This just in from Wacco TX. Headline: Undercover cops make Sunday surprise restroom arrests. Source: Lone Star Police Gazette & Badge Polisher.
Mark your activist desk calendar…
…While thousands were inside the Hallelujah Handclap of Hope megachurch tabernacle singing "Amazing Grace," some six weeks of amazing undercover police work came to a head last Sunday.
Ten persons were arrested. They were sitting in the wrong church pew at the wrong time. Arrests were made without drawing undue attention to the offenders, each escorted from the church property in either a covering choir or baptismal robe.
Those arrested were fortunately proven to be of age at the Wacco District Six Police Headquarters, once their respective collected wallets, IDs, pants, shirts, under garments were sorted through and matched to the individual arrestee configuration.
The match-up process took a little under three hours, in part due to the asking of what was essentially a touchy theocratic question involving whether or not a violation of the HHH's posted men's restroom requirement occurred.
Those arrested were advised that they had a right to refuse to divulge status vis-a-vis the unequivocal sanctioned use of the facility in question, which was clearly marked in large English Gothic letters SAVED in contradistinction to another similar facility 50 feet away marked plainly UNSAVED.
(There are similar restroom facilities throughout the ten floors of the church itself. Many Wacco gas stations are similarly equipped. Self-service gasoline units are likewise marked.)
Even so, one or two of the arrestees are thinking of asking their respective lawyer to bring legal action against the Hallelujah Handclap of Hope megachurch for what is (at least to arrestee preconceived perception) a clear case of discrimination involving use of a public facility.
Rev. Delburt B. Windwiper, HHH pastor, when contacted on the QT by Lone Star reporter Lois Lane-Kent, is alleged to have said, "I don't see how they have a p–ing leg to stand on. The simple fact is you're either saved or you're unsaved.
"This certainly isn't discrimination in God's sight.If you're going to hell, well, you're going to hell, no matter what restroom you happen to frequent, and for whatever the burning urgency.
"What's really offensive to any fair-minded Christian is that they did their nefarious business a) on Sundays and b) in a restroom clearly marked for the whole world to see, SAVED. That's something that's just not done.
"I want to make it abundantly clear. We – that is our HHH board of directors, our financial banking investment team, our health store employees, our senior citizens retirement association, our American chain of Bible trinket shops, all 5,000 HHH members – we don't discriminate.
"Our members include blacks (at last count 43), Mexicanos (all with appropriate Green Card), Jewish converts (two), assorted others (probably in the neighborhood – maybe a less affluent one at that – of 12).
"We tried to include gays (the balcony last two rows) but look what's happened. Six months ago, it was brought to board attention that these gays were being bold as brass in using the restroom they had no business using. Not one of ten is saved. If you're not SAVED, it would stand to reason that you'd use the UNSAVED facility – which by the way is just as clean, although the Bible-verse paper towels therein aren't blessed."
Charge brought against the bathroom intruders is "disorderly conduct for staging so-called weekly 'nude-in' protests with occasional Gospel Tract toilet cloggings to affect status change of perceived discrimination in the use of a necessary adjunct to optimal daily good health and mental well being of unsaved gay persons."
Note in passing: Restrooms at MCC-Detroit are not similarly marked. Still, check neighborhood RO gas stations. (Choir robes optional.)
