Outrageous: The Tidings headlines false charges against pro-lifers

The new issue of Cardinal Roger Mahony's archdiocesan newspaper, The Tidings, has an article (click on this post's title) headlined, "Life advocates urged to become better informed, more gracious."

The article starts out by relaying these outrageous, no-proof-offered, and out-and-out FALSE, charges against pro-lifers:

"People do not change their minds when they are bullied and treated with disrespect, pro-life advocates were told at the Right to Life League of Southern California's annual conference on life issues Jan. 24.

"Rather, in order to change the hearts and mindsets of those who favor legalized abortion, 'pro-lifers must become better informed in talking one-on-one with those who disagree with them on this crucial subject,' said featured presenter Alan Shlemon. And, he added, they must do so while becoming more gracious in their demeanor."

Maybe Shlemon's overall talk was not as bad as The Tidings report makes it sound. But nevertheless, he apparently did spout the above generalized, inaccurate and BASELESS accusations against all pro-lifers. This was at the Focus on the Future Conference, held at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels before the annual Requiem Mass for the Unborn.

If you've been in the pro-life movement for even a short time, you know that pro-lifers DO NOT "bully" opponents and "treat [them] with disrespect." You also know that pro-lifers DO NOT need to "become better informed" and "more gracious in their demeanor."

And you also know that armchair generals and standers-on-the-sidelines LOVE to fantasize about pro-lifers and project all sorts of terrible imaginings onto us.

Finally, you also wish that these people who criticize pro-lifers, give us advice and make up stuff about us would criticize abortionists and pro-aborts at least as much as they criticize us.

Do Shlemon and The Tidings really believe that the Rosary- and Bible-carrying grandmas, and the young mommies with their babies in strollers, who bravely pray and sidewalk counsel outside L.A.'s rapacious abortion mills, bully anyone and treat anyone with disrespect?

Do Shlemon and The Tidings ever stop to consider that the abortion mills' hate-filled deathscorts are the actual bullyers and disrespecters and need a much more gracious demeanor?

Shlemon, the Tidings article reports, belongs to Stand to Reason, a Protestant group of which he says, "We train Christians to persuasively yet graciously share their Christian convictions as ambassadors for Jesus."

Suggestion: If Shlemon and The Tidings really want to become "gracious" themselves, they need to stop smearing all pro-lifers as bullies, disrespecters, ungracious and ill-informed.