THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, August 19, 1994 TAG: 9408190624
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LAURA LaFAY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE LENGTH: Long : 133 lines
At the entrance of a winding dirt and gravel driveway off Shillelagh Road in rural Chesapeake stands a crooked wooden cross the size of a large sapling. JESUS FORGIVES AND HEALS, pronounces a nearby sign. NO TRESPASSING, warns another.
Turn into the driveway, and there are two more NO TRESPASSING signs nailed to trees along the way. Also: BEWARE OF DOG, although there doesn't appear to be one around.
The driveway leads to the headquarters of ``Operation Rescue Chesapeake'': Donald Spitz's house. Spitz, a self-proclaimed freelance evangelist and savior of the unborn, lately has raised his voice in defense of Paul Hill, the Florida man accused of murdering Dr. John Britton and his escort outside a Pensacola clinic last month.
``Anti-abortion groups that condemn Paul Hill are fossilized baby-betraying cowards,'' Spitz wrote in an Aug. 9 news release. ``The only way to save those babies was to stop the abortionist. . . . Either innocent babies would die or the abortionist must be stopped.''
Spitz is one of 25 anti-abortion activists currently under investigation by the FBI for signing a petition circulated by Hill advocating lethal force ``for the purpose of defending the lives of the unborn.'' He has been disowned by Operation Rescue National, whose officials say they repeatedly have ordered him to stop using the organization's name.
Mention Donald Spitz and Operation Rescue National Director Flip Benham flies into a rage.
``He's no leader of any group,'' Benham shouted Thursday from a gas station pay phone outside of Nashville.
``He's a Paul Hill kind of guy. And if he keeps doing this, there's nothing we can do about it. But he'll be accountable to almighty God.''
Benham described Spitz as a ``dangerous'' loner and a ``loose cannon'' who has made himself ``an enemy of the cross'' by invoking Operation Rescue to condone violence against abortion doctors.
``There's nothing we could do about Paul Hill and there's nothing we can do about Donald Spitz,'' Benham said.
``What can you do when the media allows a guy to spew heresy? We took every platform he had away from Paul Hill and so did his church. We never allowed him at any events. We have asked him to leave and we have forbidden him to speak. We tried to shut him up, but the media went around us. . . . Are you going to interview everyone that says they're Jesus Christ? . . .
``Spitz needs to shut his mouth before almighty God. If there was any way I could get a hold of Donald Spitz and wring his neck, I would do it.''
Mild-mannered and prone to occasional stammering, Spitz, with his wire-rimmed aviator glasses, rounded belly and tasseled loafers, is an unlikely looking radical. He describes a Roman Catholic upbringing in Paterson, N.J., a family from which he is now estranged, and a stint in the Navy after high school. After that, he says, he studied psychology at San Francisco State and ``got into the whole hippie thing.''
``You know, concerts, long hair, all that stuff. I was looking for God. I was trying to find the answer to my life.''
On May 26, 1972, he says, he found it on 6th Street in San Francisco.
``I was walking down the street and I heard a voice and it was God,'' he says. ``And he said, `Raise your hands.' So I raised my hands. And I had power. I had power over sin and I knew God.''
Spitz became what he calls a ``street evangelist.'' From San Francisco, he went to Times Square in New York City ``ministering to alcoholics, prostitutes and street people.'' He met and married his wife, Thea, and the couple moved to Queens. But, Spitz says, ``The city was crunching in on us. So we moved here.''
In Ocean View, where the Spitzes lived for nine years, they became involved with the Open Door Chapel, and through it, with Operation Rescue.
``That was it,'' Spitz says. ``Even though it was in me, it never came out before.''
``It'' is Spitz's firm conviction that the right to abortion constitutes an ongoing holocaust. That doctors who perform abortions are ``blood-drenched killers who should be tried and executed for murder.'' That a woman who chooses to undergo an abortion ``should be tried for murder the same as if she ripped the arms and legs off a born child.'' That if Paul Hill really did shoot Dr. Britton and his escort, ``he should be given a medal of honor.
``Plenty of people are killed in the Bible and it's justified,'' he says. ``Moses killed people and it was justified. David killed people and it was justified. God himself killed people and it was justified. And who's going to fault God?
``I believe in it. I believe it's justifiable homicide to kill abortionists, but it's not my focus and I'm not doing it.''
Spitz's focus now, he says, is ``concentrating on exposing politicians and churches that are complicit in child-killing.''
Asked to name some, he ticks off a list: ``Chuck Robb, Doug Wilder, Marshall Coleman, Norman Sisisky and Owen Pickett.'' When he can find out where they're speaking, he says, he shows up with signs and confronts them about abortion. He does the same thing at churches. He doesn't attend any particular church himself.
``I actually have never found one that I'm satisfied with,'' he says. ``Too many of them seem to be compromising. I usually expect more righteousness.''
Spitz, 47, says his organization has about 10 members. He has no discernible means of support and declines to talk about where he gets his money. He also has no children. He wanted eight or nine, he says, ``but we just never had any.'' He insists that the childlessness has nothing to do with his obsession about abortion.
When asked why he chooses to spend his time working against abortion instead of, say, helping to save the millions of children dying in Africa, he can only come up with one explanation.
``Because this is happening here,'' he says with earnestness. ``This is happening here.''
For four years, Spitz has been a familiar figure on the sidewalk outside Hillcrest Clinic on East Little Creek Road. Although he says he has given up picketing, he is disturbed by the mounting state and federal restrictions on anti-abortion activists. These restrictions, he predicts, will only lead to more violence.
``They're crushing people,'' he says. ``They've got buffer zones. People are becoming felons for sitting in front of a door. . . . They're calling them terrorists. Well, people have very strong emotions and they have to be able to vent them. . . . You can't crush people without a backlash.
``The pressure cooker is cooking. The steam is building. Something is going to happen. I'm not someone it's going to happen with, but something is going to happen.
``I think the world is coming to a close. I think the world is soaked in blood. It's getting more soaked in blood every day and the wrath of God is coming. That's what I think.''
Spitz believes God has punished the United States for abortion by putting a dictator - Bill Clinton - in the White House and another dictator - Janet Reno - in charge of the Justice Department.
``I see it coming,'' he says.
``I see a mood of oppression coming on in this country. I see a dictator. . They'll say, `Look at him. Look what he did.' . . . I'll be accused of hate crimes . . . of verbal violence. I won't shut up about the babies and I won't shut up about sin. So if there's a penalty to be paid, I'll pay it.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
MOTOYA NAKAMURA/Staff
by CNB