Trespassing

RantWoman first learned the Lord's Prayer as "...forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us...." When RantWoman's family moved and started worshipping with Baptists instead of their old church, the operative version of the Lord's prayer substituted "debts" and debtors." If RantWoman wants to be really, really good at interfaith dialogue, she can add cataloguing which denominations use which version to her endless to-do list. Consider it added.

Meanwhile, accounts of nonviolent civil disobedience frequently include the terms "trespassing" and "international law" or "justification defense" in the same sentence. Judges frequently try not to have to hear such comvinations of terms; activists typically persist in demanding that these very words be heard together. Here is an item by Fr. John Dear from the National Catholic Reporter about a recent trial for activists arrested at Creech AFB in Nevada protesting the use of drone attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan. RantWoman considers all that was heard a victory already.

http://wagingnonviolence.org/2010/09/a-peace-movement-victory-against-drone-warfare/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+WagingNonviolence+%28Waging+Nonviolence%29


At the start of the trial the judge stated that he would not allow testimony on international law, the necessity defense or the drones. He only wanted to hear about the charge of “criminal trespassing.”
While the defendant were expecting that the judge wouldn’t allow their expert witnesses to speak, the proceeded to call on Ramsey Clark, former U.S. attorney general under President Lyndon Johnson; Ann Wright, a retired U.S. Army colonel and one of three former U.S. State Department officials who resigned on the eve of the 2003 invasion of Iraq; and Bill Quigley, legal director for the New York City-based Center for Constitutional Rights to testify. To their surprise, the judge let them all speak, and their testimony went on for hours.
Here is an excerpt from a powerful, spontaneous closing statement made by Brian Terrell of the Des Moines Catholic Worker:
Several of our witnesses have employed the classic metaphor when talking of a necessity defense. There’s a house on fire, and a child crying from the window and there’s a no trespassing sign on the door. Can one ignore the sign, kick down the door and rescue the child?It was a great privilege for us to hear Ramsey Clark, a master of understatement, who put it best. “Letting a baby burn to death because of a no trespass sign would be poor public policy.”
I submit that the house is on fire and babies are burning in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan because of the activities at Creech AFB.
The baby is burning also in the persons of the young people who are operating the drones from Creech AFB, who are suffering from post traumatic stress disorder at rates that even exceed that of their comrades in combat on the ground.
[...]

RantWoman recognizes that there are some theological conundrums behind the two usages here. RantWoman feels no need to address those today.