Orrin Hatch's song for Reverend Moon

[donsu]

http://www.talk2action.org/story/2006/9/29/03943/6196


On the early Sunday morning of May 18, 2003, the high priests of Rev. Sun Myung Moon, owner of the Washington Times and Religious Right enigma, gathered over a grave near Jerusalem (left) to hold a funeral for the Christian cross. They had been touring the Middle East in the name of peace. They proposed Moon's teachings as the glue for Jews and Muslims, bewildering locals, and they held briefings on Mideast policy for the State Department, or so they claimed. They networked with politicians. And steam gathered for a big, big finale.

They buried the cross because it was Satan's icon, Moon said, cleaving Jew from gentile, Christian from Muslim. Moon demanded a new symbol that everyone could agree on: the Crown of Glory. In February and March, 2004, on Capitol Hill, U.S. politicians would attend two ceremonies celebrating this gospel, the last climaxing with the selfsame Crown Of Glory lowered onto the Times owner's head. (Video here, Washington Post link for those of you new to this story -- and a big welcome for Farkers.)

A surprising figure wrote a song especially for the campaign, according to the Reverend's flock. That's U.S. senator, Christian recording artist and longtime Moon friend Orrin Hatch (R-Utah).

Hatch's tune appears on an album issued in 2004 to commemorate the Reverend's roadshow and ensuing ceremony at the Dirksen Senate Office Building. He's listed as sharing songwriting duties with a Utah state politician and two other men. As advertised, a track on the album, "Jerusalem Peace Song," bears the following songwriting credits:

9) Jerusalem Peace Song (3:50)
(Orrin Hatch / Howard Stephenson / Dan Whitley / Stan Seale)

Was it an unwitting mistake -- writing a song for a group campaigning to dump the cross, a symbol of which many of Hatch's constituents are still rather fond? Perhaps. But Hatch and Moon, it turns out, go back years together. And their unlikely friendship offers a handy way to light a lantern along the convoluted corridors of the Reverend's maze of influence on Capitol Hill, touching a number of liberal Democrats but most enormous in its gifts to the conservative side of the aisle, including the $2 billion+ subsidy for the Times.
-snip-

read on - it's a long article
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[fishwax]

1. most of hatch's constituents have no fondness for the cross

so this step is not, perhaps, as surprising as one might at first think.

[Generic Other]

2. Moonies tossing crosses