The Rev. Owens
Editorially, you have stooped very low indeed by attempting, without any evidence, to connect the Rev. Dorman Owens to the abortion clinic bombings in San Diego (“Stop the Bombings Before Someone Is Hurt,” March 25).
If Pastor Owens had exceeded his constitutionally guaranteed First Amendment rights to express his outage at legalized abortion on demand and has committed crimes of violence, or any crimes, then let him be charged accordingly, confronted by the evidence in a court of law, tried by a jury of his peers, found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and then sentenced. None of this has occurred, of course, because the facts don’t warrant it.
But The Times doesn’t afford the Rev. Owens the forgoing constitutional guarantees--The Times just goes ahead and throws his name up before the public on a collage of prejudice along with “Beirut,” “terrorists,” etc., implying that since no one has “claimed responsibility” for the bombings, then the Rev. Owens must be responsible for them. The Times and its vast resources versus the Rev. Dorman Owens is no fair fight--especially when you rely on innuendo and veiled accusation.
Your editorial states: “For now, opponents of abortion must limit themselves to working nonviolently to change a law they view as abhorrent.” What you failed to emphasize is that Pastor Owens is doing just that. He is one of the very few persons in our community who is sufficiently courageous to publicly and repeatedly express his opposition to the continued legalized killing in the womb of nearly one-third of our society’s unborn children.
Could it be that the Times’ real reason for excoriating Pastor Owens is that he is keeping in the public eye the shocking reality of more than 16 million legal abortions since 1973?
Your editorial is also permeated by the false assumption that the clinic bombers have introduced a new element of violence into the abortion debate. No, the violence was introduced by the people who favor, promote and perform human abortions, and they want the violence to continue. Pastor Owens confronts the abortion clinics and wants the violence stopped.
We readily sense the Times’ frustration by your headline, “Stop the Bombings Before Someone Is Hurt,” but many of us believe a much more fair and apt headline would be “Stop the Abortion Mills Before Millions More of Our Children Die.”
KARL R. ROLLS, JR.
San Diego
Responding to the second fire bombing at the southeast San Diego Birth Control Clinic on March 16, the Rev. Dorman Owens of the Bible Missionary Fellowship in Santee stated he “can see a point in the future where such methods may be our only choice” (“Birth Control Institute Firebombed a Second Time,” Times, March 18). I wonder what Rev. Owens would have to say if those who disagree with him resounded in kind by fighting “fire with fire” with his church as the first target.
It is my opinion that violence is never an acceptable option of intelligent and reasonable people. It is only the refuge of those too mentally ill to recognize any other options.
K. MICHAEL WASMANN
Corona Del Mar