quote:The most disturbing thing is not that U.S. Rep. Danny Davis (D.-Ill.) attended an elaborate coronation ceremony in Washington for the controversial Rev. Sun Myung Moon and his wife.
And it's not that Davis took an active role in the ceremony, carrying to the dais on a velvet pillow one of the jeweled crowns that were placed upon the heads of the robed Moons.
More than half a dozen other congressmen and senators also were in attendance, according to several reports, including one in the Washington Times, a newspaper Moon owns.
The event took place March 23 in the Dirksen Senate Office Building under the banner of the Interreligious and International Federation for World Peace, a Moon-led organization.
"People crown kings and queens at homecoming parades all the time," Davis said when I called him Friday to ask for his thoughts now that the story, which had been incubating for months in Web logs, has gathered momentum. "We do a lot of things in our society that are simply symbolic."
Davis said it was his understanding that the crowns represented the Moons' achievements as "true parents, both to their own children and I guess to lots of children and other people. I think they were being feted for their promotion of parenthood, of family values and family traditions."
That's quite a thought. In its heyday, Moon's cultlike Unification Church was famous for separating adherents from their families and promoting mass arranged marriages that violated American family traditions.
And the "Crown of Peace" honor that Moon in effect bestowed upon himself that day in the federal office building was no mere Good Daddy prize.
As he made clear toward the end of his speech to the gathering, Moon believes himself to be "God's ambassador, sent to Earth with his full authority."
He said, "I am sent to accomplish his command to save the world's 6 billion people, restoring them to heaven with the original goodness in which they were created."
Moon went on to tell the gathering in simultaneously translated Korean that he's been in communication with the spirits of Hitler, Stalin, Marx, Lenin and "the founders of five great religions," and that these men and other notables have unanimously "declared to all heaven and Earth that Rev. Sun Myung Moon is none other than humanity's savior, messiah, returning lord and true parent."
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I find it strange that Rep. Davis doesn't seem to have a clear understanding of what the coronation was about-- he says "it was my understanding", "I guess" and "I think", when he describes it. SHouldn't he know exactly what it's all about whne he does something like this? Or was it just some public relations thing his staff set up for him?
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I've attended lots of things in my life that I wouldn't have attended if the people inviting me had been completely open and honest about what it was.
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The Rev. Moon is one of a very small handful of people in this world who scares me in a deep way. However, he does provide a useful weathervane in that I can be sure anyone who pays him more than lip service has either been bought out, or has serious mental problems.