Two protests for the price of one!

We were due for one of these, weren't we?

Last night I went to another protest against the behavior modification cult on the east side of Cincinnati. If the cult lasts another year following this demonstration, it'll be a miracle, because I'm sure this one hit them harder than any others so far this year.

Actually we had 2 protests, if you want to be technical. It was almost a doubleheader, if you will. For the first session, the 3 of us gathered outside the cult near Milford early in the evening when it was still light out. We held signs as usual, but it was so windy we could barely hold the signs! Early on, an employee of a nearby business approached and said she'd been fielding numerous calls about our protest. Hilariously, this had to have generated even more bad publicity for the teen torture facility when she had to explain to callers what was going on.

After that, we were even more careful to make sure folks knew our signs referred to the behavior modification center. It's tricky, I know, because the cult is set back from the road on a long driveway.

This reaped dividends when parents began pulling into the facility for the weekly meetings. One of them - a balding, bearded man - got out of his car, lurched towards us, and angrily asked us what goes on inside the center that prompted our protest. One of our group replied, "Ask your child. They'll tell you." This response was a great comeback, because it caught the man off guard and didn't draw us into a pointless argument in which he'd just contradict us.

These demonstrations have several target audiences. The general public is one. The parents of the detained teenagers are another, because then maybe they'll start to realize we have a point, and they'll do some research and take their kids out of the program. Another audience is the teens themselves, who will discover we support them and will be motivated to fight back.

But the third group doesn't emerge until later. So after we got supper, we returned for the second phase of this twofer. I bet the cult's staffers were furious, because they probably thought we were gone for another few weeks!

In this second part, we did most of the same things as in the first part. There were the usual minor distractions put out by the program, but we realize they're distractions, and we held our ground. Suffice it to say, all indications point to the facility being an organization that hasn't changed much in years, and that's why we're on their case. They lie to us, and we can see right through them.

After the center got more exposure to the community at large - especially when a neighboring business was dragged into the issue - I can't imagine it lasting much longer. Fact is, programs like this have been shut down because of roadside rallies, so there is some very strong hope. People aren't going to want this center in their community, and out of all the parents who saw us, at least some are going to research to get all the facts that the facility has denied to them.

(More info: http://www.isaccorp.org/kidshelpingkids.asp)