Midlands				» Today » 21-Day Archive

Published Saturday April 7, 2001 Controversial Cleric Decries Childlessness BY DAVE MORANTZ
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

In a speech that drifted from biblical insight to graphic description of the male and female "love organs," the Rev. Sun Myung Moon called for an end to childless couples and racial discrimination Friday evening in Omaha.

Moon addressed a racially mixed crowd of about 450 people in a ballroom at the Omaha Marriott Hotel. His speech came on the 41st day and the 41st stop of a 50-state, 51-day "We Will Stand" tour, which asks people to shun religious, racial and social differences and create strong families and communities under God.

"No matter how happy your married life is without children, in the eyes of God, it is not family," Moon said.

Those in the crowd often laughed, clapped and sometimes shifted nervously in their seats during a speech that focused mostly on Adam and Eve's fall from grace.

Moon, 81, long has championed the family, stressing the importance of the nuclear family and harshly condemning sex outside marriage. He began his ministry in Korea in 1945. Moon brought his controversial Unification Church to the United States in the 1960s.

Critics have accused Moon of brainwashing followers, who were dubbed "Moonies." His well-publicized mass marriages have long been targets of attack. He served 13 months in prison in the 1980s for tax evasion.

Moon has cultivated ties with black religious organizations since the Southern Christian Leadership Conference denounced the government's treatment of him as persecution. The Rev. Al Sharpton renewed his marriage vows in a 1997 Unification Church ceremony.

Ministers who have signed on to the "We Will Stand" tour say much of the controversy surrounding Moon results from misunderstandings. His claim of being the "New Messiah" sent by God to continue Jesus' work, for example, has been exaggerated, they say. Under the Hebrew translation of the word, the ministers say, a messiah is anyone hearing a calling from God. And, they say, all ministers are on Earth to continue Jesus' work.

Friday evening, Moon spoke through an interpreter, often pounding the lectern and making jokes. The forbidden fruit that resulted in Adam and Eve's banishment from the Garden of Eden was not an apple, Moon said, but Eve's "love organ." God wanted Adam and Eve to remain pure, Moon said, but they stained their blood and their lineage.

Comparing the male and female genitalia to a snake, Moon said nothing is more powerful than love. But love, he said, also is extremely dangerous.

"These organs were created by God so we could build a family," he said.

A woman's reproductive organs do not belong to her, Moon said. Her hips and breasts belong to her children for birth and nurturing. Her "love organ" belongs to her husband, he said, and it must be opened by a key. The crowd applauded loudly when Moon condemned "allowing spare keys."

He also said a father's responsibility for raising children begins and a mother's ends when a baby can crawl to its father and say "Dada."

Toward the end of the speech, Moon pointed around the room, which was made up of whites, blacks and people of Asian descent. God didn't make humans' skin color different, Moon said, comparing different races to polar bears, brown bears and black bears. We adapted to suit our environments, he said.