Randall Terry Urges "Burn In Hell Protests"; Abortion Foe Calls For Burning Pelosi And Reid Effigies

WASHINGTON — Anti-abortion activist Randall Terry is calling on people to burn effigies of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid this Halloween, as part of a "Burn in Hell" video contest to protest the health care legislation in Congress.

Terry, founder of Operation Rescue, said Tuesday that the contest serves as a political and spiritual statement that "gives people a chance to peacefully vent their rage."

"If Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid force us to pay for child killing and they die unrepentant, they will burn in hell for this," Terry said in a telephone interview.

But House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., called the contest "unfortunate."

"I don't think appealing to people's anger and in effect inciting them to acts which either display or in any way project violent acts is consistent with rational discussion of very critical issues," Hoyer told reporters.

A YouTube video of the contest instructions shows how to print a poster of Reid and Pelosi and construct a stand for it. The clip shows a person dousing the Democratic leaders' images with flammable liquid. The next scene shows their picture going up in flames. People are then encouraged to take pictures, record and submit online the footage of their Oct. 31 protests.

"No, this is not a threat to their body," an unidentified man says in the instructional video, "but it is a threat to their soul."

Terry insisted the contest was not a threat to Reid or Pelosi. He contended that the Democrats' plan to overhaul health care would allow federal funding of abortion.

Currently a law called the Hyde amendment bars federal funds for abortion – except in cases of rape and incest or if the mother's life would be endangered. The law applies those restrictions to Medicaid, forcing states that cover abortion for low-income women to do so with their own money. Separate laws apply the restrictions to the federal employee health plan and military and other programs.

The Democrats' health overhaul bill would create a new stream of federal funds not covered by the restrictions.

House Democrats are trying to address anti-abortion lawmakers' concerns by specifying that people receiving government subsidies to buy health insurance couldn't use that money for abortions.

The top prize in the video contest includes a weekend in Washington during the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion.

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Associated Press Writer Erica Werner contributed to this report.

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On the Net:

http://www.overturnroe.com/

Comments

[BoyInBOYCOTT]

01:03 PM on 10/29/2009

Randall Terry is a hate crime against women....w­aiting to happen

[qthedancer]

05:20 AM on 10/29/2009

All this hate-nutte­ry going around under the guise of "Free Speech" makes me really appreciate the value of silence.

[Erzsebet Gilbert]

03:39 AM on 10/29/2009

I'm sure these folks just miss the good old medieval days, ah me, when the government didn't meddle in any sort of health care to treat the Black Death, and if you were scared of somebody you could simply burn her/him at the stake.... imbeciles.

[BambooHarvester]

11:59 PM on 10/28/2009

I only randal terry was aborted the world would be a better place !
~

[artgurrl]

11:23 PM on 10/28/2009

Let's all burn an effigy of Randal Terry and the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins and Paul Cameron then send it in to their contest.

[beyobi]

11:19 PM on 10/28/2009

Ah, some more of that Christian Compassion we hear so much about but see so little evidence of...

[BlogWatcher]

09:15 PM on 10/28/2009

Burn hell protests make about as much sense as a voodoo doll rally

[BlogWatcher]

09:13 PM on 10/28/2009

I'd bet a $1 that if he knocked up one of the ladies he had an affair with that he pay for the abortion faster than you say "child support."

[RTIII]

10:15 PM on 10/28/2009

You betcha.
.

[Ladybug1]

10:18 AM on 10/29/2009

Whaaat?

[BlogWatcher]

09:10 PM on 10/28/2009

He's about as relevant as a Slim Whitman 8-track

[BlogWatcher]

09:06 PM on 10/28/2009

Terry's so 10 years ago.

[Caily]

07:17 PM on 10/28/2009

The bible god killed lots and lots of babies.

Isaiah 13:15-18
Hosea 9:11-16
Isaiah 14:21
Ezekiel 9:5-7
Leviticus 26:21-22

[RTIII]

10:15 PM on 10/28/2009

Thanks for the citations.
.

[RevBookburn]

07:06 PM on 10/28/2009

Randy continues to incite violence as his way of competing with his fellow mullahs for fund-raisi­ng. He faced tough times after his pastor outed him for being a serial cheater with single and married 'rescue' groupies. Then his son outed himself as a gay male in Out magazine and both of his daughters gave birth out of wedlock. In Christian-­Taliban circles, that is serious failure. Now he's in a lawsuit against a fellow violent theocrat for the name 'Operation Rescue.' When Randy leads unstable followers to bombings, shootings and other acts of terrorism, the money and groupies return to him. Rev. Bookburn - Radio Volta

[RTIII]

10:17 PM on 10/28/2009

Wow. Taking it on faith that you are speaking truthfully­, these facts should have been in the article.
.

[BettyTC]

12:05 PM on 10/29/2009

I agree. Shouldn't apparent hypocrisy be included in every article about these terrorists­.

[bgofca]

07:03 PM on 10/28/2009

hate and control that is the republican and religious self righteous,

[Adam Reid]

05:52 PM on 10/28/2009

Terrorists all sound alike in the end. "we are for life and love, but if you disagree with us we will hate you and kill you."

[CherokeeAmerican]

05:21 PM on 10/28/2009

Contrast Randall Terry with Mother Teresa. She is the very epitome of Faith. He's the opposite. It's too bad when people think of a Christian they think of Randall Terry instead of Mother Teresa.

Aged 18, she left home to join the Sisters Of Loreto at Loreto Abbey in Ireland.

Arriving in India to teach at a Catholic convent in 1937, she was horrified by the poverty and death all around her.

But she felt a call to serve God by leaving the convent to help the poor by living among them.

Her nerve almost failed her after she was forced to beg on the streets just to feed herself.

"While looking for a home, I walked till my arms and legs ached," she wrote in her diary at the time.

Tired, lonely, hungry and depressed, she was tempted to return to the structured life of the convent.

She wrote that the "Tempter" kept telling her to go and live in comfort. But "of free choice, my God, and out of love for you, I desire to remain and do whatever be your Holy will in my regard. I did not let a single tear come".

Mother Teresa said, "By dying on the Cross, God had made himself the hungry one, the naked one, the homeless one - and Jesus's hunger is what you and I must find and alleviate.­"

"A beautiful death," she said, "is for people who lived like animals to die like angels - loved and wanted."