I do not concede that just because the courts have ruled against us that we have been wrong. I have long been distrustful of the American judicial system (The Judiciary is the least democratic branch of government after all) before this lawsuit was ever conceived. A system that produces decisions like Dred Scott, Roe v. Wade and Eldred v. Ashcroft cannot be relied upon to rule on the side of justice or even basic sanity. I still believe that both the right in the ethical sense and the right in the sense of statutory law have both been on our side. There has been a good deal of case law against us but many of those other decisions have also been as wrong as this decision has been.
We decided going into this thing that we would not surrender because our principles are more valuable than our money or property. If it costs us our little building in order to write irrevocably into the pages of church history for future generations to read that Devon Park did everything humanly possible to rescue the name of the church, that is a fair enough trade. No one will ever be able to accuse us of abandoning the name of the church.
We're not sure how much power this decision will give the CoC over us in the coming days but Devon Park branch will continue to exist and stand on principle regardless of what happens to our legal corporation, our building or our relatively meager bank accounts. We started by meeting in the homes of individual members and if we have to go back to that again, so be it. In the words of the book of Job, "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, blessed be the name of the Lord." Our principles are more valuable than our money or property for they endure when all the rest of this crumbles to dust.
The record will show that the so-called "Community of Christ" hierarchy will stop at nothing, is dishonest and appears utterly without principle or conscience. I think it's important to let people know the truth behind how they're spinning this.
According to a Blue Springs Examiner story:
Linda Booth, Community of Christ director of communications, said other restoration branches in the Kansas City area “have worked peacefully” with Community of Christ officials to ensure their names and images were not infringing on trademarked material.
I would like to know precisely who these collaborators are and what exactly "working peacefully" means. Given that the Community of Christ somehow reconciled their pursuing this lawsuit against us with their "mission of peace," they seem to have embraced the Orwellian notion that "War is Peace." As such I am naturally very suspicious as to Booth's definition of "working peacefully" and expect that it probably means the other branches have merely capitulated to the Community of Christ's threats, simply in hopes of avoiding a similar fate as Devon Park, not actually "working peacefully" together. You aren't working peacefully with someone while you're threatening them!
Booth's next assertion tries to make us out to somehow be criminals.
“Any suffering they have is self-inflicted,” Booth said of Devon Park followers in relation to the trademark case. “They made a decision that they were not going to abide by the law. When they say they have suffered, indeed, their suffering is self-inflicted because they have chosen to violate the law and because they intentionally left the church.”
Deciding to challenge the validity of a trademark is not a decision to refuse to abide by the law! If it were, then no trademark could ever be challenged. Should we have "abided" by Governor Boggs's extermination order as well?
Also, the fact is that we have not "intentionally left the church." Where are our letters of resignation? When have we insisted that our names be stricken from the rolls? In fact, some members of Devon Park are still on the Community of Christ rolls as "members at large." A decade ago, some Restoration Branches requested representation in the CoC world conference and were denied. To say that the members of the Restoration Branches movement "left the church" in the 1980s is putting it very mildly - the fact is, they were locked out, in many cases both figuratively and literally. And these lockouts may be on their way again for anyone who will not abide their doctrinal apostasy and ecclesiastical tyranny.
In order to be able to practice our religion and teach our religious beliefs in future, we are going to have to come up with some sort of pseudonym to stand for the latter day saint Christian church that was reorganized by Joseph Smith III. It may be too soon for that issue to be decided at the upcoming Joint Conference of Restoration Branches as there will probably not be sufficient time between now and when the conference happens later this month for the saints to seek the Lord's will on the question of their future public identity, given that the one the Lord gave them in the 1860s has now been outlawed. We are not a generic church or "religion" - we are not "non-denominational" in the Protestant sense; we believe in a specific church organization with specific priesthood offices and ordinances. The question is what to call it henceforth, given that it has suffered identity theft.
I am not sure what to call the 19th and early 20th century RLDS theology except "RLDS theology" and so I suppose I am unavoidably going to be violating the trademark (as an individual) in some ways going forward for the nature of our language leaves us no other choice. So if there is any flouting of the law, now is when it could, in a sense, begin because up to now, we have complied with the law. We will have some difficult decisions to make in the days to come. Let us always pray for us to continue to be on God's side, for God is always on the side of right, no matter what any court says or any law.
