Sunday, December 18, 2011

Grabbing Headlines

I had a lengthy debate with myself about whether I should post this or not.  I'll explain why as I go along.

Last night I attended the awards banquet for the Missouri Cattlemen Association.  It was the culmination of activities for their annual Convention and Tradeshow.  About the time that everyone had eaten their tasty meal of beef (of course it's what's for dinner -- what else would be served at a Cattlemen convention), a protester from a radical animal activist group disrupted the banquet by entering into a side door and holding a sign stating that "Meat is Murder."  It was a young lady dressed in a cow suit.

There had been protesters throughout the day outside the convention center.  The hotel where the meeting was held had an area designated for protesters.  For the most part, the demonstrators were peaceful and remained in that area.  They were much more persistent than normal.  Usually when I have attended events where there were protesters, it was more of a staged media event.  The protesters and media typically showed up at about the same time, photos were taken, occasionally interviews were given, and then they all left pretty much together.  What most people don't realize is that such protests are generally just headline grabbing opportunities to get free publicity for a cause.

That is the reason I debated with myself about posting this.  I don't want to give them what they want -- free publicity.  So, I will be careful not to name the organization. 

A gentleman who I know quickly got up and escorted the young lady out of the room and out of the building.  It was handled very well and very quietly.  I suspect there were people in the room that didn't even see it occur. 

Unknown to me at the time, there was a second young lady that stepped in through a door on the opposite side of the room and videoed the disruption.  Within 30 seconds that video had been sent out to news media and posted on the Internet.  They grabbed a headline about disrupting the meeting when in reality, it was almost unnoticed.

It is interesting to me that they used deception to get into the building and the meeting by telling hotel staff that they were part of the entertainment and that they used deception with the media by writing their own story through video for what was in reality a non-event, just to get a headline.  They are both misguided and dishonest.

Just my thoughts......

Chris

1 comment:

jbboren said...

I'd be curious to know if anyone has ever demanded one of these folks defend their theology.

After all, to claim, 'murder', is to make a propositional statement about theology.

Now, all of us are wrong in certain points of our theology...after all, we are fallen sinners and suffer the noetic effects of sin- our minds aren't perfect. But even so, there's a simple word for having bad theology. The word is 'sin'.

So until one of them can show exegetically that the killing of an animal for food has biblical support as an act of murder, such protests go farther than mere dishonesty- the are sin.

"Methinks she protesteth too much," said Shakespeare. Well, I think she needs to spend a little more time in Scripture and a little less time in moralistic therapeutic deism.

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