Reply #16: That's it, for sure. They also are hell on gay citizens.

[Judi Lynn]

You may find this article interesting:

Angels with Ice Picks
In one Little Havana church, there's no room for Love
Comments (0) By Jim DeFede Thursday, Sep 21 2000

Every Sunday for the past ten years, Art Buonamia and his wife, Marisa, drove from their home in Kendall to attend Mass at the Shrine of Saint Philomena Church in Little Havana. “They still do the Mass in Latin,” explains Buonamia, an Italian from New York who moved to Miami 34 years ago. “We grew up with the Latin Mass. It's a beautiful language.” Saint Philomena isn't a very large church. Fewer than 100 people attend Sunday services, Buonamia says, but its members are close.

All that changed, however, with Elian Gonzalez.

Following Easter Sunday Mass this past April, several members of the congregation, as well as a few outsiders, made speeches from the altar denouncing the federal government, which a day earlier had raided the boy's Little Havana home to reunite him with his father. Buonamia believed Elian's place was with his father, but he also understood it was an emotional issue and people would disagree. So he kept his views to himself.

But Buonamia could not accept having the church's altar seized to make political speeches against the United States. “The priest was hiding in the sanctuary at the time,” he recalls. “I asked him later why he would allow them to take over the altar like that. I said they shouldn't be allowed to do that. And he said, “There isn't anything I can do about it.' Which is true. He is afraid of them.”

The speakers were exhorting church members to march over to Elian's house to demonstrate. “If people didn't see you jumping up and down against the United States government, then it was perceived that you were against them personally,” he says. On his way out of the church that day, he told the priest, Father Timothy Hopkins, he wasn't coming back.

More:
http://www.miaminewtimes.com/2000-09-21/news/angels-with-ice-picks/