Bartholomew's Notes

A rant by anti-Kinsey obsessive Judith Reisman in defence of a screed by anti-gay “preacher” Bradlee Dean attacking Elena Kagan has led to a new spat between Wikipedia and WND (still widely known as WorldNetDaily). Reisman had written that

Wikipedia’s trashing of iconoclastic, ordained preacher Bradlee Dean proves that the heavy-metal drummer and his band have been doing a great job of delivering truth to American youth. Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia’s creator, made his original fortune as a pornography trafficker. Wales’ cult of far-leftist volunteer editor zealots labor minute-by-minute to mislead readers who think Wikipedia’s half-truths – and worse – are a legitimate “encyclopedia.”

Why has Wikipedia slammed Bradlee Dean?

Writing in his Dec. 6, WND column, “Elena Kagan: Just in time for ‘gay’ marriage,” Dean suggests that Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan recuse herself from the upcoming “gay marriage” case, based on a litany of her recorded homosexism.

“Homosexism” is a new word to me, but Reisman has a good line in neologisms; we owe to her the pseudo-medical concept of the “erototoxin”.

Reisman’s article goes on expound a video made by Dean explaining how all kinds of sexual behaviour that exists in the USA today can be traced back to Alfred Kinsey; this is somewhat self-referential, as Dean’s information almost certainly came to him via Reisman.

However, Reisman’s reference to Wales making “his original fortune as a pornography trafficker” upset Wales enough to contact WND‘s editor, Joseph Farah. WND‘s Chelsea Schilling has the story, which concerns a site run by Wales in the early 2000s called “Bomis”:”

Farah asked: “Are you suggesting that Bomis was not trafficking pornography? Or that you were not involved in Bomis?”

“By any sane measure of our revenue and profits, no, we were not ‘trafficking pornography,'” Wales replied. “Like many dot-com startups of the era, we struggled with what kind of advertisers to accept and we did have ‘adult’ advertisers – as did all the other major portals at the time. 99% of our revenue was not from that, so it’s totally ludicrous to claim we were ‘trafficking pornography.'”

Wales added, “You might as well claim that the owner of a local convenience store chain (who probably made more money than I did during that era) made a fortunate a [sic] pornography trafficker if they sold Playboy behind the counter. It’s nonsense and you know it.”

The website Wired reported in 2005 that Wales has “repeatedly revised the [Wikipedia] description of a search site he called Bomis, which included a section with adult photos called ‘Bomis Babes.'” Wikipedia had described Bomis Babes as “soft-core pornography,” but Wales changed it to “adult content section” and twice removed references to pornography.

“If R-rated movies are soft porn, it was porn,” he told the magazine. “In other words, no, it was not. That description is inaccurate.”

Wales is being disingenuous – the adult sites clearly carried the Bomis branding, so they were more than just the work of an “advertiser”; and it’s nonsense to say that soft core pornography is not pornography. It’s a strangely thin-skinned response, given that Bomis was also advertised via a photo of a pornographic actress wearing a “Bomis” t-shirt, and WND shows us a “photo of Wales aboard a yacht posing alongside two Bomis models who are wearing only panties and Bomis.com T-shirts” (the censorious Farah, however, has blocked our view of the “panties”). WND amended Reisman’s article to “originally made his living off a website that earned revenue from pornography traffickers”.

Schilling continues, with the case against Wikipedia:

WND’s Farah has been characterized by Wikipedia as a “Zionist twit and Jew-loving pig,” a “known [expletive] sucker,” “closet homosexual,” “conspiracy theorist,” “white supremacist,” a “proud member of the Ku Klux Klan,” a “religious nutcase” and “a pioneer in the political uses of psychedelics.” It also falsely accused Farah of having a romantic affair with a famous conservative female commentator.

Oddly, the list does not include the phrase “noted homosexual”, which caused some merriment in 2008, and which sparked Farah’s animus against the site. However, this is Farah’s turn to be disingenuous: all but one of the terms listed above would have been deleted as vandalism. Playing whack-a-troll with vandals on the site can be frustrating, but there’s no evidence that editors under Wales’ control are colluding in a campaign to defame Farah, any more than they felt the need to “slam” Bradlee Dean in order to rescue Elena Kagan.

And the one term that Farah has no right to expect Wikipedia to delete? Well, here’s Bradlee Dean just yesterday, discoursing on the Sandy Hook massacre:

The Sandy Hook shooting occurred just days after Sen. Rand Paul sent out an alert that the U.N. was set to pass the final version of the Small Arms Treaty, supported by Obama the day after election.

Part of the treaty bans the trade, sale and ownership of all semi-automatic weapons … like the one Adam Lanza used to kill 20 children and 6 adults.

The “Batman shooting” in Aurora, Colo., also happened to coincide with the same time as negotiations of the U.N. Small Arms Treaty.

The timing is impeccable.

This was published on WND; how, then, can Farah regard it as an insult to be called a “conspiracy theorist”?

***

As an aside, Reisman’s pointed reference to Dean as an “ordained preacher” requires further commentary. Who ordained him? This 2010 article by Karl Bremer guides us through public records relating to his “You Can Run But You Can’t Hide” ministry:

Bradley Dean Smith first set roots in Annandale on November 17, 2004… Smith assigned the contract-for-deed to an entity called “Old Paths Church,” which currently shares the same address as YCR and was registered with the State of Minnesota by Jake MacAulay, YCR’s secretary…

Meanwhile, according to 10th District Court documents filed in Wright County, Smith and MacAulay attended classes offered by Glen Stoll of Edmonds, WA, who operated a business called Remedies at Law. There, they were promised they could buy what Stoll said were “established, exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable and assignable ministerial trusts” that would allow them to operate as a ‘free church’ that would be invulnerable to state regulation and control.”

….Stoll advised his customers to complete a “Political Profession of Faith” that he claimed would enable anyone to create their own personal ministry. And he would assist customers in getting such things as ID cards from the “Embassy of Heaven Church” in Stayton, OR, which Stoll said helps people sever all ties to government and become “Citizens of Heaven.” The Embassy of Heaven Church, which describes itself as “God’s Government on Earth,” at that time already had a long and controversial history of clashes with government authorities.

Although Dean/Smith later split from Stoll, Bremer draws attention to a 2009 piece in the Minnesota Independent that raises questions about the status of the “ministry” and its use of tax breaks. For background on the Embassy of Heaven Church, Bremer directs readers to a 2004 post by none other than Ed Brayton. Ed explains:

They believe that since they are citizens of Heaven and not citizens of the United States, they are exempt from any legal requirements imposed on them by the local, state or federal governments. They even go so far as to issue their own driver’s licenses, license plates and passports, which they amusingly present at airports thinking that they are going to be allowed on a plane with them. The three or four hundred Embassy of Heaven members nationwide who have attempted to drive their cars with Embassy license plates, using Embassy driver’s licenses, and without car insurance, have often found themselves being arrested. They then refuse to recognize the authority of the courts over them, refuse to post bail or enter a plea, and the courts typically hold them for a few weeks before deciding it’s not really worth it, then they let them go. 

Also, Stoll is apparently also Kent Hovind’s attorney.

Dean is of wider interest because his ministry has received an endorsement from Michele Bachmann (“They’re way on course. Because they get it. They get what this is all about.”), and he has links with other Republicans in Minnesota; in May 2011 Dean was invited to give the opening prayer at the at the Minnesota House of Representatives, which he used as an opportunity to attack Obama. He also enlisted Larry Klayman in a doomed attempt to sue Rachel Maddow for $50 million after she drew attention to his hateful anti-gay rhetoric in a way he claimed misrepresented him.

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