ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, February 27, 1996 TAG: 9602270127
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES TIMES
VIRGINIA'S MIKE FARRIS says he didn't know the purpose of the banquet.
Mike Farris, a national co-chairman of Pat Buchanan's Republican presidential campaign and former Virginia lieutenant governor candidate, attended a banquet in January honoring a man who murdered an abortion doctor.
Other abortion opponents jailed for violence against women's clinics also were honored at the event.
Farris attended the ``White Rose Banquet,'' held in Arlington, Va., on Jan. 21 to honor anti-abortion activists who had gone to jail for committing violence in the anti-abortion crusade. One of those given special tribute was Paul Hill, sentenced to death for the 1994 shotgun killing of a physician and his escort in Pensacola, Fla.
Farris said he thought it would be a right-to-life function and left early after realizing that the message of the evening was to endorse the use of violence to end abortion.
``I was absolutely clueless,'' Farris said. ``I thought it was just a pro-life banquet. I was there to see my fourth-grade Sunday school teacher and a couple of other women in their 60s and 70s. These are people who I've known since I was 8 years old.''
One of the friends he joined at the dinner was a key participant who read aloud a prison letter written by a person convicted of arson in the fire bombing of an abortion clinic.
Michael Bray, a Bowie, Md., lay minister who spent nearly four years in prison on charges stemming from the bombings of 10 abortion clinics, organized the event.
This month, Larry Pratt stepped down as one of the Buchanan campaign's four co-chairmen after charges were made that he had spoken at meetings heavily attended by white supremacists.
In another development, officials of Ross Perot's Reform Party denied that they were engaged in any organized effort to support Buchanan's bid for the GOP nomination. The Times reported Monday that Buchanan volunteers had obtained copies of the Reform party membership list and were soliciting Perot supporters to re-register as Republicans and vote in California's March 26 primary.
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