Wednesday, June 11, 2003

BuzzFlash linked this story from Pensacola, Florida, today:

One of the area's most vocal abortion opponents, who has been missing since Thursday, is wanted on sexual misconduct charges involving a 15-year-old girl.

John Allen Burt, 65, of the 5300 block of Taf Lane in Milton, was charged Monday with one count of lewd or lascivious conduct, three counts of lewd or lascivious molestation and one count of contributing to the delinquency or dependency of a child, according to the Santa Rosa County Sheriff's Office.

Monday's warrants were issued because of an incident that occurred within 24 hours of Burt's disappearance Thursday, said Deputy Jerry Henderson, Sheriff's Office spokesman.

The incident involved a 15- year-old girl staying at Our Father's House, a shelter for unwed mothers that Burt operates from his home.

In the course of the investigation, Santa Rosa sheriff's deputies have located more victims, Henderson said....

Burt was last seen driving a 1996 dark-green Chevrolet van with the "Choose Life" Florida specialty tag CCA2K....


The article gives a few highlights of Burt's anti-abortion career:

February 1985: John Burt, along with two other abortion opponents, is arrested at the office of Dr. Bo Bagenholm on misdemeanor and felony charges for entering the office to speak to patients.

March 1985:Burt stuns TV viewers when he tries to show an aborted fetus during a live interview....

March 1986: Burt is arrested on burglary, two counts of battery and resisting arrest without violence after he and others storms into the Ladies Center [abortion clinic] to destroy medical equipment. He is sentenced to 141 days in jail, which he serves while awaiting trial, and is put on probation....

August 1988: Burt is sentenced to two years of house arrest for violating his probation because he drove John Brockhoeft past The Ladies Center. Federal agents stopped Brockhoeft hours after he left Burt's home and found explosives in his car. Brockhoeft was sentenced to 30 months in prison. Burt said he had no idea Brockhoeft planned to bomb the clinic....

August 1991: John Burt and two others are arrested as they try to cut down a fence at The Ladies Center....


But there's more, as the Associated Press points out:

In 1993, Burt was leading a protest at a Pensacola abortion clinic when Michael Griffin, who had volunteered at Our Father's House, fatally shot Dr. David Gunn.

Burt was with Paul Hill in 1994 when Hill photographed an abortion doctor he later shot and killed. Hill was convicted of murdering Dr. John Bayard Britton and his bodyguard, James H. Barrett and received a death sentence.


Z Magazine also describes Burt as a former Klansman (as does Planned Parenthood).

Yet as the 1996 Pensacola News-Journal article quoted here points out, Burt's home for wayward girls

is registered with the state Department of Education, but it is not regulated or accredited by either state of Santa Rosa [county] School District officials....Under Florida law, Burt does not need a state license to keep girls in his home because it is religious and accredited with the Palatka-based Florida Association of Christian Child Caring Agencies, a private group that oversees 25 homes around the state.

Please remember this the next time some right-winger says that liberals have made America hostile to religion. Clearly the government bent over backward to accommodate this criminal ex-Klansman (and terrorists' friend), simply because he invoked God when establishing his facility.

The 1996 Pensacola News-Journal story says,

While staying at Burt's home, the girls cannot have boyfriends, read romance novels, gossip or wear skirts above the knee. Their mail is read by school staff. They have to attend church....Discipline can be harsh. Girls who break rules receive licks from a wood paddle propped up in a corner of Burt's office.

And maybe it's just a short step from there to sexual assault.






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