ruled unconstitutional. But having stirred up the hornet’s nest, he now feels the sting of zealots who want him to break the law and defy the courts by illegally ordering that Terri’s feeding tube be reinserted one final time.

According to the New York Times, several protesters were holding signs attacking Gov. Bush. One sign read, “Don’t be a Pontius Pilate”, while another sign said, “Jeb, you shall not murder.”
Organized busybodies and snoops were the key to Jeb’s political success in Florida. But now, these empowered meddlers peer through his keyhole and Bush stands naked and exposed as a political opportunist and family values hypocrite who cares more about feeding his political ambitions than Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube.

Wayne Besen is a columnist and author of the book "Anything But Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the Ex-Gay Myth."