Visit to a Small Planet

He calls himself bobby BIBLE, lower case bobby, all-caps BIBLE. He would not give me his real name, not on your life, because the homosexuals would just love to track him down and get their paws on him. I’m not sure why, but that’s what he said.

I found him outside the county courthouse building in which five anti-abortion activists were being tried for trespassing and other misdemeanors. Among them was Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue.

Normally I wouldn’t stop and talk to a guy shouting Jesus! on a street corner, but since the anti-abortionists have been parading God through L.A. like a circus elephant, I felt it appropriate.

If not typical of their soldiers, Bible is certainly on their side. I’m not going to comply with his special name spellings, by the way, because that runs contrary to our style. I’m sure God would understand.

At any rate, there was something compelling about Bible. Dressed in striped shorts, sandals and two hats, one atop the other, he would alternately shout his anti-abortion message and whistle a Sunday School song, “Jesus Loves All the Little Children.”

Sometimes he would whistle while standing on one foot, hoisting a large sign up and down in rhythm to the tune. The sign said, “Witches, lesbians and basic idiots. REPENT. No choice exists in murder. Heb. 9.”

Bible, by the way, was born and raised in L.A, but you probably suspected that.

I had gone to the courthouse not to interview street preachers but to see what kind of people Municipal Judge Richard Paez and the Los Angeles Visitors Bureau had to deal with.

Randall Terry answered the first question by calling America’s judiciary “the lap dog of the death industry,” and his followers answered the second by distributing pamphlets calling L.A. “a true mother of harlots.”

The pamphlet went on to say, “Preaching a dark gospel of adultery, divorce and total contempt for Christian moral standards and beliefs, (L.A.) radiates her fascination with violence, death, promiscuous sex and mindless materialism.”

I hear you say, “Oh, not that again,” but don’t dismiss the paragraph out of hand.

Almost 50 million tourists visit The Mother of Harlots each year, and it’s tough enough keeping them happy without luring another 50 million to our doorstep. There is nothing more enticing to the folks in Wichita and Akron than promiscuous sex and mindless materialism.

Approached properly, they can be more fun than Disneyland.

Of course, there are always people like Randall Terry and bobby Bible out there teaching the Mother of Harlots (Can I call her mom?) a lesson she’ll never forget, Randy working the crowd on the inside and bobby taking care of the street.

The day I checked out the trial, Bible was the only demonstrator, but he was a one-man band.

“Randall Terry and Operation Rescue are innocent, everyone else is guilty for allowing babies to be murdered!” he’d shout between whistles. It was a tough interview, because he would suddenly interrupt his answers to holler at a passer-by.

For instance, I’d ask, “Are you married, Bobby?”

He’d reply, “No, I’m 50 years old (Will it be heaven or hell when you die?) and a eunuch.”

I asked him the same question twice because I couldn’t believe he said he was a eunuch. Then he explained that some men emasculate themselves to become eunuchs and others are eunuchs by name. Bobby was of the latter group.

There was no question in my mind that Bible was anti-abortion, but I still wondered why he would take an expression of his viewpoint to such untoward extremes.

Not many would bare their chest and bellow damnation across from Rothschild’s Bar & Grill.

“I’m doing God’s work,” he said. “Whoever serves God here, gets a better job in heaven.”

“What kind of job would that be?”

“Well,” Bobby said, “I thought maybe I’d (Do you believe in God and life everlasting?) be the manager of a planet.”

He went on to explain that heaven is composed of several planets, each of which fulfills a specific need.

A recreational planet, for instance, would offer horseback riding, tennis, golf, big band music and maybe electronic game parlors for surly teen-agers. Sorry, there are no whorehouses in heaven. They are all in L.A.

“Well, Bobby,” I said, “good luck in your secular life and wherever else you might end up.”

“Thanks,” he said. “Maybe we’ll (Stop murdering babies!) talk again someday.”

Not on my planet we won’t.