This story captured my attention this morning:
Jury awards Procter and Gamble $19 million over devil worship rumors.
Four Amway distributors who spread satanic worship rumors about Procter & Gamble have the devil to pay – more than $19 million worth.
A federal jury in Salt Lake City made that damage award to the household products company, which had pursued its claims for more than a decade in the courts.
U.S. District Judge Ted Stewart, who presided over the 10-day trial, has the option of adding interest to the $19,250,000 award.
The jury’s Friday verdict came after a dozen years of litigation. P&G filed suit against Randy Haugen of Ogden and three other distributors in 1995. The company charged the four had disseminated the devil-worship hoax through Amway’s voice-mail system.
P&G said the Amway quartet passed along the false story that P&G’s president had told a television talk show that his company was affiliated with the Church of Satan.
That never happened. But the Cincinnati-based maker of laundry detergent, soap, shampoo, toothpaste and other products claims the rumors still cost it millions of dollars in sales.
The Amway defendants say they merely repeated a rumor they believed at the time to be true.
One of the defendants was Randy Haugen, a “Diamond” in Dexter Yager’s group. On his website, someone has written:
The outcome was disappointing, and we still believe in the outstanding character and integrity of Randy Haugen.
Riiight. OutSTANDING character. He spread a rumour that P&G worshiped Satan. AND HE WAS SERIOUS.
Here’s a link to a transcript of the original voicemail message. That’s pretty… whacky. Here’s my point: what kind of person hears a story like that and thinks to themselves “yeah, that sound probable. I’ll pass it on.”????
Of the $20mill fine, Haugen’s website says:
That’s a far cry from the $5 billion P&G had demanded, and frankly leaves them with very little to show for a wasteful and spiteful decade of mean-spirited litigation.
“Mean-spirited”? Hmmm. Perhaps they were being told what to do by…. someone who cannot be named? And I don’t mean Voldemort.
It’s not just these Amway guys spreading the rumour. While searching for the P&G logo that a lot of the rumours center on, I found this site “The Swift Report“. This is from 2005:
A coalition of Christian groups is calling on the Department of Justice to block the proposed merger between Procter & Gamble and razor giant Gillette because of P&G’s ties to the Church of Satan. If the corporate marriage is approved, the new corporation will be the largest in the world to be controlled by Satan worshippers.
The groups, which include the Campaign for Families, Defend Our Marriages and the Coalition for Traditional Values, are asking the Department of Justice to block the merger on the grounds that it will give an unfair advantage to Satan in the battle of good vs. evil. The American Family Association submitted its own complaint, objecting to Procter’s support for what it calls “the homosexual agenda.”
“…an unfair advantage to Satan in the battle of good vs. evil.” Where do they get this stuff? If these people want to see the face of evil, all they need to do is look in the mirror.
Oh yeah, you have to be careful of that “homosexual agenda”. Didn’t you know? They are trying to make us all like them.
The part of the Swift site I like the most, though, is the survey which asks:
Which homosexual word in the National Spelling Bee did you find most offensive?
- mansuetude
- spheterize
- enclitic
- rubasse
- ouvert
Not being homosexual myself, I had to turn to the dictionary to discover what some of these words meant (okay, ALL of the words).
mansuetude : Gentleness of manner; mildness. (Note: isn’t that how Christians describe Jesus? Gentle of manner? Are they suggesting he was homosexual? Hmmmm. He did look like a bit of a girl. Okay – with hormone problems.)
spheterize : To make something one’s own: appropriate. (Note: as in “I’m going to spheterize me some of that spunky bloke’s ass.”)
enclitic : A clitic that is attached to the end of another word. In Give ’em the works, the pronoun ’em is an enclitic. Of course, as you all know, a “clitic” is: An unstressed word, typically a function word, that is incapable of standing on its own and attaches in pronunciation to a stressed word, with which it forms a single accentual unit. Examples of clitics are the pronoun ’em in I see ’em and the definite article in French l’arme, “the arm.†(Note: I think the homosexual use of this is “Oh, check out that big ol’ ‘omo over there with the pink boa around his neck.”)
rubasse : A variety of quartz colored ruby red by its iron-oxide content. (Note:… nope, I got nuthin’.)
ouvert : adj.- ballet : having an open stance or movement. (Note: “Oh I do love to get it on with men while they ouvert.”)
To be really homosexual, one must be able to use these words in a sentence.
Example: “Although I consider myself mansuetude, I must admit to the desire to spheterize certain gentlemen while they ouvert and the very thought of it makes me turn the colour of rubasse and lapse into enclitic use of certain pronouns.”
Ah, the Christians. They give me a reason to get up in the morning.
Disclaimer: I did the whole Amway thing for a few years back in the early 90s. The whole overwhelming “Christian values” of it always bothered the hell out of me. I struggled with it and finally quit. I did meet some great people though and I never had a problem with the business model. I do know some homosexuals. And when I first saw the film clip to Queen’s “Radio Ga Ga”, I did think Roger Taylor looked pretty cute in his wig and dress.
