Conservative Babylon

“I will conquer and subjugate the world. I am your brain.”

“What is the meaning of lesbians and homosexuals? That is the place where all different kinds of dung collect. We have to end that behavior.”

Sun Myung Moon — “humanity’s Savior, Messiah, Returning Lord and True Parent” — finally entered the Eighth Circle of Hell today. While we won’t lower ourselves to gravedancing (this time), we can’t say we’re exactly crying in our beer, either.

If you weren’t around in the 1970s, you may not understand how Moon was able to foist his bizarre brand of “religion” (which counts among its heresies the belief that Jesus, a failed leader incapable of perfect love, was the product of an adulterous affair between the not-so-Virgin Mary and Zachariah, father of John the Baptist) on a most vulnerable generation of “truth” seekers, whose spiritual hunger was fed by everything but the truth. It was the age of est and Scientology, which, like Moon’s Unification Church, easily collected simpleminded patsies from among the vast throngs of disappointed, discouraged and disillusioned leftovers of the 1960s, who were still crashing from the bad-acid high of the unfulfilled promise of The Age of Aquarius.*

Moon regarded Jesus as the second Adam, but Jesus was crucified before he could marry and bring forth sinless progeny. Thus, according to Moon, mankind’s salvation depended on a third savior to appear on Earth and marry a pure woman. Together they would become the “true parents” of mankind and beget pure families to populate the kingdom of God.

The new Christ, Moon prophesied, would be born in Korea.

— Elaine Woo
“Sun Myung Moon dies at 92;
led controversial Unification Church”
Los Angeles Times, September 2, 2012

And if you’re not a political junkie, you may not appreciate just how much damage Moon inflicted on the cause of democracy in America through his right-wing rag, The Washington Times, propped up by greedy world leaders (including George H.W. Bush) and the highest of high-profile religionists, from Jerry Falwell to Louis Farrakhan, who embraced him as a legitimate religious leader. (Obviously, the “traditional family values” zealots were at least as hypocritical as Moon himself; they praised and defended a man who taught that Christianity was controlled by Satan.)

Considering Moon’s documented history of extreme rightwing theocratic politics, antisemitism, constant rumours of sexual improprieties, his US imprisonment in 1982 for tax evasion, and, for Christians, an offensively blasphemous theology, it is difficult to understand how he was tolerated, even welcomed, by US presidents, politicians, clergymen and academics in America, Japan and Britain.

The answer might be hypocrisy — and Moon’s money. But where did the billions come from? The ultimate source still defies scrutiny, although he was at one time backed by two Japanese billionaires, both self-proclaimed fascists, and there were rumours of financing by the Korean CIA. As early as 1978 Moon’s nefarious activities were described in a congressional report, but his preposterous career and outrageous pronouncements continued. Here was a man who could not only truly testify to America’s freedom of religion, but also that there, almost anything was possible under religion’s name.

— Christopher Reed
“The Rev Sun Myung Moon”
The Guardian, September 2, 2012

In its early years in the United States, the Unification Church was widely viewed as little more than a cult, one whose polite, well-scrubbed members, known derisively as Moonies, sold flowers and trinkets on street corners and married in mass weddings. In one of the last such events, in 2009, 10,000 couples exchanged or renewed vows before Mr. Moon on a lawn at Sun Moon University near Seoul. …

In the church’s view, Jesus had failed in his mission to purify mankind because he was crucified before being able to marry and have children. Mr. Moon saw himself as completing the unfulfilled task of Jesus: to restore humankind to a state of perfection by producing sinless children, and by blessing couples who would produce them. …

Often the couples had met only weeks earlier or could speak to each other only through an interpreter. Many had to remain separated for several years, doing church work, before they were allowed to consummate the unions. …

As his church grew more prominent in the 1970s and ’80s, it became embroiled in numerous lawsuits over soliciting funds, acquiring property and recruiting followers. Defectors wrote damaging books. From 1973 to 1986 at least 400 of the church’s flock were abducted by their family members to undergo “deprogramming”…

— Daniel J. Wakin
“Rev. Sun Myung Moon, 92, Self-Proclaimed Messiah Who Built Religious Movement, Dies”
New York Times, September 2, 2012

Moon was reported to be a ritual womanizer. Reportedly, young girls underwent sexual initiation into his cult; he would thus purge them of the Satanic spirits that inhabited Eve and lead them to the Divine Principle. He was jailed for three months in 1955 by South Korean authorities on charges of draft evasion, forgery, pseudo-religion and false imprisonment of a university coed compelled to adopt his religion. The charges were dropped.

Moon teaches that lying is necessary when one is doing God’s work, whether selling flowers in the street or testifying under oath. “The truth is what the Son of God says it is. At the Garden of Eden, evil triumphed by deceiving goodness. To restore original perfection, goodness must now deceive evil. Even God lies very often.”

— Harry V. Martin and David Caul
“Moonies: what Rev. Moon teaches the young”
Napa Sentinel, March 13, 1992
(via RickRoss.com)

And if all of the above weren’t enough to earn Moon permanent enshrinement in Conservative Babylon, here’s one more fact: Mister “Traditional Morality” (who, as you might guess, was rabidly homophobic) was divorced and remarried, and fathered at least one son out of wedlock: “Moon’s first marriage, to Choe Sung-kil, ended in divorce in 1957. He had a son with her and another with Kim Myung-hee, who lived with Moon during the 1950s. In 1960 he married [Hak Ja Han], then a young disciple.” [L.A. Times]

More reading:

• “Unification Church and Rev. Sun Myung Moon,” a large library of archived articles dating back to the 1970s (many of them available nowhere else online), from RickRoss.com

• “Archive: Dark Side of Rev. Moon,” Consortium News

• “The Moonies: Everything you wanted to know about Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church,” Perkel.com

• “‘I was tied with sheets, hit with Bible quotes’,” Miami News, September 4, 1975

• “Father tells how sect influenced his 3 daughters,” AP, September 29, 1975

• “Complaints say Moon’s church uses ‘mind control’ techniques,” AP, October 1, 1975

• “Investigation hits Sun Moon church,” AP, October 6, 1975

• “‘I will conquer and subjugate te world’,” John Cotter, AP, December 23, 1975

• “Inside the Moon cult: Deceit, cunning,” Free Lance-Star, December 23, 1975

• “Sun Myung Moon: Prophet for Profit,” L.H. Whittemore, Modesto Bee, May 27, 1976

[L]ast week Rev. Moon, cult leader and owner of the conservative Washington Times newspaper, participated in a Las Vegas event billed as a “stand against violence” in a community that has suffered a rash of gang-related homicides. According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Rev. Moon went off on a truly bizarre rant, telling the audience that homosexuals, childless couples, and people’s misuse of their “love organs” are destroying society. “The head of [the male] love organ is shaped exactly like a poisonous rattlesnake,” he said. “And just like a rattlesnake, it’s always looking for a hole… If you misuse your love organ, you destroy life, your nation, and your world.” It is no surprise to hear a conservative idiot like Moon blaming society’s ills on gays and/or sex. But childless couples? I guess all that gang violence in Vegas would stop if we just did something about all those dastardly childless couples.

— “Top Ten Conservative Idiots”
Democratic Underground, April 23, 2001

• “Korean connection on Capitol Hill?,” Jack Anderson and Les Whiteen, United Feature Syndicate, November 5, 1976

• “Columnist Anderson quits as bank director,” Miami News, November 22, 1976 (Jack Anderson / Tongsun Park)

• “Bush Praises Sun Myung Moon as ‘Man of Vision’,” Reuters, November 25, 1996

• “Faiths charge Moon with inciting bigotry,” AP, December 29, 1976

• “Reverend Sun Myung Moon Speaks on the Family Federation for Cosmic Peace and Unification and the Cosmic Era of Blessed Family,” Unification.net, May 4, 1997

• “Bush moons America,” Bob Fitrakis, The Free Press, April 1, 2000

• “Rev. Moon son made gun,” Michael Daly, New York Daily News, July 27, 2003 (via Religion News Blog)

• “Fit To Print?,” Ben McGrath, New Yorker, September 8, 2003

• “Bad Moon on the rise,” John Gorenfeld, Salon.com, September 24. 2003

• “Hail to the Moon king,” John Gorenfeld, Salon.com, June 21, 2004 (“The deeply weird coronation of Rev. Sun Myung Moon in a Senate office building — crown, robes, the works — is no longer one of Washington’s best-kept secrets. …”)

• “Kerry Attacker Protected Rev. Moon,” Robert Parry, consortium News, October 15, 2004

• “Heavenly Deception,” Jeff Wells, Rigorous Intuition, February 14, 2005

• “Neil Bush is traveling with Sun Myung Moon, here’s what they are doing,” moonboots, DailyKos, December 2, 2005

• “Why TV news will NOT cover Sun Myung Moon’s influence on our nation,” moonboots, DailyKos, December 15, 2005

• “Some find sushi, and Rev. Moon, hard to swallow,” Eric Zorn, Chicago Tribune, April 13, 2006

• “Bush Sr. To Celebrate Rev. Sun Myung Moon – Again,” James Ridgeway, Mother Jones, April 29, 2007

• “U.S. president’s brother [Neil Bush] visits Paraguay president as guest of Moon-founded group,” Pedro Servin, AP, February 29, 2008

• “Son of Moonies founder takes over as church leader,” Justin McCurry, The Guardian, April 25, 2008

• “Christian Churches Should Stop Using the Cross, Group Says,” Jeff Johnson, cnsnews.com, July 7, 2008
 

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*Harsh? No; realistic. We do remember the 1970s, very well, and how once-rational friends became unthinking zombies thanks to the cults that preyed on the young and the gullible. While some who lived through the era may remember the Hare Krishnas selling flowers as the most annoying group of the Me Generation, this writer was hounded by representatives of various cults who stalked high school campuses. That’s another story for another day — but for now, this writer (who, fortunately, resisted all recruiting efforts) will testify that these cults were strong, relentless, and everywhere.

As for the Moonies, this long list of “Moon Recruiting Fronts” should give you an idea of Moon’s reach.

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4. Carl Everett: No Gays, No Dinosaurs, No Moon Landing, No Sense, No Class
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