I live in Norfolk Virginia, a mere hop, skip, and a jump from the former headquarters of the Unchristian Coalition in Chesapeake and from its founder Pat Robertson. Our local paper (The Virginian-Pilot) published an article yesterday that left me grinning for hours. ;)
Once powerful Christian Coalition teeters on insolvency
This article is full of all kinds of juicy tibits, like this one:
The group's annual revenue has shrunk to one- twentieth of what it was a decade ago - from a peak of $26 million in 1996 to $1.3 million in 2004 - and it has left a trail of unpaid bills from Texas to Virginia. Among the creditors who have sued the coalition for nonpayment are landlords, direct-mail companies, lawyers and at least one former employee seeking back pay.
It has even come to this: The company that moved the group out of its Washington headquarters in 2002 went to small-claims court Friday in Henrico County trying to collect $1,890 that remains unpaid on its three-year-old bill.
Yep, that's right! Seems they think paying the bills isn't a good Christian thing to do:
[...]Tammy Farmer, who worked at the coalition as a bookkeeper in 2001, said she found the group's financial affairs in disarray.
"I witnessed a very consistent and chronic pattern of Roberta Combs intentionally refusing to pay valid debts, salaries and accounts for no discernible reason," Farmer said.
As the overdue bills piled up, Farmer said, telephone service would be cut off occasionally and vendors would refuse to do further business with the coalition.
Farmer said Combs frequently told her, "Don't pay ... they'll never sue."
Here's my favorite part:
"Their future is really bleak," said Mark J. Rozell, a professor of public policy at George Mason University who has followed the Christian conservative movement for years. "The Christian Coalition is a shell of its former self."
These so-called Christians also don't seem to believe that all God's creations are equal:
Within months of the move to Washington, 10 black employees filed a racial discrimination lawsuit alleging that they were forced to enter the office by the back door and eat in a segregated area. The coalition settled the suit in December 2001 for about $300,000, according to several published reports.
That same month, Robertson announced his resignation as president, saying he wanted to spend more time on his broadcast ministry and Regent University, the Christian school he founded next door in Virginia Beach. He was succeeded as president by Combs, head of the coalition's South Carolina chapter, who closed the Capitol Hill headquarters in November 2002 and now runs the group from an office in Charleston, S.C.
Combs, according to another lawsuit, engaged in a personally vendetta against her own daughter's husband, breaking up their marriage. What the **** ever happened to family values???
Combs hired her daughter Michele as communications director and Michele's husband, Tracy Ammons, as a Capitol Hill lobbyist. When their marriage dissolved into a nasty divorce and child-custody battle, Ammons was fired.
He then sued the coalition for $130,000 in unpaid salary, accusing his mother-in-law of "personal animosity and malice" arising out of a desire to break up the marriage.
Explaining in an affidavit how he went months without a paycheck, Ammons said: "I believed that ... I could trust my own mother-in-law."
[...]
The coalition's attorney, Brad D. Weiss, moved last month to withdraw from the Ammons case, citing an "irreconcilable conflict" among himself, the coalition leadership and its board.
Meanwhile, two other attorneys, H. Jason Gold and Alexander M. Laughlin, who had been representing the coalition in the Ammons bankruptcy proceedings, moved to withdraw as well. Their reason: The coalition had failed to pay them.
Given all that this group has done to attack and undermine my rights as a United States citizen, you'll have to forgive me for reveling in a bit of rather unchristian schadenfreude. ;)