Back to the Aug 2004 Newsletter Index

Truth Tour is Ultimate 'Reality Show'

Driving home from work in Bel Air June 18, Dave Campion was amazed to see dozens of pro-lifers strung out along Route 24 holding large posters of aborted babies.  

He stopped his car, got out, and thanked them warmly for what they were doing.

“America is crazy about reality shows—well, this is reality!” he exclaimed, gesturing at the signs.

The Bel Air demonstration was the last of 15 stops on Defend Life’s five-day, fourth annual summer Face the Truth Tour, in which some 700 pro-lifers willingly endured sweltering heat and humidity, fatigue, name-calling and countless middle fingers to bring hundreds of thousands of Marylanders face-to-face with the ugly reality of abortion.

The week-long reality show was packed with scenes of passion, pathos—sometimes even comedy—as motorists and pedestrians, police and businessmen reacted in startlingly candid, often gut-level fashion to giant photos depicting the grisly results of abortion.

Every stop produced its own mini-drama.

Here are a few.

The Mysterious Man in the Tux

Why would anyone stand along a curb holding a sign on a hot, muggy day wearing a black tuxedo?

That’s what two reporters from the Herald-Mail wanted to know when they spotted Gorman Palmer at the midday Truth Tour stop in Hagerstown June 14.

“The reporters zeroed in on him,” said Hagerstown stop co-captain Janet Neel.

The answer was relatively simple:  Palmer is a member and past Grand Knight of the Knights of Columbus Pangbourne Council 1365, and proud of it, so he wore the same tux he wears to K of C functions.

“I’m very much pro-life, and the Knights of Columbus is too,” he explained; “we have our own pro-life programs.”

The reporters grilled him for a long time, said Neel.

“They kept pumping me,” said Gorman.  “I tried to watch what I said.  They asked me how many grandchildren I had—I said six.  

“Then they asked me if I would show my grandchildren the pictures.  I said sure!  Although I added that some of them were very young and probably wouldn’t understand them.”

The result, said Janet, was “a fair and balanced article” in the next day’s Herald-Mail.  “They gave us a third of a page, and a great picture of Gorman.

“The Holy Spirit was really active,” she concluded.

Man Sees Sign - Baby Lives

Tuesday, June 15, started out hot and humid for the 40-plus pro-lifers facing heavy early morning traffic on Rockville Pike near Montrose Road.

“There were the usual number of people giving us the finger,” said Rockville stop co-captain Dick Retta; “but we were getting many more thumbs up.”

A Hispanic man came over from the parking lot at Toys R Us and stared at the large, graphic signs.  Then he took a pamphlet (“How can these fanatics show these disgusting images?”) from Tabitha Watts.

“He told me his wife was pregnant, but he didn’t want the baby,” the teenager recalled.

“It wasn’t because he didn’t have the money—he said he just wasn’t ready.  But he said after he saw the signs, he couldn’t make his wife do that.”

The jubilant pro-lifers gave thanks at a 10 a.m. Mass celebrated by Fr. Thomas Morrow at St. Catherine Laboure Church.

Making An Ugly Connection

For the second year in a row, the Truth Tour came to the Holocaust Museum in the nation’s capital.

Choosing this location was deliberate, and in case passersby didn’t make the connection, pro-lifers manning their signs during evening rush hour June 15 were quick to point it out.

“This is America’s holocaust,” signholder Anthony Sheehan shouted to the crowds of people entering or leaving the museum.  “Four thousand babies were killed by abortion today, and four thousand will be killed tomorrow.”

John Mihm, who traveled from Pittsburgh to join the tour, was even more direct. He held a sign of aborted “Baby Malachi” side-by-side with a poster showing gaunt victims of the Nazi Holocaust.

A serious-looking Jewish youth stopped and asked Olga Fairfax, “Why are you here today?”

She told him, “Because we want to get the truth out.”

After the Nazi Holocaust, she said, “People said, ‘Never again!’  There’s nothing we can do to change that holocaust—but the abortion holocaust we can stop today.”

The young man shook Olga’s hand before he walked off.

“He seemed to agree with me,” she said.

Once again, the Holocaust stop proved to be an excellent location because the many pedestrians, unlike motorists, could stop, study the pictures, accept brochures and talk at length with the pro-lifers.

Cathy Roth gave away her whole stack of brochures to just one group of curious high schoolers.

“One of their adult leaders thanked me, and another woman in the group gave me thumbs up,” said Cathy.

But adults more often proved adept at ignoring the signs.  One woman gestured at the posters dismissively, telling her companion, “Don’t even look at them, they're terrible.”

A pro-lifer called out, “Yes, they are—that’s the whole point!”

In contrast, many high schoolers and middle schoolers stopped and gawked at the signs.

“Teenage girls are the ones that are most shocked,” said pro-lifer Mary Sims.  "They keep saying, ‘Oh, my God!’”

Some teenage girls, having seen the signs on their way in, in a poignant acknowledgement of their horror, held one hand next to their eyes to avoid seeing them on the way out.

Police saturated the area:  Metropolitan police, museum security officers, and—a new wrinkle from last year’s stop—Homeland Security police.

Holocaust Museum stop co-captain Grace Sims was taking pictures of fellow pro-lifers in front of the museum when a plainclothes Homeland Security officer yelled at her not to photograph the museum entrance.

“If I see you take a photo of it, I’ll put you in jail!” he barked.

The startled pro-lifer meekly replied that she wouldn’t.

Young Chrissie Watts, standing in front of the museum with her sign, was wilting under a barrage of negative jibes from adult passersby.

“It was really bumming me out,” said the teenager.  “But then this young girl, about my age, leaned over and whispered, ‘Thank-you for doing this.’”

Stone Soldiers, Stony Faces

While Face the Truthers circled the Legg Mason building in downtown Baltimore, five pro-lifers broke off from the main group and headed for the Catholic Center on Cathedral Street.

There they displayed large posters that read, “William Cardinal Keeler, bravely refuse Holy Communion to pro-abortion Senator Barbara Mikulski,” next to photos of the cardinal and the senator.

“A couple of people came to the door, looked out, ran back, and fifteen minutes later more people came out,” said demonstrator Kevin Davis.

“They were stone soldiers; they walked by us with their chins up, pretending not to see the signs.”

In Washington, D.C., two days earlier, five Truthers had made a similar side-demonstration at St. Matthews Cathedral.

Their signs read, “Theodore Cardinal McCarrick, bravely refuse Holy Communion to pro-abortion Senator Ted Kennedy.”

The reverse side of the signs named Senator John Kerry.

People leaving the cathedral after Mass gave the demonstrators and their signs “stony looks,” said Jack Ames.

A Little Problem With The Police

The late afternoon Truth Tour stop in Frederick June 14 left in its wake a spate of letters to the editor of the Frederick News-Post, two guys holding tickets for "willfully defying a police officer,” and a stop co-captain who, in spite of “a little problem with the police,” felt that on the whole, things “went well.”

“We had a good turnout, over a hundred people—probably the best we’ve had,” said stop co-captain Jody Hammond.

Co-captain Rev. Luke Robinson, pastor of Quinn Chapel AME Church in Frederick, brought 20 of his parishioners to the demonstration.

“He’s a vibrant, inspiring speaker,” said Mrs. Hammond; “he feels that this is a big issue in the black community.”

Apparently, two girls who drove by the picketers didn’t share their enthusiasm. They called the police, who told the pro-lifers that were on the median strip they would have to move.

They moved, but not before two of the men riled the officers by asking why it was necessary to do so.

It was unsafe, and it was a state law, the police insisted, ticketing them and fining them $265 each.

Calling the fines “rather excessive,” Jody added, “I think they’re going to fight it.”

The Frederick News-Post carried a “fair, fairly long” news story with a photo on the demonstration, and several letters, pro and con.

“On June 14, those of us who travel U.S. 40 were treated to a grisly and troubling sight,” wrote Jeana Beaulieu.  “Parents with young children should not have to explain such things over the supper table at night.”

“Tell them the truth,” retorted Victor Musto in a follow-up letter—“that some people believe this to be a matter of choice, but in reality it is killing a life.

“Tell them that this is wrong and should be stopped.  What is so hard about
that?”

Super Fresh Gets Super Nasty OR The Case Of The Reluctant Tow Truck Driver

When 35 Face the Truthers parked their cars and started unloading their signs in the Super Fresh lot at Fairmount and Dulaney Valley roads in Towson the morning of June 17, the store manager “was all up in arms,” said pro-lifer Cookie Harris.

Even though there were plenty of parking spaces, she said, “He yelled, ‘You’re not customers; I want you out of here!’ and he called the police.”

Hoping to placate him, the pro-lifers went in the store and bought refreshments.

The manager’s wrath was not assuaged.  Once the food was bought, they were no longer customers, he reasoned.  He threatened to call a tow truck.

“Sir, we’re almost done; we’ll be out of here in 15 minutes.  Could you just cool down?” said Cookie.

Her pleadings fell on deaf ears.  In due time the tow truck arrived.  By then, the Truthers were loading their signs back into their van.

“Please don’t tow any of us,” Harris begged the tow truck driver.

The driver grinned.  “I’m with you,” he confided.  He managed to drag his feet long enough for the Truthers to make a clean getaway.

Assessing the Towson stop, stop co-captain Mara Herzberger conceded, “I think it was a rather hostile area—sort of a yuppie area.”

Sue Priest, however, noted one mitigating incident:  while the irate store manager was summoning police and tow trucks, a young man was cutting the grass where the pro-lifers stood with their signs.

“He was very polite,” Sue noted.  “He cut around us.”

Battle Lines Are Being Drawn

At high noon in downtown Baltimore on June 17, the thermometer hit 93 humidity-drenched degrees.

The sun baked the 60 Face the Truthers ringing the Legg Mason building near the Inner Harbor to a soggy crisp.

“It was danged hot,” said stop co-captain Daria Phair.

Her husband Monty was holding a poster of an aborted baby on Pratt Street when four or five teenaged boys stopped to stare at it.

“They were shocked,” said Phair.  “They said, ‘That’s horrible!’”

He asked them if they had ever seen the results of abortion before, and they said no.  They asked for literature.

“For those boys it was educational.  They’re not getting this message anywhere else; no one in the media covers this.”

Phair noted a “mixed reaction” from the many walkers who passed by during lunch hour, but most were positive.

“Some people walked up and said, ‘Thank God you’re out here doing what you’re doing.’”

Monty didn’t start out being a fan of Face the Truth tours.

“When I first saw the posters, I was aghast,” he admitted.

But after he witnessed the varied reactions to them, he realized that “this is very, very important.”

Because abortion can be stopped, he reasoned, “The truth is more important than any individual, temporary offense” the signs might generate.

Recently, he said, he has been starting to see people that are not just pro-abortion, but anti-Christian:  “They’re against our whole philosophy and religion.”

This year one young man driving by shouted at him, “Hasn’t Christianity done enough harm over the centuries?”

“The battle lines are being drawn,” Monty reflected.  “This is really a culture war; we are fighting against principalities and powers.

“A lot of people would like to see churches closed and us silenced, because we’re a threat to their lifestyle.”

Westminster Yanks Out The Welcome Mat

First off, St. John’s Catholic Church asked Westminster stop co-captain Vice Perticone not to hold the Face the Truth stop in front of the church any more.

For three years, the Westminster stop, with its record number of participants, had been held on Route 140 adjacent to the church.

But the priests were getting phone calls from parishioners threatening to quit the church or stop giving if they permitted the tour at that location again.

Said Vince, “Fr. [Brian] Nolan asked me not to have it in front of the church.  All the priests at St. John’s support pro-life activities; it’s just for this activity they disagree.”

So in the late afternoon of June 16, one hundred-plus Face the Truthers stationed themselves a half-mile south of St. John’s on Route 140, at the busy intersection with Center Street.

Officials at the intersection’s two malls and two car dealerships immediately sprang into action, to a man insisting that their property lines extended all the way to the road, and ordering the pro-lifers off of “their property.”

“You can’t be here,” a manager at Len Stoler’s Chevrolet told the pro-lifers; “the police are on their way.”

Until the police came and made the Truthers move, Len Stoler employees kept up a steady stream of invective and harassment.

“I didn’t pay much attention to what they said,” said Kelly Drew, a pretty teenager from York, Pa.  “I was trying to say the Rosary.”

Down the street, the Koons Toyota manager also got the police to kick the pro-lifers off from in front of his business.

While Defend Life Director Jack Ames was parleying with police at Cranberry Square Shopping Center, Vince was holding a “very diplomatic” conversation with a young security official from the Town Mall of Westminster, who said that the manager wanted them to move off “his property.”

“I told him that this is taxpayers’ property—the bully pulpit of the poor man,” said Perticone.

“I said that I was with the Knights of Columbus, and what church I was with, to show him I wasn’t fly-by-night, I was a local citizen.  I was very cordial.”

Vince and his contingent held their ground until the scheduled 5:30 end of the stop.

Actually, none of the Truthers left; they just shuffled around to different locations.

“Some people would slam down on their gas pedal in anger, and yell and curse,” said Perticone.  “But we had much more agreement than disagreement—people beeping and giving us the thumbs up.

“We had two cute little kids, about 9 and 12, the last in line, holding signs that said, ‘Hurt by Abortion?’ with the Project Rachel number, and ‘Need Pregnancy Assistance?’ with a phone number.

“A lot of people liked them.”

Nothing But Good Things

To the naïve or uninitiated, a five-day, fifteen-stop Face the Truth Tour may look easy.

But as Tour Director Nancy Bradford says, in a masterpiece of understatement, “It can get a little tricky at times.”

Getting 21 core members, who travel the entire tour, to all 15 stops reasonably on schedule, not to mention arranging all the stops in between for meals, for Mass, and for overnight accommodations; meeting up with and coordinating a different group of pro-lifers at each stop (and making sure they don’t get run over, or dehydrated in the excruciating heat and humidity) can be a logistical nightmare.

Coping with unpredictable weather, unfriendly media, recalcitrant business owners and the often arbitrary and capricious demands of police can be Stress City.

But the bottom line, says Bradford, was, “Did people see the signs?  Yes, they did.”

Especially the young girls, she says:  “And they really looked.  They are the ones who will be faced with these decisions; if and when they are, hopefully, these pictures will come to mind.”

Despite the glitches, says Bradford, “I kept being reminded that God was in charge—by the times the rain would hold off until right after we ended a stop and got into our cars.  Or the times that I was really upset—and it would rain and there would be a rainbow.”

“Overall, the impact was fantastic,” says Defend Life Director Jack Ames.  

“We got so much positive feedback!  There was an awful lot of waving and honking, and people wrote us checks for $50, and handed us $10 and $1 bills.

“It’s very encouraging to me that we’re doing what we should be doing—employing an effective way to counter the culture of death.”

Both Nancy and Jack praised the enthusiasm and the camaraderie of the hundreds of pro-life participants.

“The core team was very upbeat,”Ames notes.  

Their spirits were often buoyed by breaks for Mass and pep talks by noted pro-lifers such as Joe Scheidler and Margaret Heckler.

Especially uplifting was an impromptu 15-minute organ recital after Mass at Baltimore’s Cathedral of Mary Our Queen by Priests for Life’s Fr. Dennis Wilde.

Looking to the future, Jack predicts, “We’ve just hit the tip of the iceberg.  

“There are hundreds of places we could be doing mini-Face the Truth tours:  for example, in front of the Sunpapers building on Calvert Street during rush hour, or on the main thoroughfares through Catholic and Howard Universities in Washington.

“I see nothing but good things coming out of this.”

Chickens, 1 - Human Babies, 0

At the final Truth Tour stop in Bel Air in the late afternoon of June 18, pro-lifer Cathy Smith held a sign along Route 24 because Fr. Walter Quinn of Priests for Life had convinced her it was the right thing to do.

At the tour’s June 12 kick-off dinner at her parish, St. Mary of the Assumption in Pylesville, she recalled, “Father said that most people don’t know what abortion is; they think they know, but until they see the pictures, they don’t.”

Persuaded by his arguments, the mother of four young children joined 55 other pro-lifers lined up along both sides of the heavily trafficked artery near Route 1.

Honk for Life signs elicited a deafening chorus of approval, with tractor trailer drivers pulling on their air horns to provide the bass.  

“People were blowing their horns like crazy!” said Pat Frederick.

A bizarre, off-key note was sounded by two young men who inserted themselves in the line of pro-lifers, holding a hand-lettered sign reading, “I’m with stupid,” with an arrow pointing toward pro-lifer Marie Neuberger.

Marie responded to their gratuitous insult with a few choice words.

Their weird presence attracted four or five more pro-abortion youths, who engaged several pro-lifers in heated debate.

All animal life is of equal value, the teens insisted; a chicken, or even a snake, is as valuable as a person.

Therefore, because pro-lifers eat meat, i.e., kill animals, they have no right to tell anyone they can’t “choose” abortion.

On a more rational note, Tim Fahrenholz was approached by a woman who thanked the pro-lifers for being there.

“She told us that years ago, she was going to have an abortion, but she changed her mind, and now she has six children.

“She gave me a hug and a check.”