WHAT ROUGH BEAST? America sits of the edge

I had not ever considered American religious behavior as another instance of entrepreneurialism. But it is a compelling thought.

Biography for
Marjoe Gortner


Page 10 of 13

Birth name
Hugh Marjoe Ross Gortner
Mini biography

In his early career as the "World's Youngest Ordained Minister" at age 4, Hugh Marjoe Ross Gortner became a Miracle Child extraordinare, preaching gospel from memory and performing faith healings - drawing capacity crowds as he barnstormed throughout the Bible Belt. Marjoe (his name is a combination of "Mary" and "Joseph") eventually became disillusioned with what he considered a huge deception and withdrew from the scene in his teens. But his "God-given" talents for drawing an audience and public speaking were to be put to good use later on.

After singing with a rock band, he found acting. The documentary Marjoe (1972), based on his life as a fake evangelist, introduced the public to a profoundly talented and appealing actor. Marjoe's potent, mesmerizing roles in the TV projects Marcus-Nelson Murders, The (1973) (TV) and Gun and the Pulpit, The (1974) (TV) capitalized on his off-centered flamboyance and led to his big break in films. Unfortunately, most of them, promising as they seemed - Earthquake (1974), Food of the Gods, The (1976), Viva Knievel! (1977), and When You Comin' Back, Red Ryder? (1979) - were dismal failures, and his quest for stardom never materialized. He sort of stumbled through some films in the 80s, but even HE couldn't save such drivel as Mausoleum (1983/I) and Hellhole (1985) from sinking into oblivion. Seen less and less these days, his past work as an actor has grown faint, but Marjoe will always be remembered as the man who blew the whistle on evangelism.
IMDb mini-biography by
Gary Brumburgh / [email protected]
Spouse
? (1960 - ?) (divorced) 1 daughter
Candy Clark (1978 - 1979) (divorced)
Trivia

Former Child Evangelist

His name is a combination of "Mary" and "Joseph", a fact his parents exploited during the child evangelist period of his life.

As a child evangelist Gortner performed his first marriage ceremony at the age of 4.

Billed simply as Marjoe, hit #109 on the Billboard Singles Charts in 1972 with "Lo and Behold" (Chelsea 0107)
Personal quotes

"When I was traveling (as a minister), I'd see someone who wanted to get saved in one of my meetings, and he was so open and bubbly in his desire to get the Holy Ghost. It was wonderful and very fresh, but four years later I'd return and that person might be a hard-nosed intolerant Christian because he had Christ. That's when the danger comes in. People want an experience. They want to feel good, and their lives can be helped by it. But then as you start moving into the operation of the thing, you get into controlling people and power and money."

"I don't have any power. And neither do any of these other guys. Hundreds of people were healed at my crusades, but I know damn well it was nothing I was doing."

Biography for
Sam Kinison


Page 10 of 15

Birth name
Samuel Burl Kinison
Spouse
Malika Souiri (5 April 1992 - 10 April 1992) (his death)
? (1975 - 1980) (divorced)
Terry (? - 1989) (divorced)
Trade mark

His Oh Oooh!!! scream
Trivia

Standup comic.

Started out as preacher, traveled all over the southern U.S. doing tent based revivals.

Interred at Memorial Gardens, Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA.

A long-time hard drinker and drug user, Sam Kinison was (ironically) killed in a traffic accident by a drunk driver.

Father was a preacher

...It is not only Islamic fundamentalists who share such sentiments. From politically correct exponents of proper genderspeak to William Bennett's virtuecrats, the urge to police personal behavior remains formidable here in democratic America. Even Locke himself endorsed laws that provide for the "direction of a free and intelligent agent to his proper interest," adding that it "ill deserves the name of confinement which hedges us in only from bogs and precipices." Why, then, should the state deny itself the power to drain bogs and fence off precipices so as to save the unwise and unwary from themselves?

Here is one answer: People have different concepts of the good life, and any attempt to impose one favored view will be contentious. Contention leads to war, and war is the antithesis of civil peace. So better to leave people to their own ways, wayward though they be.

Here is another response: We are fallible beings who do not always judge correctly concerning matters of right and wrong. Therefore we do well to let people go their own ways rather than take the risk of imposing on them what might be mistaken moral concepts.

These are creditable liberal motifs, sound as far as they go. However, they do not go far enough...

We are still looking for a positive case to be made on behalf of liberal toleration.

That case is offered by William Galston in Liberal Pluralism. Building on theories enunciated by Isaiah Berlin (and, a century earlier, by John Stuart Mill), Galston argues that there is no such thing as the good life. Rather, there are many good modes of human life, and no one of them outranks all the others...

Interview with Gore Vidal...and if the electronic voting bit doesn't scare the pants off ya, the Saladin bit ought to...

Quote:

MARC COOPER: Your new book focuses on Washington, Adams and Jefferson, but it seems from reading closely that it was actually Ben Franklin who turned out to be the most prescient regarding the future of the republic.

GORE VIDAL: Franklin understood the American people better than the other three. Washington and Jefferson were nobles ?- slaveholders and plantation owners. Alexander Hamilton married into a rich and powerful family and joined the upper classes. Benjamin Franklin was pure middle class. In fact, he may have invented it for Americans. Franklin saw danger everywhere. They all did. Not one of them liked the Constitution. James Madison, known as the father of it, was full of complaints about the power of the presidency. But they were in a hurry to get the country going. Hence the great speech, which I quote at length in the book, that Franklin, old and dying, had someone read for him. He said, I am in favor of this Constitution, as flawed as it is, because we need good government and we need it fast. And this, properly enacted, will give us, for a space of years, such government.

But then, Franklin said, it will fail, as all such constitutions have in the past, because of the essential corruption of the people. He pointed his finger at all the American people. And when the people become so corrupt, he said, we will find it is not a republic that they want but rather despotism ?- the only form of government suitable for such a people.



But Jefferson had the most radical view, didn't he? He argued that the Constitution should be seen only as a transitional document.

Oh yeah. Jefferson said that once a generation we must have another Constitutional Convention and revise all that isn't working. Like taking a car in to get the carburetor checked. He said you cannot expect a man to wear a boy's jacket. It must be revised, because the Earth belongs to the living. He was the first that I know who ever said that. And to each generation is the right to change every law they wish. Or even the form of government. You know, bring in the Dalai Lama if you want! Jefferson didn't care.

Jefferson was the only pure democrat among the founders, and he thought the only way his idea of democracy could be achieved would be to give the people a chance to change the laws. Madison was very eloquent in his answer to Jefferson. He said you cannot [have] any government of any weight if you think it is only going to last a year.

This was the quarrel between Madison and Jefferson. And it would probably still be going on if there were at least one statesman around who said we have to start changing this damn thing...

How do you think the current war in Iraq is going to play out?

I think we will go down the tubes right with it. With each action Bush ever more enrages the Muslims. And there are a billion of them. And sooner or later they will have a Saladin who will pull them together, and they will come after us. And it won't be pretty.

http://www.laweekly.com/ink/03/52/features-cooper.php

November 17, 2003
'Hate-Crimes' Push Obscures Real Agenda

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch's (R-UT) newly announced support for Sen. Ted Kennedy's (D-MA) "hate-crimes" bill has given a boost to homosexual activists who have long pushed for this legislation, which adds penalties to existing penalties if it is proven that a crime was perpetrated because the victim was a homosexual. But in a new paper released by FRC today, "Hate Crimes: Beyond Virtual Reality," author and civil rights attorney Leah Farish points out that the justification for "hate-crimes" legislation is faulty at best, and the motivation behind the bill is summed up in one word: marriage.

Homosexual activists know that obtaining "special class" status via "hate-crimes" legislation will significantly increase their chances of getting a court to declare that in the interest of civil rights for this newly protected group, homosexuals must be given the right to marry. And this hidden agenda is not unique to the push for "hate-crimes." Virtually every piece of legislation aggressively pushed by the homosexual lobby is an attempt to gain social approval of their chosen lifestyle and, ultimately, to gain the right to marry.

By clicking below you can read the new FRC publication, "Hate Crimes: Beyond Virtual Reality." This paper is a powerful expose which details the false statistics and flawed justifications that homosexual activists are using to push Ted Kennedy's "hate-crimes" legislation.


Additional Resources
Hate Crimes: Beyond Virtual Reality
http://www.frc.org/index.cfm?i=IS03K01&f=WU03K11

Marriage in 2004: All Eyes on GOP


I was quoted this morning in a Houston Chronicle story which details a debate currently being had within the Republican Party: whether or not to make marriage a major issue in the 2004 elections. The article, which you can read by clicking below, shows that some in the GOP think that protecting marriage is too divisive an issue to allow it to creep into the presidential campaign and various state-wide races going on next year.

It may be divisive, but the preservation of marriage is far too important for it to go unaddressed by candidates seeking the votes of pro-family Americans. That's why FRC launched our Marriage Protection Pledge, which lets voters know whether candidates for state and federal office will stand for the protection of marriage, or whether they will allow this vital institution to be deconstructed and redefined into nothing.

Like with abortion, many politicians seem to think that not addressing controversial issues is the way to win elections. This has been proven wrong time and time again. And with the reality that four million evangelical voters stayed home in 2000, leaving President Bush without the popular vote, it is obvious that pro-life, pro-family voters want to be energized if they are to support a candidate for office.

With every Democratic presidential contender supportive of counterfeiting marriage in one way or another, the GOP would be well-advised to not only address the marriage issue, but to do so unapologetically.


Additional Resources
Houston Chronicle: GOP to Wait, See on Gay Marriage
http://www.frc.org/index.cfm?i=LK03K76&f=WU03K11
The Marriage Protection Pledge
http://www.frc.org/index.cfm?i=AD03J01&f=WU03K11

Medicare Needs Reform, But Not This Kind

This week many in Washington are consumed with reforming Medicare. And, we at FRC agree that serious Medicare reform is needed and we believe that these reforms should include provisions of no price controls, expansion of health savings accounts, cost controls and protection for seniors already covered. But it is clear that the current bill does not meet these four simple provisions.

Medicare is facing certain extinction unless serious reform is undertaken, yet this bill would impose the largest federal entitlement increase since the so called "Great Society." The reported 10 year "cost" of $400 billion for the new benefit is almost certainly a fantasy (Medicare itself now costs seven times more than it was projected to cost when the program was first created in the 1960's.) The bill aims to create a universal entitlement, even though 76 percent of seniors already have drug coverage (and would probably pay more for inferior benefits under the proposal). Even worse, the proposed subsidies will not deter employers from dropping large numbers of retired workers who now have drug coverage.

The "reforms" in the current legislation are merely revamps of the Hillary care legislation of the 1990's that died a well-deserved death. It is now Republicans who are pushing this legislation, with Democrats demanding even more benefits on the taxpayers' dime. This catastrophic legislation is said to be "politically expedient." A better term might be to call it politically inexcusable.

White House Congratulates 'Gay Church'?

Much ado is being made in Washington today about the White House's apparent gaffe in sending a letter to the Metropolitan Community Church in Los Angeles, congratulating it for its 35th anniversary. The MCC is one of the largest homosexual church organizations in the country, and has openly criticized the president's policies on same-sex "marriage" and several other social issues. The president's letter was apparently sent just as we were marking "Marriage Protection Week" back in October.

Today I spoke with the White House about this matter. While on its face this looks troubling, it appears to have been a form letter which does not reflect the previously stated views of the administration on the issue of marriage. We look forward to the White House's official response.

Clergy Group to Counter Conservatives
By LYNETTE CLEMETSON

WASHINGTON, Nov. 14 ?- In an effort to counter the influence of conservative Christian organizations, a coalition of moderate and liberal religious leaders is starting a political advocacy organization to mobilize voters in opposition to Bush administration policies.
The nonprofit organization, the Clergy Leadership Network, plans to formally announce its formation on Friday and will operate from an expressly religious, expressly partisan point of view. The group cannot, under Internal Revenue Service guidelines, endorse political candidates, and it will have no official ties to the Democratic Party.
But the driving purpose of the organization, according to its mission statement, is to bring about "sweeping changes ?- changes in our nation's political leadership and changes in failing public policies."...

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/17/politics/17CLER.html