And remember, Walter’s webcast is TONIGHT!
On Sunday, January 14, 2018 this short email was sent out by an East Bay pro-life activist:
“A small group of friends have been praying in front of this clinic since 2009 (this is where Walter was arrested) in Oakland, near Jack London square.
We went to pray Saturday, as usual. It was closed, as it sometimes is. After I left, Felix and Sherry went across the street and saw this sign (that the business had closed)!
December! Our Lady’s month! Wooo Hooo!”
The clinic mentioned in the email was the Family Planning Specialists of Oakland, Ca, and the “Walter” mentioned in the email is Oakland pro-life activist the Rev. Walter Hoye, whose 2008 arrest under Oakland’s “bubble ordinance” galvanized the pro-life movement. The Reverend Hoye was peacefully exercising his First Amendment right to free speech. On July 16, 2009 the Los Angeles Times reported:
“In January (of 2009), Hoye, who had no criminal record, was found guilty of two counts of breaking the Oakland law. The victims, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert Graff, were patients, although none complained to police and none testified against him. Police were called to the clinic by (clinic executive director Jackie) Barbic.
What Hoye did next made him an instant celebrity in the antiabortion movement. Instead of agreeing to community service and three years’ probation, which would have required him to stay 100 yards away from the clinic, he chose jail.
‘I did not see how I could maintain my moral convictions, how I could give up my constitutionally guaranteed 1st Amendment rights,” Hoye said. ‘The only option left to me was — just go to jail.’”
In July of 2009, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, generally considered the most leftist in the country declared Oakland’s actions against Walter to be unconstitutional. Life Legal Defense Fund, which represented Hoye, said at the time “On Thursday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued its opinion in Hoye v. Oakland, the case in which Pastor Walter Hoye challenged Oakland’s “bubble zone” ordinance as an unconstitutional infringement of free speech. In the 3-0 opinion authored by Circuit Judge Marsha S. Berzon, the court stated, “We agree with Hoye that there are grave constitutional problems with the manner in which the City has understood and enforced its Ordinance.”
While the Oakland abortionists are now out of business the Rev. Hoye, and his wife Lori, are going strong. He is Director of the Issue4Life Foundation, which engages in pro-life activism and education in the Black community, a community more devastated by abortion that any other in America.
As we have mentioned, Rev Hoye will be hosting a January 15, 2018 webcast featuring such pro-life luminaries as Dr. Alveda King, the niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, and author, speaker, and former member of the Georgia House of Representatives; Archbishop Salvatore Joseph Cordileone, of the Archdiocese of San Francisco; Abby Johnson, author and President of And Then There Were None; Father Frank Pavone, National Director of Priests For Life; Father Joseph D. Fessio, S.J., Executive Editor of Ignatius Press and Chaplain of the Walk for Life West Coast; and Bishop Ronnie D. Allen, Ph.D., President of the International Faith Base Coalition. The webcast will be moderated by David Bereit, Former C.E.O. of 40 Days for Life.
You can log in to the webcast here. The date is Monday, January 15 at 6:00pm, PST.
You can download the webcast flyer here.