Copyright 1999 The Buffalo News
The Buffalo News
April 24, 1999, Saturday, FINAL EDITION
SECTION: LOCAL, Pg. 1C
LENGTH: 743 words
HEADLINE:
TERRY IMPLORES PRO-LIFE CROWD TO PERSEVERE
BYLINE:
HELEN JONES and DAN HERBECK; News Staff Reporters
BODY:
After 15 years of fighting what he calls the culture wars, Randall
Terry says he is tired.
"I am weary, yet persevering," the founder of
Operation Rescue -- which sponsored the anti-abortion Spring of Life protest
here in 1992 -- told an overflow crowd at a rally for Operation Save America in
the Buffalo Christian Center Friday night.
Terry, saying he has been
physically and verbally abused, marginalized and sent into exile by the
Christian camp, warned the audience to beware of what he called superficial
Christianity.
Terry said he was angry that pastors and theologians have
provided the battle plan for "our defeat". "The misguided in our camp can do
more damage," he said. "They misquote the Bible for an unbiblical end. We need
to disarm them before they disembowel us."
Acknowledging going through
what he called a difficult couple of years, Terry was still hopeful. "We are
going to prevail. It is inevitable," he said.
An unsuccessful candidate
for Congress last year, in November Terry filed for bankruptcy
in an effort to avoid paying massive debts to women's groups and
abortion clinics that have sued him.
Terry, who now
hosts a radio show under the company Randall Terry Live Inc., left the group
with a challenge -- "Read. He who reads, leads. Read good books, on theology and
history."
His address capped day six of Operation Save America, with one
of its largest crowds yet. It was a jubilant, almost festive atmosphere, with
music, prayer, and even a mime skit performed by several youths.
Earlier
Friday, about 150 pro-life demonstrators held a rain-pelted memorial service for
aborted babies in Niagara Square. Demonstrators also took their message Friday
morning to four more city high schools -- City Honors, Hutch-Tech, Buffalo
Alternative and Buffalo Traditional.
Police, meanwhile, estimate that
about half the participants in Operation Save America, which concludes on
Sunday, are out-of-towners.
Law enforcement officials say there is a
small and ardent group of pro-life activists like Kenneth and Jo Anne Scott of
Denver who turn up at virtually every demonstration throughout the country.
The Scotts are full-time warriors in the fight over abortion rights.
Between them, they have been arrested about 150 times in various pro-life
demonstrations throughout the United States.
Scott, who does not have a
job, said he and his wife spend virtually every day traveling and demonstrating
against abortion.
"I've committed my life to this cause," Scott said
earlier this week during a demonstration outside Kenmore East High School.
"Once upon a time, I owned apartment houses, had lots of money. I've
been through two divorces, lost two families. About 10 years ago, I was praying
to die. God gave me a different message instead. He told me not to worry about
being the next Donald Trump. He directed me to give myself to this cause."
Others who travel the same circuit -- and who are in Buffalo this week
-include Jason Cook, a Madison, Wis., college student and Dick Ulrich, 77, of
Colorado, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel who considers the abortion battle his
World War III.
"I was a bombardier and navigator on a bomber in World
War II," said Ulrich. "To a lot of us, this war over abortion is as important as
World War II."
Cook, 24, said that since August, he has demonstrated
against abortion in Chicago, St. Louis, Milwaukee, Kansas City, Omaha, Tulsa,
Houston, Austin, northern New Jersey and several other places.
"I
decided to join a group called Collegians Activated to Liberate Life, and to
devote a year of my life to this cause," he said.
"There are certain
people who spend their whole lives going to these events," said U.S. Marshal
John McCaffery, one of the key organizers of security measures for this week's
protests.
James C. Kopp, the activist who is sought for questioning in
October's murder of Dr. Barnett A. Slepian of Amherst, was one such person,
authorities said.
There are pro-choice activists who also travel the
country attending demonstrations. Mary Lou Greenberg, the leader of Refuse &
Resist from New York City, has engaged in several shouting matches with the
pro-life contingent this week.
"It continues to be very important for
pro-choice people to defend the clinics and counter the whole agenda of
fundamentalist morality," Ms. Greenberg said earlier this week. News Staff
Reporter Gene Warner also contributed to this report.
GRAPHIC: Harry Scull Jr./Buffalo News Randall Terry
delivers an emotional address in the Buffalo Christian Center Friday evening.
LOAD-DATE: April 25, 1999 
