Some
Nebraska and Omaha censors are crackpots who have no credibility.
Fremont has (or had) a censorship
group similar to the Omaha for Decency censorship group, called
Fremont Area Citizens for Decency. Like Omaha for Decency, the
Fremont group tried to get stores to stop selling sexually explicit
materials and tried to get the city to impose censorship. One of the
persons who has served as vice president of Fremont
Area Citizens for Decency is Margaret Kaspar. (Omaha
World Herald 4/4/1991, Fremont
Tribune 6/8/1991)
In
June 1999, Margaret Kaspar told the Omaha World Herald that
God had supernaturally transformed one of her dental crowns into
solid gold! (Omaha
World Herald, 6/27/1999 & 6/29/1999) When Kaspar had her dentist,
Dr. James Wewel in Fremont, look at the crown he informed her that the crown already had a gold color when it was put in
(although it was not actually made of gold). But Kaspar still stood
by her dental miracle claim without even having the material from
the crown analyzed. Apparently Kaspar is a complete nutcase. Do you
want crackpots like this dictating what you can and cannot read or
watch?
Of
course this is not meant to suggest that people are crackpots just because they have devout religious beliefs.
(Devout religious people are among those who agree that these dental
miracle claims are absurd, such as the author of this article at www.str.org.) But crackpots like Kaspar
made these bizarre claims even when there was obvious
evidence which contradicted their claims. Another person from the Omaha area who claimed that his silver
dental fillings had been miraculously transformed by God into
gold let an Omaha World Herald staff member look
into his mouth. The person from the World Herald saw
that the fillings were still
silver.
In another case, the person jumped to the
conclusion that a filling was miraculously transformed into gold before
her dental records, located in a different country, could even be
checked to see if gold (or gold colored material) had been put in
originally. A fourth person interviewed by the World Herald was not even willing to have his dental miracle claim investigated at all, stating
that, "I feel in my heart that
this is true." This person believed it happened without even having his dental records checked or the tooth examined by a dentist. Basically, he believed it happened just because he wanted to believe it happened. In fact, as far as the World Herald could
determine, none of the people from the Omaha area who made these claims
agreed to have the material analyzed to determine its content.
Margaret
Kaspar was inspired to check her teeth for dental "miracles"
after her pastor, Les Beauchamp of Trinity Church Interdenominational
in Omaha, believed them and preached about them. Beauchamp
is listed as a supporter of Omaha for Decency's
anti-porn crusade in a newspaper ad placed by the group
in the
7/9/2000 Omaha World Herald. (A copy of the ad can be viewed here.)
Pastor Beauchamp preached that these "miracles" have been
reported worldwide. What he obviously didn't mention, though, is
that the people in various places who have made these claims have
later found that their dental records prove a dentist put in
the gold dental work. In other cases, observers saw that
the dental work was still silver.(References) This, of course, is the same
pattern shown by the people from Omaha who made these claims.
Two other pastors who believed
these so called miracles are Pastor Ray Mayhew (also from
Trinity Church Interdenominational) and Pastor Rod Whitlock of
Bellevue Christian Center. Both of these pastors are also listed as
supporters of Omaha for Decency in their anti-porn ad.
No wonder Omaha for
Decency claims that eliminating porn would reduce sex crimes.
Some of their supporters are so gullible, they'll believe almost
anything. (The claim that eliminating porn would reduce sex
crimes is a myth, and is discussed on another section of this site.) Do you want these nutcases deciding what you can or cannot read or watch? Of course not. They have no
credibility.
|