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About Laurie
Hamilton
Expertise
I am able to answer
questions regarding Scientology practices and procedures, belief
system, donations, religious rites, management, administrative and
staff matters.
Experience
I am a second generation
Scientologist whose parents began in Dianetics in 1950 and studied
directly with L. Ron Hubbard. I have been personally active in the
church for over three and a half decades, have ten years former
staff experience in both technical and administrative areas, and
extensive technical and administative training and counseling. I am
"clear" and "OT." I come from an extended family of many religions,
but my spouse and children are Scientologists, as are my siblings
and their spouses, several cousins, nieces, nephews, an aunt, and an
uncle. Between us we have had every good and bad experience one
might go through in the church at every level.
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You are here: Experts > Religion/Spirituality
> Scientology
> Scientology
> What are your crimes?
Expert: Laurie
Hamilton
Date: 7/24/2006
Subject: What are
your crimes?
Question
Last month independent film
director John Roecker ran into Scientologist's Jenna and Bodhi
Elfman. When the two Hollywood Scientologists saw the t-shirt
Roecker wore, which had the slogan "Scientology is Gay" on the
front, they began angrily questioning Roecker:
"What crimes have
you committed?"
"Have you raped a baby?"
http://www.tmz.com/2006/06/13/when-elfmans-explode/
This
is not the only incident of this bizarre behavior that
Scientologist's seem to have when they meet a critic of Scientology.
Mark Bunker ran into similar aggressive questioning when he was
armed only with his camera and tried to do a documentary on a July
4th Scientology street fair. He was asked what his crimes were and
was accused of beating his wife and being a child molester by 3
scientologists.
http://xenutv.bogie.nl/originals/4th.htm
Why
is it that Scientologists accuse there critics of such horrible
things? Do Scientologist's actually believe that anyone who
criticizes the Church must be guilty of molesting children, spousal
abuse or some equally horrible criminal act? Or are the
Scientologists making these ridiculous accusations in order to
'bullbait' a critic into assaulting them so that they can get the
critic arrested?
Answer
There are at least two sides to every
story.
First, Scientologists do not respond this way to
critics as a rule. I never have. That you seem to
consider the behavior "bizarre," means that you a) are buying
someone else's evaluation based on incomplete or inaccurate
knowledge and b) have not walked a mile in our shoes.
SOME
Scientologists have had about enough of hate-mongering, apparently.
Roecker's shirt had pictures of Tom Cruise and John Travolta
on the front and back plus the "Gay" slogan on the front under Tom's
picture and the words "very gary" under John's picture on the back.
Tom and John happen to be very good friends of Bodhi and
Jenna, so the insult to their friends and their religion may have
just been too much. I hear the encounter started with Bodhi
reprimanding the guy for wearing a hate-mongering t-shirt, and
him immediately responding by spewing hateful and inflammatory
remarks. It ended with them walking away and Roecker
continuing a scream invective at their backs. In between the
exchange appears to have been pretty heated.
Bodhi Elfman's
representative Jenni Weinman says according to Bodhi "He was out for
a Sunday stroll with his wife (Jenna), when some guy walks by with a
t-shirt on, very prominently attacking his religion. Words were
extended and Bodhi and Jenna were personally attacked for their
beliefs. As they went about their business, the guy continued
to try to illicit negative responses from the both of them. As they
walked away he continued to scream propaganda and hate at them.
Apparently he spent all Monday calling the press to promote
himself."
Ridiculing a group is not "innocent criticism" but
rather a step toward minimizing them such that harm to them is more
readily accepted by others. People don't mind when those for
whom they have no respect are harmed, and therefore won't stand up
for their rights. Actions which belittle and ridicule
Scientolgy and Scientologists are therefore perceived as
harmful by us. Usually, however, we tend to let such slide, or
redouble our efforts to do good so that the reverse of criticism is
proven. However, celebrities are people, too, and sometimes
they have just had it "up to here," especially when someone is a
chronic and unreasoning critic.
Mark Bunker is not just some
guy with a camera. He is a leading and pro-active member of at
least two groups dedicated to doing harm to Scientology and
blackening our reputation to the maximum extent possible. He
has been and may still be on the payroll of the most rabid recent
attacker of our church around today. He explicitly, for money,
plots and deliberately provokes trouble and then claims he was
totally innocent. Judging by his actions, it would be his aim
to eradicate the church by any means at his disposal. So,
yeah, Scientologists may have challenged him verbally. As he
is/was paid to cause trouble, I wouldn't put too much stock in his
version of events.
Scientology is an activity aimed at
helping individuals and mankind. That is the intent of the
writings, the church managment, staff and membership. Those
who attack help activities do not have clean intentions. Those
who continue to attack in spite of efforts to correct their
misinformation or to ask them to please leave us alone REALLY do not
have clean intentions. One thing we find about people with
unclean INTENTIONS is that they usually have unclean HANDS, and
we've found it over and over again, hundreds of times. Perhaps
for this reason a Scientologist might ask a persistent "critic" who
started trouble (on their own without our having done anything to
them or anyone they know) what they've done wrong.
I have
personally, during my staff days, become personally acquainted with
any humber of "critics." "Critic" is a misnomer, as uniformly
they were not merely criticizing but also trying proactively to do
tangible harm to the church and using the cover of "criticism" to
explain why they were active relative to the church at all.
It's not that different, really, from anti-abortion activists.
Some people object to abortion on principle but are not
activists. They keep their own counsel and do not further
savage women and doctors who are already dealing with an unpleasant
and difficult time in the woman's life. Others picket, scream,
publish "hit lists" on the web, assault women seeking medical help,
bomb clinics and kill people in the name of "conscience."
These don't want to help, but to have an excuse to viciously
attack others as a vent to their own harmful impulses. They
use a "noble" cause as cover for destruction.
The "critics" I
have become acquainted with are of the same type. I have
gained personal knowledge through first-hand documentation about
them, and as it happens, they ARE criminals. The laundry list
of things they have done is kind of shocking. It
includes:
Theft
Perjury
Extortion
Barratry
Murder
Rape
Child
Abuse
Spousal Abuse
Forgery
Embezzlement
Assault and
Battery
Drug Dealing
Fraud
Stuatutory Rape
Impersonating
a doctor
Impersonating
police
Vandalism
Kidnapping
Breaking and
Entering
Burglary
Blackmail
etc.
Now I can't say
that every critical person (especially those who disagree on
religious or intellectual grounds, and don't add proactive efforts
to harm and impede to their criticisms) has crimes. But the
real driven, persistent, unreasoning, rabid ones do. We
Scientologists have learned this from one proven example after
another. So if a Scientologist asks "what have you done?"
questions of a "critic," (a pretty rare event) that may be what
(justifiedly or not) they have in mind.
I can't say. I
personally have never done this in spite of having been personally
attacked by "critics" verbally, physically, emotionally and
financially myself.
To each his/her own.
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