Thread: Church closes off its doors to activist's debate

http://www.chicagotribune.com

Church closes off its doors to activist's debate
Pastor denies entry for Sunday service


By Andrew L. Wang
Tribune staff reporter

August 28, 2006

In a scene filled with theatrics and rhetoric, an anti-immigration activist from Los Angeles was barred from entering Sunday services at a West Side church where Elvira Arellano, an illegal Mexican immigrant, has taken refuge from authorities.

Emblematic of the acrimony of the national debate over undocumented immigrants, half a dozen men stood abreast at the entrance of Adalberto United Methodist Church blocking Ted Hayes' entry as others banged drums to drown out his shouts.

"Behold I stand at the door and knock," Hayes called out repeatedly, his hand pumping in the air with a single pointed finger. "May I come to church please?"

One church member stood chest-to-chest with Hayes as others rained boos upon the homeless advocate who flew from the West Coast last week to protest Arellano's defiance of a government deportation order.

Arellano, 31, has drawn international attention during her nearly two-week stand in the church. She has been in the country illegally and was ordered deported. Arellano has resisted deportation because she says her 7-year-old son, Saul--an American citizen--would be left alone if she were sent back to Mexico.

Because Arellano ignored her deportation order, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement now considers her a fugitive. Last week attorneys filed a lawsuit on her son's behalf, charging that his rights would be violated if his mother were to be deported.

On Friday, Hayes asked Rev. Walter Coleman, pastor of the storefront church at 2716 W. Division St., if he could attend the noon service Sunday. Coleman gave him no answer, so Hayes decided to show up.

When Hayes arrived, Coleman "straight up told me that I'm not coming in," he said.

Hayes works with the homeless in L.A. and is affiliated with the Minutemen, an anti-illegal immigration group.

With his arguments wending through discussions of slavery, the 14th Amendment and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Hayes said he came from California to protest because "what this woman, these people are doing is killing my people."

"They're taking our heritage," said Hayes, who is black. "They're taking my civil rights. They're taking my icons, like Rosa Parks and Dr. King.

"These people were citizens. This lady's no citizen. She's a criminal."

Arellano was criticized recently after she compared herself to Parks, the black Alabama seamstress who refused to give her bus seat to a white man in 1955.

Hayes said Arellano should go back to Mexico and protest for reform of the government there, which he called corrupt.

After the two-hour service, Coleman said he didn't want Hayes at the service because he didn't want to create more volatility.

"He's a provocateur," Coleman said, "and his aim and the aim of the Minutemen is to create a violent situation inside the church."

Arellano was aware of the confrontation outside but said she paid Hayes no heed.

"I have no opinion on him," she said after the service. "I don't want to waste my energy on such a negative person."

Outside, the sidewalk was quiet, the silence broken only by the sounds of cars and several men playing dominoes nearby.

About an hour earlier, after he was rejected at the door, Hayes leaned against a tree and stared at the ground in front of the church, a duct-taped Bible in his leathery hands.

After chatting with a few passersby, he got into the car of the lone Illinois Minuteman member who joined him Sunday. Within moments, Hayes was gone.

And the doors to the church, shut tight to keep him out, opened again.

----------

alwang@tribune.com

"They're taking our heritage," said Hayes, who is black. "They're taking my civil rights. They're taking my icons, like Rosa Parks and Dr. King.

It appears that illegals just don't have any boundaries at all. This church fugitive Arellano is comparing apples and oranges when she uses these terms.

Go in and get her now!!! Or we'll have all the churches nationwide full of illegals doing this same thing.

Good for Ted Hayes! For those unfamiliar with Mr. Hayes and his Crispus Attucks Brigade, here is the website link:

http://www.uscab.org/

Can't be a real house of God if they keep people out.

I have seen Ted Hayes on different talk shows, he is a wonderful activist for our side against illegal immigration. My question here is, can the church keep its tax exempt status while denying legal american citizens intrance to their church services? Wouldn't Mr. Hayes have a law suit on the grounds his civil rights were being violated by being denied access to that churchs services? If nothing else, a discrimination law suit? What a person does in his or her privite and public life such as Mr. Hayes, acitivism for legal immigration play any part in his being barred from that church?

Does anyone have any email addresses for the United Methodist Church?

I have wondered the same thing about legal status once they take an action on government or private matters.

Trouble

I think that church has clearly made a political stand by hiding that woman from the law and should lose their tax exempt status, how does one go about getting that tax status revoked? all we hear from the liberals is separation of the church from the state where are they now I would ask?

Here is a little background on the Rev. Slim Coleman.

http://www.diggersrealm.com/mt/archives/001792.html
Pastor Providing Sanctuary For Elvira Arellano Married To Her Friend, A Latino Activist
Posted By Guest Author Freedom Folks



We have been following the strange case of Elvira Arellano quite closely as it is occuring on our own backyard, about five blocks from us. If you aren't familiar here's our earlier coverage...

Here's where things started getting a little bit flaky, turns out the pastor of the church might have a history and our dogged media either don't know or don't care to reveal that little detail...


Now, my interest was piqued by the revelations about the pastor so I did a little internet sleuthing last night. Turns out the media is ignoring yet another salient detail regarding our innocent little pastor, Walter "Slim" Coleman.

Like the minor detail that he's married to Emma Lozano, a longtime immigration activist here in Chicago...


Among those who attended the (Nation Of Islam) Saviours’ Day gathering were Rev. Willie T. Barrow of Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, Latino activist Emma Lozano and husband Rev. Slim Coleman, noted attorney Lewis Meyers Jr., mayoral candidate Rev. Paul Jakes, Rev. Michael Jenkins and Bishop Kim of the Unification Church and other dignitaries.

Who is Emma Lozano you might ask?

"Elvira is not going to go to the back of the bus so somebody else can sit there while they treat her differently," said Ema Lozano of Center Without Borders. "Elvira is here, she works hard, her kid is a U.S. citizen, they allowed her to come into the country." source

Let's take a closer look at the Lozano family...

We have to acknowledge that there have been many retreats, defeats and disappointments, particularly in politics. Harold Washington died in office in 1987 and Chicago politics has generally taken a turn for the worse. On a national level, the Bush administration is even more ferociously reactionary than Ronald Reagan was in 1983 — something that Rudy would have probably found hard to believe. The Soviet Union and many other socialist countries are now capitalist backwaters. This would have distressed Rudy, who was an ardent fighter for socialism. source

Last year, Sin Fronteras, an organization in Chicago headed by Rudy’s sister Emma Lozano and modeled on his example, turned in 12,000 “Reward Work” cards in the campaign for immigrant legalization coordinated by the Service Employees International Union. This year, Sin Fronteras and any number of other organizations, churches and unions are working even harder to support the “Freedom Ride” for immigrant rights that has been initiated by the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union.

As Emma Lozano points out, it was the diligent and patient work by Rudy and others like him within organized labor that made possible the historic move of the AFL-CIO Executive Committee in 2000 to make legalization of the undocumented a supreme objective of organized labor — an objective that will be won.


So, we have an activist Latina activist who just happens to attend a church run by a long time communist pastor and his communist/socialist wife who is widely considered "the face" of the undocumented struggle in Chicago.

I don't know about you, but I smell a set up.

I wonder what else the media is neglecting to tell us?

Slim Coleman

http://newsbusters.org/node/7013
Chicago Tribune Silent on Illegal Immigration Activist's History
Posted by Michael M. Bates on August 16, 2006 - 11:13.
On the Chicago Tribune's front page today is the story of an illegal immigrant who's taken refuge in a Chicago church to avoid deportation. The headline is "Act of faith, defiance" and the article includes a color photo of the woman and her son. Yesterday's Tribune coverage on the event noted: "The church's pastor, the Rev. Walter Coleman, said his congregation decided to offer Arellano refuge after praying about her plight.. . . 'She represents the voice of the undocumented, and we think it's our obligation, our responsibility, to make a stage for that voice to be heard,' he said."

Walter Coleman? Could that be Walter "Slim" Coleman, a longtime left wing activist? Yes, it is.

And what's interesting is the Tribune makes no mention of the Reverend's extensive background, much of it documented by the Tribune over the years.

A self-described community organizer, Slim was on the board of a group getting Federal money back in the 70s to provide free lunches to hundreds of poor children each day. Tribune writer Jeff Lyon reported in August of 1979 that an investigation disclosed the real participation was about 70 children a day.

This experience no doubt helped Coleman in becoming a key adviser to Chicago's Mayor Harold Washington. A Tribune piece in August of 1984 carried the charges of an alderman that Chicago "agreed to give $70,000 to a health clinic operated by the Heart of Uptown Coalition headed by Slim Coleman, a Washington supporter."

The following year Slim, then identifying himself as a journalist, was provoked by a Washington opponent and leaped to the City Council floor screaming "I'm going to get you" at the alderman. The Tribune's Robert Davis reported in the June 14, 1985 edition: "Published reports have said the mayor often seeks Coleman’s advice, particularly on dispensing federal funds for neighborhood and community development. There also have been published reports that Coleman, after years of criticizing the political use of government money, has told community organization leaders that to dip into the federal trough, they would have to do political things like picket the homes (of Washington's opponents.)"

According to Tribune columnists Kathy O'Malley and Hanke Gratteau in December of 1986: "Leave it to Slim Coleman to throw the first below-the-belt punch of Campaign '87. The Uptown activist, who uses his community newspaper to defend his good chum Mayor Harold Washington, is spreading the word that he's sitting on a dossier of photos, a sort of `"This is Your Life`" for (another) mayoral hopeful."

After Mayor Washington's death, the Tribune gave editorial advice to his successor: "People like Slim Coleman and Ald. Helen Shiller were making their influence felt during Mr. Washington`s second term; the new mayor should sweep them out of City Hall's fifth floor and purge city policy of their loony leftist ideas."

In 1990 the newspaper reported on the first Midwest Radical Scholars and Activists Conference. Wrote author Jessica Seigel: "'Everyone is dissolving,' said Uptown activist Slim Coleman at the Chicago conference Sunday. 'Every time I meet someone, they’re no longer a Marxist-Leninist this or that.'"

In January of 1991, the Tribune covered an antiwar demonstration and noted the presence of Coleman, identified as "a longtime advocate of affordable housing and other causes."

2004 found Slim condemning the abuse at Abu Ghraib and the Tribune reported: "Preaching at St. Adalberto United Methodist Church, a Hispanic storefront parish on Chicago's South Side, Rev. Walter 'Slim' Coleman told his small congregation that the number of photographs--estimated at 1,500--shows the abuse was a policy, not an aberration in the war. 'Rumsfeld said it was just a few rotten apples, not the policy of the government,' Coleman said in a fire-and-brimstone sermon."

The Most Reverend Coleman has quite a record, one that the Chicago Tribune and other media outlets should make some mention of in reporting his current activities. They don't need to provide extensive details, but they should give their audience a clue.



Rev Coleman's wife Emma Lozano

Quote:
Rudy and Washington soon became not only political allies but also friends, and when talk of a Washington mayoral candidacy surfaced, Rudy was an early supporter. In 1981, activist Slim Coleman, who would later marry Emma Lozano, held a banquet aimed at convincing Washington to run. He agreed to throw his hat in the ring, with one condition: Supporters would have to register at least 50,000 new voters and get them in his corner.

Full article at:
http://chicagofreespeechzone.com/html/r ... ears_.html


Quote:
Cinco de Mayo March for Palestine, Amnesty and Peace for Vieques draws 500
Alejandro Luis Molina
Chicago

May 5, 2002

Over 500 people rallied to demand justice for Palestine, Amnesty for Immigrants and Peace for Vieques at Harrison Park in the predominantlyMexican neighborhood of Pilsen. While approximately 120 activists marched from the north side Puerto Rican neighborhood of Humboldt Park, others met at Harrison Park to celebrate the end of a 5-day hunger strike led be Emma Lozano, leader of Centro Sin Fronteras.

Companeros from the Polish community, Mexican community, labor leaders, Palestinian Resistance leaders and Puerto Rican activists spoke to the importance of the struggle for amnesty and all paid homage to the struggle of the Palestinian people. Lourdes Lugo, educator and leader of the Puerto Rican community, spoke to the massacre at Jenin defining yet another moment on the history of the Palestinian resistance. Mahmud Ahmed, representative of the Palestinian community updated those present on the current situation.
http://www.viequeslibre.addr.com/demo/c ... _march.htm


Quote:
Last year, Sin Fronteras, an organization in Chicago headed by Rudy’s sister Emma Lozano and modeled on his example, turned in 12,000 “Reward Work” cards in the campaign for immigrant legalization coordinated by the Service Employees International Union. This year, Sin Fronteras and any number of other organizations, churches and unions are working even harder to support the “Freedom Ride” for immigrant rights that has been initiated by the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union.
As Emma Lozano points out, it was the diligent and patient work by Rudy and others like him within organized labor that made possible the historic move of the AFL-CIO Executive Committee in 2000 to make legalization of the undocumented a supreme objective of organized labor — an objective that will be won.

Rudy would also be happy that his parents, Guadalupe and Anita Lozano, his wife Lupe, his sons Rudy Jr., Pepe and David, his sister Emma and many more members of his family and of his old circle of friends and comrades have not let the torch go out. Rudy Lozano, Presente!
Full Article At:
http://www.pww.org/article/view/3595/1/167/


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