The Church of Scientology cries "Hate Group!"

The Church of Scientology has been throwing the term "hate group" around a lot. If two or more people dare to criticize the church, the Church of Scientology inevitably cries "Hate Group"!

And now it's reported that the Church of Scientology is supporting and advocating legislation to increase penalties and restriction on "hate groups".

Well, exactly what is a hate group? Who is a hate group?

Hate Group

The term “hate group” is used to describe any organization in any sector of society that aggressively demonizes or dehumanizes members of a scapegoated target group in a systematic way. (from PublicEye.org)

Hate Group

An organized group or movement that advocates physical or verbal aggression toward or refusal to interact with persons on the basis of those persons' possession and/or exhibition of a certain characteristic. (from Wikipedia.org)

These seem to be pretty clear and reasonable definitions of what constitutes a hate group. A group selects some people and declares that these people are evil, these people are beneath contempt, these people are sub-human, not deserving of decent treatment, these people are to be punished, perhaps even killed.

And the hate group's selection of the people to be hated can be, and usually is, quite arbitrary, based only on criteria unique to the hate group's beliefs.

OK, since the Church of Scientology appears to be accusing a lot of people as being "hate groups", let's hold up a mirror, as we like to do.

How does the Church of Scientology itself, under the leadership of David Miscavige, stack up against these definitions?

Do they arbitrarily select out people to hate? Do they describe these people-to-hate as evil, sub-human, beneath contempt?

Do they advocate punishment against these people-to-hate, not for any actual crimes proven in a court of law, but just for the crime of "being evil", whatever that means in their dogma?

Let's see.

The first example, and perhaps the oldest in the Church of Scientology's enemies list is psychiatrists.

Yes, the Church of Scientology declares, explicitly, that all, let me repeat that, all psychiatrists are evil. Through the church's front group, the so-called Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), the Church of Scientology has relentlessly attacked psychiatrists -- not for something they all do, but just because they are psychiatrists -- and, of course, "psychiatrists are evil" according to Scientology's dogma.

L. Ron Hubbard has declared that the Great Evil in this universe, down through millennia, has been directed by and carried out by psychiatrists. Yes, he did say this, quite a number of times. According to Hubbard, all the evil in the world has been and is being caused by psychiatrists.

As part of the Church of Scientology's hate campaign against psychiatrists, CCHR has "documented" a huge number of bogus claims, blaming psychiatrists for the Holocaust, for 9/11, for school shootings, and, well, for just about everything bad that has happened.

American Psychiatric Association President, Nada Stotland, M.D., recently noted that psychiatrist have their own "dedicated hate group" -- CCHR. And this is factually true. CCHR's stated purpose is to "destroy psychiatry", not for any actual crimes proven in any court of law, but just for being psychiatry, and for being the group-to-be-hated.

But that is not all. Not by a long shot.

The Church of Scientology has a lot more groups that, it has declared, must be hated, attacked and destroyed. Some years ago they even published a list of hundreds of what they called "Suppressive Groups". It is known that this list still exists, and has grown, but more recent issues are not publicly available.

The next group that the church absolutely hates are the many Church of Scientology critics. These people are not, in reality, an organized group, but the church has lumped them all together, so they can be properly hated and destroyed.

Now you may say that it is perfectly reasonable for the church to dislike its critics, and that is so, but the church goes far, far beyond what is remotely reasonable.

A normal, sane group, when faced with some kind of exposé, might respond in a number of ways. Perhaps they would point out factual errors and provide verifiable information in rebuttal. Perhaps they would give evidence that the critic was affiliated with some competitor. Perhaps they would provide ample evidence of their own actual good works. Or they just might ignore it.

Not the Church of Scientology. They don't operate in that realm. The church never, ever, ever provides any facts, evidence or proof of anything they claim. What they do is attack, by any means, fair or foul, in a never-ending attempt to literally destroy their critics.

Take for example Paulette Cooper and her exposé of the church, The Scandal of Scientology. When this book was published in 1971, exposing many of the abusive practices of the Church of Scientology, did the church respond in a reasonable, logical, sane manner?

Not at all. First, they declared Ms. Cooper a "Suppressive Person". This is a wholly fabricated category and group that is the Church of Scientology's primary group-to-hate.

Let me explain. A "Suppressive Person" is Scientology's Ultimate Evil Person. While, in theory, there are certain specific criteria that supposedly describe a Suppressive, in practice it boils down to one simple criteria: If you have, in any way, offended the Church of Scientology, then they will declare you a Suppressive Person.

According to the church, a Suppressive Person is evil, sub-human, beneath contempt, and all who have been "declared Suppressive" by the church may be, according to L. Ron Hubbard, "deprived of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist without any discipline of the Scientologist. May be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed".

And, trust me, the church carries out these instructions religiously.

Understand that the only "crime" is that they offended someone in the Church of Scientology. There are no actual, real crimes -- but the church's punishments are very real. No matter how or why a person gets "assigned" to this group by the Church of Scientology, once you are in it, you are in serious danger of becoming a victim of hate crimes by the church.

There are many, many, many stories of people in this pseudo-group who can attest to the Church of Scientology's hate crimes against them. Getting back to Ms. Cooper, she provides a prime example of the kinds of hate crimes the church commits.

Paulette Cooper was the target not only of harassment-by-litigation but of several other harassment campaigns including a Scientology campaign known as Operation Freakout, the goal of which was to have Ms. Cooper "incarcerated in a mental institution or jail or at least to hit her so hard that she drops her attacks." In a previous campaign titled Operation Dynamite the church sent itself forged bomb threats, purportedly from Cooper, using her typewriter and paper with her fingerprints on it; further plans included bomb threats to be sent to Henry Kissinger. The Church's campaign was discovered when the FBI raided Scientology offices in 1977 and recovered documents about the operation.

Don't think this was an isolated incident or "isn't done any more". Check out the illegal actions the church took against Gabe Cazeras, the then mayor of Clearwater, attempting to frame him for a (fake) hit and run accident and to otherwise defame him.

It has also been reported that the Church of Scientology has distributed libellous fliers about various critics to their neighbors, has made false accusations to critics' employers in an attempt to get them fired, has filed frivolous lawsuits to try to bankrupt critics, and other hate crimes.

Psychiatrists and critics. Outside of Scientology's dogma and paranoia, these people have committed no crimes. These people have done nothing deserving of punishment -- not to mention "destruction". These people are, as a group, innocent. Yet the Church of Scientology is relentless in its vicious attacks and its corrosive lies.

Are these the actions of an honest organization? Are these the actions of a sane organization?

Or are these the actions of a hate group, with an agenda to destroy selected people?

Is the Church of Scientology a hate group? The answer is obvious.
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