Randall Terry

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Randall Terry bigraphy, stories - American activist

Randall Terry : biography

1959 –

Randall Almira Terry (born 1959) is an American pro-life activist. Terry founded the pro-life organization Operation Rescue. The group became particularly prominent beginning in 1987 for blockading the entrances to abortion clinics; Terry led the group until 1991.. June 1, 2009, Operation Rescue. He has been arrested more than 40 times, December 5, 2002. St.Augustine Record most recently for violating a no-trespass order from the University of Notre Dame in order to protest a visit by President Barack Obama.Sly, Randy. . May 1, 2009, Catholic Online (news). Terry has long been known for provocative and controversial statements, including that abortion is murder and should be made a capital crime.

In 2003, Randall Terry founded the Society for Truth and Justice and conducted a program called Operation Witness. In 1998, he ran for Congress in upstate New York, and in 2006 for a seat in the Florida State Senate, both times losing in the Republican primary.

Personal life

Terry’s personal life has frequently come under public scrutiny, some of which he has welcomed, going so far as to put his foster children on his curriculum vitae as part of his pro-life "bona fides." Terry has been married twice, having numerous children. With his first wife Cindy, he had a daughter before fostering two additional daughters and a son. He formally adopted the two youngest foster children. He has four sons with his second wife, Andrea.Labash, Michael. , October 22, 2012. "The Weekly Standard.

In the early 1980s, Terry married Cindy Dean, a woman he had met in Bible school.Powell, Michael. . April 22, 2004. Washington Post, p. C-1. In 1985, he met a woman who had borne her second child in prison and was planning an abortion rather than having a third. Terry persuaded her to continue the pregnancy and a daughter named Tila was born later that year. In 1987, Cindy and Randall Terry had a daughter together whom they named Faith. In March 1988, they took in Tila, then aged three, and her siblings Jamiel, 8, and Ebony, 12, as foster children. All three are biracial; their mother was white. Terry formally adopted the two younger children in 1994 and began describing his family on his résumé as: "Children: One by birth and three black foster children," although Ebony had left home at the age of 16 in 1991. Ebony, who was not adopted by Terry, uses the surname Whetstone, but both Jamiel and Tila took and retained the surname Terry., National Names Database. Accessed May 29, 2009. She converted to Islam, a religion Terry has preached is composed of "murderers" and "terrorists." In 2004, Terry described his relationship with Ebony as "good." However, Terry banned Tila from his home after she became pregnant outside of marriage twice by age 18; her first pregnancy ended in miscarriage.Hinojosa, Maria. , April 15, 2004. CNN transcript. In 1998, when Terry was accused of racism while running for Congress, his son Jamiel stepped forward to defend him. In 2000, Jamiel worked with his father on Steven Forbes’ campaign for the Republican nomination for U.S. president, and campaigned with his father against gay marriage in Vermont. In 2004, Jamiel publicly announced that he was gay and wrote an article for Out Magazine for which he was paid US$2,500. When he learned that the Out article was to be published, Terry pre-empted Jamiel by writing an essay, My Prodigal Son, the Homosexual,Terry, Randall. . April 9, 2004. World Net Daily. in which he writes of pain and disappointment, blames Jamiel’s homosexuality and other troubles on his childhood experiences, and contends that much of the Out Magazine article is false and was written by other people. Jamiel’s response was, "My father’s first and foremost aim is to protect himself. He talks about how I prostitute the family’s name, but he’s used the fact that he saved my sister from abortion and rescued me from hardship in his speeches and interviews. What’s the difference?"