by Alan Sears
Chapter Four
AFTER THE FESTIVITIES and the public reception were over, John Knox Smith made his way upstairs to the conference room of his office suite, located just around the corner from the attorney general’s office on the prestigious fifth floor of the Justice Building. His first staff appointees were assembled and waiting for him with smiles all around. A worker was tacking the last corner of a thick, new, dark red carpeting in place. Someone had taped a laser printed sign to the office door, which read: Diversity and Tolerance Enforcement Division. Below that someone had scrawled in red ink, “We Stop the Hate!”
There were more congratulatory remarks and compliments on a speech well delivered. John enjoyed and endured the hubbub but mostly he wanted to get to work. Ten minutes after his entrance, the man laying the carpet gathered his tools and slipped from the room. The smell of new carpet hung heavy in the air. John stepped to the head of the conference table and sat.
“Thank you for agreeing to an after-hours meeting,” John said. “It’s been a full day—”
A tall man with dark hair highlighted by just the right amount of gray at the temples stepped through the door. He wore a suit that John was certain cost a month’s salary. John immediately stood.
“Mr. Attorney General.”
“Hi John.” Alton Stamper’s voice was the kind coveted by radio broadcasters and he knew how to use it. “Sorry to interrupt. I just wanted to pass on the president’s compliments. He said he wished he could have been here, but it just wasn’t possible.”
“No problem, sir. I imagine being president can be time-consuming.” Some of his team chuckled.
“I can only stay a moment; I have people waiting in my office.”
John said, “Let me introduce you to the team. I don’t believe you’ve met them face to face.”
“I’ve only met them through résumés, your recommendations, and background checks. It’s good seeing them in person.” He grinned. “They all look better than their photos.”
“Let me start with Donna Lewis, our chief of staff.” He motioned to a woman in her mid-fifties with shoulder-length brown hair, a round face, and a disarming smile, who looked more like a young grandmother than a woman with a mind that operated like a Cray computer. “She rides herd on us to make sure we’re not napping when we should be working.”
“That’s good to know,” Stamper said. “Someone has to crack the whip.” He nodded at Donna who looked a tad embarrassed.
“This is Joel Thevis, lead attorney. He will be overseeing many of the cases that go to trial.” Joel was tall, thin, dapper, and sported a full head of hair, much of which was gray.
Stamper stepped to the table to shake the man’s hand. “Glad you’re on board, counselor. I’m impressed with your track record in court.”
“Thank you, Mr. Attorney General. It’s a pleasure to be part of the team.”
John continued. “Seated next to Joel is Special Agent Paul Atoms, head of the DTEP Enforcement Unit and liaison to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.” Paul was not as tall as John but his wide shoulders made up for it. His goatee sported more hair than his head.
Paul stood and shook Stamper’s hand. “It’s an honor, Mr. Attorney General.”
“The honor is mine.”
John motioned to a woman seated to Paul Atom’s left. “Meet Postal Inspector Sandra Evans, from the Prohibited Mailings Section. As you know, she’s an expert in nonprofit mailings.” Sandra’s hair was the color of anthracite and hung to her shoulders. Her skin tone and eye color betrayed her Italian linage.
“I do know that.”
Sandra started to rise but Stamper stopped her with an upraised hand. “Don’t get up on my account.” He shook her hand.
“And next to her,” John said, nodding at a man with a thick neck and belly, and light brown hair clipped close to the scalp, “is Special Agent Bob Maas of the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation Division and Public Policy Enforcement Exempt Organizations.”
“Good to meet you, Special Agent.” Another hand shake.
“Just Bob in this office, sir. Thank you.”
John gave his boss a moment to move around the table, then said, “Reverend Lynn Barrett. She is the Blaine Administration’s outside liaison.” Lynn, with her short dirty-blond hair and easy smile, could have portrayed anyone’s mom on television. Nonetheless, it would be a mistake to underestimate her drive and talent. “She also serves as pastor of the Metropolitan Urban Church and is here representing religious minorities.”
Again, Stamper extended his hand. “Your reputation proceeds you, Reverend.”
“Thank you, sir. It is my privilege to serve.”
“And the last member of our core team is Reneé X, of OneAmerika, representing racial and sexual minorities. She is former counsel for the ACLU.” Reneé was an African-American woman in her late forties. She had a ready smile, a temper, and the ability to hold a grudge for a decade or more. She was the activist of the group.
“John has made me aware of your work… Do I call you Ms. X?”
Reneé grinned. “I know my decision to change my last name as a mild protest to social contrivance has confused many. Reneé will be fine. It is what I prefer.”
“All right, Reneé it is.” Stamper stepped away from the conference table. He turned to face the group again. “I want you to know the pride I feel when I see dedicated people like you. I don’t see government employees and advisors here; I see heroes dedicated to making the United States the country it can be and should be.” He looked at John. “Thank you for the introduction, John. I’ll let you get back to it.” He made a slight motion to leave, then stopped and made eye-contact with John. “Oh, one bit of advice if I may. Don’t work too late tonight. This is your day. Enjoy it. You can work late tomorrow.”
The group chuckled and Attorney General Alton Stamper left the room.
LESS THAN TWO minutes had passed since the attorney general left when John called the team back to order. “Okay folks, we have a lot to cover this evening and I don’t want to keep anyone late. We all know our mission and the work that is ahead. Still, a little reminder can provide motivation. Reneé has something to show us. Reneé, let’s see what you’ve got.”
Donna punched a remote control and the lights dimmed. A moment later a video began to play on a flat-screen television mounted to the front wall of the conference room. Several of the group shifted their seats to gain a better view. The video showed a heavy-set man standing behind a large Plexiglas pulpit. The subtitle identified him as the senior pastor of Cornerstone Fellowship in Atlanta. He held an open Bible in his right hand as he spoke. Donna increased the volume slightly. The preacher’s voice echoed in the room:
“Hear me, dear ones! The Word of God is very clear on this. Any man or woman who will not repent of the wickedness of homosexual sin—the very sin of Sodom and Gomorrah, with all the evils of homosexual and lesbian behaviors—and give his or her life to Jesus Christ, will be condemned to an eternity in hell. That’s what it says right here!” He lifted the Bible above his head. “This is the truth. There’s no way around it.”
After a short pause while the congregation responded with applause and muffled shouts, the preacher backed away from the pulpit and said, “So what does this mean for you and me? It means we must stand firm in our opposition to every effort of the homosexual community and of the so-called Supreme Court to redefine family. God forbid! But that’s their goal. They may have won a victory with the Supreme Court, but believers everywhere know that the Supreme Court is not the Supreme Being!”
A chorus of amen and halleluiah rose from the congregation.
“Make no mistake, dear ones, these people are well-funded and well-organized. We need prayer. I want you to pray with me now, I want you to pray in Jesus’ name. I want you to pray for all those who are confused and trapped in that deadly lifestyle. The forces of darkness are on the march and they have taken many captives. Pray that, by God’s grace, this
nation will be able to turn back the shadows of darkness from our land before it’s too late.”
“That’s probably enough, Donna,” Reneé said. “Thank you.”
Donna paused the video and the lights came up. There were muffled expletives and groans.
John rubbed his eyes as if trying to squeeze the images from his mind. “Unbelievable.” He looked up. “That’s precisely what I’ve been talking about. That kind of talk is unacceptable in this day and age.” He leaned back in his chair. “Do you know what really scares me? We may not be able to get a conviction on a madman like that. The jury might just vote to acquit this guy, on the grounds of insanity!”
There was a moment of silence as John and the others reflected on what they had just seen. John continued. “No normal person would believe that anyone in America could still speak that way. He’s not preaching a sermon; he’s launching a crusade. To make matters worse, this character is a preacher, a person who claims to teach love. Instead of love, he’s preaching hatred and bigotry. We’ve got to shut these people down. If any of us—”
Reneé said, “This guy is just one example. I can give you a dozen worse than this one.”
“I know, believe me, I know.” John inched closer to the table. “At some point I want everyone to see them all, but this example really makes the point. Good work, Reneé. Keep it up. From here on, our top priority must be to deal with guys like this. We need to stop him and others like him.”
“It’s going to be a war,” Reneé said. “That’s the only term I can think of—war.”
“We’re ready for that. Let’s just hope it’s like the FBI’s war on the Mafia back in the eighties. Once all the Mafia dons and fat cats were in jail and their assets seized, it was easy to nail their subordinates. It’s amazing how little courage these folks have when they lose their money and their limousines, do a perp walk in front of the TV cameras, and are looking at twenty years in federal prison.”
John was proud of the team he had assembled. Each had been handpicked by him and Attorney General Stamper had personally approved each one. The law enforcement group had a proven track record of pursuing “targets” and a hunger for personal advancement. To John, they were tireless defenders of justice and equality. The outside liaisons, the Reverend Lynn Barrett and Reneé X, were a first for the Justice Department, which had never before paid for full-time advisors—another coup for John and the DTED.
Some on the team had served with John on the national Hate Speech Task Force. Their effort led directly to the landmark 5–4 Supreme Court ruling, Liberty Free Church v. United States of America three years before. That ruling helped make the new initiatives possible. The case, involving a reexamination of all previous broadcast laws and regulations, made it clear that the free speech guarantees of the First Amendment were never intended to shield bigoted or hateful expression that harms another person’s or group’s sense of equality and acceptance.
The decision upheld the Federal Communications Commission’s cease and desist order against reading certain Bible passages and sermon comments over publicly owned airwaves, and eventually forced the Virginia-based national television ministry of Rev. Jeremiah Helton to shut down.
Normally, the Solicitor General, supported by a team of FCC and DOJ lawyers, would have argued the case, but since John had done such an impressive and thorough job of pulling everything together, Attorney General Stamper made a special appeal for John to make the argument. The overlap of the Liberty case with so many of the ongoing hate-crimes investigations within the DOJ at that time was too great to ignore. It was John who had formulated the charges, tracked down the critical evidence, and made the case against Helton in the first place. It was only fair that he should be the one to head the litigation effort.
John had moved the case through the District Court and the Court of Appeals, predicting all along that it would eventually land in the high court. When it did, Alton Stamper convinced his colleagues to put everything in John’s capable hands. John led the joint prosecution, and his victory helped propel him to a lead role in passing the new RDTA legislation. Those successes led straight to his groundbreaking promotion and leadership role at DTED.
John rose from his seat like a newly crowned king. “Friends, as I said at the ceremony this morning, our long national nightmare is about to be over, once and for all. The end is in sight but we’ve got a lot of work to do to get there. I’m not sure how many of you know that, at Princeton, I studied ethical theology and sociology before I went to law school. In those studies, I learned that the history of this world is one long horrible tale of hatred, intolerance, and violence motivated by religious bigotry. World leaders of the last century killed millions in the name of their fatuous religious beliefs and erroneous views of truth.”
He shook his head like a disappointed parent. “Untold millions died based on distorted biblical justifications. The former autocrats of the Catholic Church, John Paul II and Benedict XVI, willingly endangered the health of millions around the world by convincing their followers that there was something wrong with a woman exercising her reproductive right to choose. I’ve spent years studying religious activity in our society, and it’s clear to me that a new era of intolerance and terrorism is right around the corner. This demands that we take swift and decisive action. Reneé said earlier this would be a war. She’s right. All just wars are fought for freedom and safety. So it is with this war. Our enemy isn’t a foreign country. Our enemy lives and thrives in this country; they live on our streets. Millions are depending on us for freedom and safety. Our uniforms are suits; our weapons words and the law. We must do our jobs well. No one else is going to do this. In this war, we are the ones on point. We will be the first to see battle.”
“Amen to that,” Lynn Barrett said.
John continued. “You may have noticed that I didn’t ask my spouse or child to come to today’s ceremony. My purpose was to avoid any suggestion of bias for anyone who may hold other views on marriage and child rearing. It was a tough decision but it was an important statement to make.”
Turning his attention to his chief of staff, he said, “Donna, your staffing report shows that we’ve got three or four applicants for every prosecuting attorney slot on the team. That’s great, but I want to start slowly with a crack team, so I’d like you to pick the top twenty Ivy League candidates, preferably those currently with Justice, and get them transferred to us before the week is out. Be careful to exclude anyone who has any religious preferences or biases.”
“Will there be any particular criteria for orientation, gender, or racial mix that you’d like me to use in addition to the Department’s standard minimums?” Donna said.
“No, not for now. As we ramp up, we’ll probably want to increase the mix in some areas for special expertise. We want to make sure that all the oppressed minorities are represented on the team, especially gender differentiated persons who really understand the effects of religious intolerance and hate speech in this society. But for now, see what you come up with in the current pool of applicants.”
“Got it,” Donna said.
John nodded as Andrea entered with a small stack of documents, including the agency’s “Organizational Objectives.” He flipped the switch on a large flat-screen monitor, then turned to the keyboard of his laptop computer. “Okay. As I outlined in my testimony before Congress last week, here are the key goals of this organization.”
John read each item aloud. “Organizational Objectives:
“All: Identify organizations and individuals in open and flagrant violation of the United States Respect for Diversity and Tolerance Act (RDTA)...
THEY DISCUSSED THE items on the list for an hour and when they finished the last item, Paul Atoms spoke up. “Does anybody remember the famous raid in Miami back in 2000, when the DOJ snatched that Cuban kid who was being held illegally by his right-wing relatives? That story made front page news for weeks. We all know how dangerous some of those Christian leaders can
be, and we know that a lot of them have weapons. And that’s why that raid went down with such a show of force. I think the danger is even greater these days.”
Atoms turned to John. “If you agree, sir, I’d like to begin my project by cross-checking gun registrations, hunting licenses, National Rifle Association memberships, and all the data I can get my hands on, to determine who we need to keep an eye on. As long as we know which ones are armed and dangerous, we’ll be able to make arrests with a full detail of protective forces when the time comes—if it comes to that.”
“I agree, Paul,” John said. “Safety is a huge concern, and I don’t want you taking any risks when you investigate these cases. Be sure that any time you go into one of these dangerous places, you take plenty of firepower. I don’t want federal employees getting hurt. We can’t have any more murders like Ronnie Lee Jefferson’s. I would rather conduct a handful of raids with twenty or thirty agents than a lot more with inadequate safety precautions. Be sure you let the major news networks know when we’re going in. We want to give these arrests all the coverage we can. The media coverage helps with deterrence.”
Atoms nodded. “Yes, sir, I can do that.”
“I appreciate this kind of proactive thinking, Paul. When we were building this team, I asked each agency for their best people, and you’ve just shown me that we got them. As we recruit for our DTED Enforcement Unit, be sure to weed out those FBI folks stuck in that old “follow the Constitution” mode; we can’t afford to have anything slow us down.”
“Got it,” Atoms said.
“As you work with the support staff in your agencies, I hope you’ll spread the word. We want the best and brightest to work these cases. We want every indictment to lead to a conviction and maximum punishment. Can we do that?”
Everyone in the room spoke at once, each assuring John Knox Smith and their colleagues that they were on board with the plan and eager to get started. John had the affirmation he needed.
John called for silence. “Do we have any specific violations to discuss?”
Reneé X raised her hand. “Mr. Smith—”
“Call me, John. I’m uncomfortable with formalities except when absolutely necessary.”
“Yes, sir... John.” She smiled. “It may take practice for me to get it right.” She cleared her throat. “Over the last few weeks I’ve been compiling audio and video clips to give everyone a good look at some of the most dangerous hate-mongers on the airwaves today.” She glanced at her notes. “Their profiles are similar. Most are old white guys. They preach what they call ‘biblical inerrancy,’ which basically means they believe the Bible’s contents are literally true—if you can imagine that—and most are graduates of fundamentalist evangelical or old-style Catholic seminaries.
“One of these guys runs a radio and TV program called the ‘Children’s Bible Story Hour,’ and every weekend he fills the little ones’ heads with hate. His whole thing is this exclusivity garbage, that no one can know God except by this guy’s favorite formula.”
John could read the frustration on her face.
Reneé continued, “He’s a bad one. But the guy that really gets my goat is the leader of the so-called Christian Family Forum. He hosts a radio show that spans the country. Most of his listeners are in the South and West, but people all over the country are listening to this stuff, day in and day out. It’s just one diatribe after another, attacking freedom of choice and everything else we care about.”
John said, “You’re talking about Dr. Jim Stockman, aren’t you, Reneé?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“He was at the swearing-in. I saw him sitting next to Larry Jordan.”
Reneé grimaced. “I missed that. Lucky me. I call him Doctor Holier-than-Thou. He incessantly preaches against the gay community, saying homosexuals suffer from —get this— a ‘disordered’ personality. And almost as bad, there’s a Catholic bishop in the Midwest with his Radio Altar program, on which he rambles about the ‘holocaust of abortion,’ attacking freedom of choice and health care providers who offer a full range of services. He says priests in his diocese have to teach what the fifteenth-century throw-backs in Rome put in their catechism, basically suppressing the freedom of all the other priests who would prefer to be teaching how to love instead of how to hate.”
John motioned to Lynn Barrett at the end of the conference table. “Lynn, isn’t this what you call ‘religious genocide’?”
“Yes. It is precisely that,” Barrett said.
For those of you who may not know,” John said, “Lynn, tell everyone what you mean by ‘religious genocide.’”
Rev. Barrett leaned forward. “Glad to. When these Bible-pushers Reneé has just been describing can’t engage in actual physical genocide, they try to eliminate ethnic, religious, and cultural minorities by religious seduction. They call it ‘conversion.’ Their goal is to eliminate all other beliefs but their own. They say they’re trying to save the lost, but they’re really trying to make clones of themselves.”
“So everyone who isn’t just like them,” Reneé X interjected, “has to be converted.”
“Exactly. Their predecessors did it with crusades, with gas chambers, or with bullets. Now they do it with emotional intimidation, and with unceasing talk about ‘sin’ and ‘eternal judgment.’ These are some of the most troublesome hate mongers we will ever deal with, John, and they ought to be some of the first ones you go after.”
“I’ve already started my list,” Reneé said. “But I need to point out that some of these organizations have multi-million dollar campuses and thousands of donors and supporters backing them. Do you have any idea how much real estate they own?”
The discussion continued until John was satisfied that all the salient points had been discussed and the first steps of the action plan were in place. “Okay. You all have your assignments. Let’s get this place fully staffed and let the cases roll. For any organizations with television, radio, or Internet programming that reaches Washington, we want to try those cases here in D.C. If any of those groups are using the Internet, or if their broadcasts reach the District of Columbia in any form, we automatically have venue. I know a Washington grand jury will be responsive and act swiftly to see that justice is done.”
John stood and those in the room did the same. “Any problems? Any questions? No? Then, thank you all.”
