I don’t see how this can help “Archbishop” Mark Grenon in court, but no one said he’s a legal genius.
Grenon, you’ll recall, runs a Florida church called the Genesis II Church of Health and Healing (G2C), whose website peddles a “sacrament” that’s essentially industrial bleach. A shrewd operator who appears to lack a conscience, Grenon recommends that adults and children ingest the toxic, dangerous solution as a cure for all manner of serious ailments, including COVID-19.
To what end G2C would now drop the religious act, I don’t know, but here we are:
[I]n a recent video interview with Age of Truth, an “alternative media platform” that explores the paranormal and conspiracy theories on YouTube, the group’s leader Mark Grenon admitted that Genesis II was established as a church to avoid governmental regulation.
Why a church? It’s sadly predictable:
“Because everything you do commercially is under the Universal [sic] Commercial Code, OK. A church is completely separate from that [sic] codes, statutes and laws. That’s why a priest can give a kid wine in church, probably, and not get arrested, because it’s a sacrament. You can go into a church like an embassy and get political asylum. Why? ’Cause it’s not under any law… You can’t arrest us [for] doing one of our sacraments.”
“We could have done temple, we could have done synagogue, we could have done mosque,” Grenon also said. “They all have the same right. But we just chose church. People who are a member of a mosque — stay a member of your mosque. This is about health.”
OK, so G2C is not a church. Is it even a Christian organization? Grenon:
“No, not at all. … Genesis just means beginning. We started this by saying, I personally am a Christian. But Jim says, well, I believe this. [Jim Humble, a co-founder of the church, is a noted ex-Scientologist.] And I said just start it like a hospital. When you go to a hospital, they might ask your religion, but they’re not going to stop you from being helped… Let’s start a church for everyone. We have atheists in our church.
Possible. Would love to see some proof.
“We have every person, every gender you could imagine. … We wanted to make it non-religious. ’Cause I want the guy that doesn’t agree with me philosophically, religiously, or whatever, to still learn how to do this — to help his kids, his wife.”
According to the Bradenton Herald,
[A] federal judge has issued a preliminary injunction that extends a ban on the organization from distributing its MMS product, also known as “Master” or “Miracle Mineral Solution.”
The judge wrote
“The Court finds that the United States has shown a cognizable danger that Defendants will continue to violate the FDCA [Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act] in the future unless a preliminary injunction is issued.” …
A hearing on whether the defendants should be held in contempt of court is scheduled for May 11.
That’s because they’ve shown neither contrition nor compliance. Quite the opposite. Bolstered by the seeming support of the President of the United States, Grenon and his accomplices have continued selling their miracle cure, employing no small amount of bluster. In a recent letter to U.S. District Judge Kathleen M. Williams and U.S. attorney Matthew J. Feeley, the self-proclaimed Archbishop, still riding the religion angle, thundered:
“You can’t make a Law against the practice of our Sacraments so you surely can’t enforce an unlawful law. So, why are you, the FDA and DOJ committing this GROSS Negligence against a Church of the Lord Jesus Christ that has the freedom to practice our religious convictions that our President defends?”
I’ve occasionally thought that the whole thing is so over-the-top absurd that it must be a giant windup — a Satanic-Temple-like spiel to expose the danger and ludicrousness of special rules and exemptions for churches. Grenon’s admission that G2C isn’t really a church may be the harbinger of some brilliant end game to a years-long performance piece that would delight mega-hoaxer Joey Skaggs.
Then again, religion produces more than its fair share of genuinely preposterous characters and behaviors.
To be continued.
(Thanks to Som for the link)