More on the Peculiar Case of Dr. Dan Kliman, M.D.

Since my first post on this case, the San Francisco Chronicle has reported that "a task force including officers from the department's hate crimes and homicide units has been formed to look into Kliman's death."

And one of Dan's patients, who maintains the blog CFS Warrior, has posted some information that indicates Dan had had an unusual experience a few days before his death that "rattled" him and caused "a little red flag to go up about" his safety:

Dr. Kliman shared with me that he had been to the Israeli consulate the week prior to 11/20. I don't know what day it was. He said that as he pulled up on his bike a man suddenly came up to him put his face next to Dr. Kliman's and said "Dan?" Dr. Kliman didnt' know who the guy was, said he looked American, and when he said yes I'm Dan, the guy broke out in fluent Hebrew or Arabic (I can't remember). Dr. Kliman said he's been to the consulate many, many times and this had never occurred before. He was a little rattled that the man knew who he was but Dan didn't recognize him. This occurred outside the consulate.

When Dr. Kliman entered the consulate he was searched and his computer, ipod, cell phone were all put in a secured area. He was very surprised this and said this had never happened before.

He wasn't so concerned about what occurred at the consolute-very puzzled by it since it was something that had never occurred before but he was rattled by the man who approached him outside the consulate. Dr. Kliman was not easily rattled by anything. A little red flag went up about his safety.

Of note, the man did not accompany Dr. Kliman into the consulate. Could it be that the consulate saw words exchanged between Dr. Kliman and this man and decided to increase their security? Or maybe it wasn't related at all. Maybe the increase in security measures taken by the consulate were just coincidence.

Something about shellfish

I am still thinking about "Prop 8 - The Movie" and particularly the part where Jack Black comes out looking like a glutton, parodying Jesus, holding the shrimp cocktail in his hand and making the shellfish argument. Of course, we all know the shell fish argument and its rebuttal. This particular argument by analogy seems to be perceived as particularly persuasive by gay men, although it is so easily rebutted it seems bizarre that it has such staying power.

That image of Jack Black with the shrimp reminds me of a parody I once saw of the famous deleted scene restored for the 1991 re-release of Spartacus. (In the film, Lawrence Olivier acted the role the Roman senator and Tony Curtis acted the role of his new young male slave.) In the scene, Crassus used the metaphor of eating food to discuss sexual behavior, referring to sex with women as eating oysters and sex with men as eating snails:

Marcus Licinius Crassus: Do you eat oysters?
Antoninus: When I have them, master.
Marcus Licinius Crassus: Do you eat snails?
Antoninus: No, master.
Marcus Licinius Crassus: Do you consider the eating of oysters to be moral and the eating of snails to be immoral?
Antoninus: No, master.
Marcus Licinius Crassus: Of course not. It is all a matter of taste, isn't it?
Antoninus: Yes, master.
Marcus Licinius Crassus: And taste is not the same as appetite, and therefore not a question of morals.
Antoninus: It could be argued so, master.
Marcus Licinius Crassus: My robe, Antoninus. My taste includes both snails and oysters.

(In the film, the slave Antonius soon runs away from from this situation and his implied future to join Spartacus.)

So I am wondering why gays find this argument convincing while heterosexuals tend to find it trivial. For those who experience sexuality as a union of opposites with the potential for procreation, it seems off center. Perhaps it is that eating as a metaphor for sexuality is more compelling for those who conflate oral and anal with genital. (I'm not a Freudian, but ...)It seems to me that accepting this metaphor one would have to view sex is a form of consumption, And that seems to me to be fundamentally narcissistic, not about the "romantic love" that gays are claiming makes their relationships as marriage.

Quite a few months ago I did a two part post (here and here) exploring some thoughts on cannibalism and Christianity. A formerly sexually active gay man posted a great comment at Stand Firm that I will provide in part below:

As for cannibalism. No, most gay people are never going to eat their partners. But I’m going to say something a bit provocative here about gay sex. I have always thought of sex between two men or two women as a form of ritual cannibalism, and even a kind of perverted sacrament, in which the person seeks in the object of his desire the qualities and attributes he cannot find in himself. The sex act is almost an act of consumption, but one doomed to futility and frustration because it cannot provide the fulfillment which is really being sought. “Looking for love in all the wrong places"--in search of something that only the healing and restoration afforded by God’s grace can provide.

Marc Shaiman has tasted blood, "And it felt fantastic."

The man behind the blacklisting of Scott Eckern gave an interview to the New York Times about his latest exploit, the viral video "Prop 8 - The Musical". (If you haven't seen it, you're lucky. But if you must, go here.) During the interview, Shaiman was asked: "How did you react to the news that Mr. Eckern had resigned from the theater?"

Shaiman replied:

There’s certainly nothing joyous about being partially responsible for a man resigning from his job. I mean, I did not ask for his resignation, nor would it be my place to ask for someone’s resignation. He resigned, though, and I was part of that, and that is a very heavy weight, and I don’t take it lightly. But it has certainly opened up our eyes, and made me get off the couch and out on the street with a picket sign, for the first time in my life. And it felt fantastic.

And the interviewer followed up with: "So this experience has made you more of an activist?"
And Shaiman replied:

Yeah, I was marching in New York, and that was just the greatest experience. And of course this video is just a viral picket sign. And hopefully funny. I hope that doesn’t get lost. I hope that’s what most people get out of it.

What I got out of "Prop 8 - The Musical" was that he HATES Christians.

Episcopal Church Membership Statistics

UPDATE: This post has been updated to include Julia Duin of the Washington Times

The membership numbers for The Episcopal Church (TEC) are in the news today with the announcement of the new Anglican Church in North America. But the reporters are reporting different numbers.

Laurie Goodstein in the New York Times is still using a membership for TEC of 2.3 million. Kind of sneaky the way she wrote this sentence to make it seem the number for TEC was provided by the new North American church:

Bishop Duncan will be named the archbishop and primate of the North American church, which says it would have 100,000 members, compared with 2.3 million in the Episcopal Church.

Michelle Boorstein in the Washington Post story is using 2.2 million.

But Julis Duin in the Washington Times story, Duke Helfand in the LA Times story, Michael Conlon for the Reuters story and Rachel Zoll for the AP story all have membership down to 2.1 million.

If we are talking about The Episcopal Church in North America, e.g., the Domestic Dioceses, TEC is officially reporting membership down to 2.1 million for 2007. These 2007 numbers still include all ten thousand members of the Episcopal Diocese for San Joaquin although San Joaquin voted themselves out of TEC and joined the Southern Cone in December 2007, so they should be taken with a grain of salt. And using the 2007 numbers does not reflect the 2008 losses of the dioceses and churches now forming the Anglican Church in North America.


However, the TEC report shows Non-Domestic Dioceses beginning in 2002. As of 2007, the membership in these non-North American diocese raises the TEC total to 2.3 million. But it would not make sense to include the Non-Domestic Dioceses in a direct comparison with the new Anglican Church in North America. If we are looking at TEC including the Non-Domestic Diocese, shouldn't we compare to the total membership in GAFCON? Hmmm, that gets a little embarrassing, what with the large memberships in the Anglican churches in Nigeria, etc.

Perhaps Manya A. Brachear for the Chicago Tribune was wise to just write TEC has "has about 2 million members" and not use a decimal point at all.

The Peculiar Case of Dr. Dan Kliman, M.D.

Dr. Dan Kliman's body was found in the elevator shaft of the San Francisco building where he attended classes in Arabic. Classes had been canceled last week, but Kliman apparently was not informed of this. He appeared to have died from a fall. Although the police are saying it was an accident, there is concern that he may have met with foul play. There are signs of a scuffle on the exterior elevator doors on the 7th floor where Kliman took his classes at the Pan Arabic Center according to the photos taken by Dave.



Dave says:

Remember that these are on the EXTERNAL doors that are ONLY on the 7th floor, not on other floors. In other words, the only way that those marks could have gotten there is that if there was some kind of struggle on the 7th floor (the floor of the PAR Arabic School where Dan was going for class), NOT any where else where the elevator car may have been stuck. The police are claiming that Dan tried to get out of a stuck elevator car, but the doors that you see on these pictures are the external doors on the 7th floor, which are stationary and do not move up and down with the car.

But who would do such a thing and why? Kliman was an activist in quite a few causes, and could be quite confrontational. Consider the following causes:

1) Vegetarianism (He was active in the Yahoo Group VeggieJews and is remembered for his contributions to discussions.

2) Bicycle Rights (He founded St. Louis Critical Mass and participated in Bay Area Critical Mass activities after moving here. Critical Mass is the organization that takes over city streets and harasses drivers following traffic rules.)

3) Pro-Israel (co-founder of S.F. Voice for Israel)

4) Gay Rights (recently campaigned against Prop 8).

There is little reason to suspect his advocacy for vegetarianism could have led to his death. His bicycle activism was confrontational and someone who remembers him from his St. Louis Critical Mass days wrote:

Dan Kliman was an acquired taste - many were put off by his strong opinions and loud voice. Others just hated his insistence on asserting his rights as a cyclist. He was certainly an in your face type. I figured if he were to die it would be because a motorist ran him over.

But it is hard to imagine a motorist would have stalked him and thrown him down an elevator shaft.

He did get into confrontations within the GLBT community over his advocacy for Israel. A few years ago, members of QUIT (Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism) posted photos of this angry altercation. But Kliman had recently campaigned against Prop 8 and it is hard to imagine this was committed by someone in the GLBT community.

However, ed, a commenter at Zomblog reminds us:

don’t forget–one of the tenets of radical islam is to throw “unbelievers” off of the tops of buildings

Actually, this is true. I googled and found this post at IslamOnline titled Death Fall as Punishment for Homosexuality. The opinion of Sheikh `Abdel Khaliq Hasan Ash-Shareef concludes:

Some scholars hold the opinion that the homosexual should be thrown from a high building as a punishment for his crime, but other scholars maintain that he should be imprisoned until death.

Based on the above fact, we can conclude that, the judge is invested with full discretion as to whether this man is to be thrown from a high place or not, as a punishment for his crime. However, if the man survives death fall, the judge has the right to sentence him to death.

But who would do such a thing? Debbie Schlussel has one hypothesis:

On this site, I've repeatedly written about Ismael Ahmed, who founded and for decades ran ACCESS--the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services, which has soaked taxpayers for billions to bring in thousands of Muslim illegal aliens, fund their every social service need, defraud Medicaid, and provide job-training for several Al-Qaeda terrorists. Ahmed now runs the Michigan Department of Human Services.

As I've noted, when Ahmed's first wife, an American non-Muslim, wanted to divorce him, he took her on a trip to New York. Suddenly, she was found dead at the bottom of an elevator shaft under construction. He apparently got rid of her and got away with it.

Now, the same thing has happened to Dan Kliman, MD, a gay pro-Israel activist in San Francisco. Like Ahmed's wife, his body was found at the bottom of an elevator shaft under construction, in the building where he was taking Arabic language instruction.

Coincidence? Sorry, but there are no coincidences. Not ones like this. Gay, a Jew, pro-Israel, and American--hmmm . . . a perfect four-in-one target for a Muslim kill

Actually that fall from a tall building thing is Islamic punishment for adultery as well as homosexual behavior. I wonder if this Ahmed suspected his first wife of adultery?

And I wonder how long the San Francisco Police will be able to maintain this was an accident?

Christian Leaders Believe Jos Riots Were Coordinated and Planned

The Anglican Archbishop of Jos has been providing information that the Muslim attacks on Christians was carefully planned and the election results were only a pretext. In my early post on media reporting on the Jos riots, I wrote that it seemed to be a spontaneous outbreak of religious/ethnic hatred by Muslims against Christians. I want to correct that now based on this from the Barnabus Fund:

Coordinated and planned

The Archbishop of Jos, Rt Rev. Ben Kwashi, issued an urgent plea for prayer on the first day of violence. “Please pray for us in Jos, we are being attacked by Muslims.” Mentioning the link with the local elections, he added, “Why Christians must pay for this I do not know.” On Saturday, he reported, “The Muslims are attacking and burning this morning. It looks well coordinated. They are well armed with AK47 and pump machine guns. This morning they have been at Dogonduste. Quite a number of Christian homes have been burnt. We do not know how many have been killed.”

The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has denied allegations that its group started the attack, and appealed to all the people of the state to be calm. Most Rev. Ignatius Kaigama, the chairman of CAN in Plateau State, commented, “We were taken aback by the turn of events in Jos. We thought it was political, but from all indications it is not so. We were surprised at the way some of our churches and property were attacked and some of our faithful and clergy killed. The attacks were carefully planned and executed. The questions that bog our minds are why were churches and clergy attacked and killed? Why were politicians and political party offices not attacked if it were a political conflict? Why were the business premises and property of innocent civilians destroyed? We strongly feel that it was not political but pre-meditated act under the guise of elections.”

Part of a pattern

Plateau State lies in Nigeria’s troubled “Middle Belt” where Christians and Muslims are in roughly equal numbers and there is a history of large-scale sectarian rioting. These riots often appear to be pre-planned attacks, with young people being paid tiny sums to participate in the violence and promised heavenly rewards for killing people. The Berom ethnic group is indigenous to Plateau State, whereas the Hausas are settlers; there have been tensions for decades between the indigenous minority groups and the Hausa settlers.

Dr Patrick Sookhdeo, International Director of Barnabas Fund, comments: “The apparently pre-planned anti-Christian violence in Jos would be shocking enough if it were a single incident on its own, but is far worse given that it forms part of a pattern of repeated rioting in Nigeria, usually started by Muslims against Christians. It is tragic when Christians respond with violence, as seems to have happened this time. Please pray that Christian leaders in Nigeria will be able to help the Christian population to react in a Christ-like way to such provocation.”

You can read it all here and also find information on donating to help.

Aquinas Visits Yugoslav Abortionist in Dream, Converted to Life

This doctor says he was visited twice in dreams by a figure who identified himself as "Thomas Aquinas". Remember, Thomas Aquinas is the one Nancy Pelosi and other pro-abortion Catholics use to claim that there has been a difference of opinion among Catholics regarding the beginning of life.

Catholic News Agency

MADRID (CNA) — The Spanish daily “La Razon” has published an article on the pro-life conversion of a former “champion of abortion.” Stojan Adasevic, who performed 48,000 abortions, sometimes up to 35 per day, is now the most important pro-life leader in Serbia, after 26 years as the most renowned abortion doctor in the country.

“The medical textbooks of the Communist regime said abortion was simply the removal of a blob of tissue,” the newspaper reported. “Ultrasounds allowing the fetus to be seen did not arrive until the 80s, but they did not change his opinion. Nevertheless, he began to have nightmares.”

In describing his conversion, Adasevic “dreamed about a beautiful field full of children and young people who were playing and laughing, from 4 to 24 years of age, but who ran away from him in fear. A man dressed in a black and white habit stared at him in silence. The dream was repeated each night and he would wake up in a cold sweat. One night he asked the man in black and white who he was. ‘My name is Thomas Aquinas,’ the man in his dream responded. Adasevic, educated in communist schools, had never heard of the Dominican genius saint. He didn’t recognize the name”

“Why don’t you ask me who these children are?” St. Thomas asked Adasevic in his dream.“They are the ones you killed with your abortions,’ St. Thomas told him. “Adasevic awoke in amazement and decided not to perform any more abortions,” the article stated.

“That same day a cousin came to the hospital with his four months-pregnant girlfriend, who wanted to get her ninth abortion—something quite frequent in the countries of the Soviet bloc. The doctor agreed. Instead of removing the fetus piece by piece, he decided to chop it up and remove it as a mass. However, the baby’s heart came out still beating. Adasevic realized then that he had killed a human being,”

After this experience, Adasevic “told the hospital he would no longer perform abortions. Never before had a doctor in Communist Yugoslavia refused to do so. They cut his salary in half, fired his daughter from her job, and did not allow his son to enter the university.”
After years of pressure and on the verge of giving up, he had another dream about St. Thomas.

“You are my good friend, keep going,’ the man in black and white told him. Adasevic became involved in the pro-life movement and was able to get Yugoslav television to air the film ‘The Silent Scream,’ by Doctor Bernard Nathanson, two times.”

Adasevic has told his story in magazines and newspapers throughout Eastern Europe. He has returned to the Orthodox faith of his childhood and has studied the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas.

“Influenced by Aristotle, Thomas wrote that human life begins forty days after fertilization,” Adasevic wrote in one article. La Razon commented that Adasevic “suggests that perhaps the saint wanted to make amends for that error.” Today the Serbian doctor continues to fight for the lives of the unborn.

Hat tip to Jackie at Stand Firm