Kings Bay Plowshares
MEDIA RELEASE
NOVEMBER 20, 2018
Anti-Nuclear Plowshares Activists Finish Testimonies
at Federal Hearing in Georgia
BRUNSWICK, GA – The Kings Bay Plowshares evidentiary hearing regarding the Religious Freedom Restoration Act has concluded after a second full day of testimony November 19. Five of the seven defendants testified at the hearing on Monday. The activists are facing three felony charges and one misdemeanor charge with a possible 25 year sentence. They were arrested April 5 at Naval Station Kings Bay on the Florida border as part of their protest against Trident submarines and the D5 missiles they carry.
The seven Plowshares activists are asking the court to dismiss their charges because the government failed to offer them the least-restrictive means of resolving the charges against them.
Monday’s hearing was the conclusion of two days of testimony regarding the RFRA. The defendants explained their “deeply held religious beliefs,” and how their practice of their religion has been burdened by the government’s response to their actions. The RFRA requires the government to take claims of conscientiousness seriously.
Defendants Fr. Steven Kelly, S.J. and Clare Grady gave their testimony Nov. 7. In addition to the remaining five co-defendants testifying Nov. 19, the prosecution called its second of two witnesses, a civilian communications official.
After the testimonies, Magistrate Judge Benjamin Cheesbro denied motions from several co-defendants requesting a lessening of their bond restrictions, including removal of ankle monitors for the five defendants who are released on bond. They challenged the government’s contention that the five are a “danger to community safety.” Kelly and Elizabeth McAlister remain incarcerated in the Glynn County Detention Center.
In their testimonies throughout the day several defendants noted that the Trident nuclear weapons are the greatest threat to all of God’s creation.
Elizabeth McAlister, from Baltimore, who turned 79 years old a few days ago while in jail, recounted her trial for a 1983 Plowshares action in which she testified: “The government has set up a religion of nuclearism. It is terrifying and dead, dead wrong. It is a form of idolatry in this culture, spoken about with a sense of awe. It’s a total contradiction to our faith. It puts trust in weapons, not trust in God.”
“God is our strength,” McAlister said, then quoting scripture: “Be still and know that I am God.”
Carmen Trotta, from Manhattan, said that the government’s possession of nuclear weapons imposes a burden on all religious faith. He quoted the Catholic Church’s Vatican II documents:
“The arms race is a treacherous trap for humanity. Nations should mature to take care of one another. Nuclear weapons prevent us from having mutual cooperation with each other rather than mutual destruction.”
Patrick O’Neill, from Garner, NC, said everyone in the courtroom had much more in common, that the defendants and the prosecution truly shared a compelling interest to prevent nuclear war.
“It is our universal burden,” he said. “We can’t separate our religion and our faith from our lives, they are the same thing. Our Catholic faith calls us to uphold the sanctity of life and to preserve creation.”
O’Neill said the real sin present at Naval Station Kings Bay are the Trident II D-5 nuclear missiles on the Ohio-class submarines for which the base serves as the home port.
Martha Hennessy, of New York and granddaughter of Dorothy Day, the co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, spoke of the formation of her faith. Hennessy said early on she learned that nuclear weapons threaten all of God’s creation, and are directly opposed to her beliefs.
“I’m a grandmother, as a few of us are here,” Hennessy said. “I don’t care just for my children, but all the children in the world.”
Mark Colville, of New Haven, CT, testified his faith forms the foundation of his conscience.
“It’s the rudder of the ship of my life,” he said. “The sins of omission interfere with my faith in God.”
Colville spoke of former CIA officer turned political activist Ray McGovern’s comparison of what the Plowshares were trying to do in community, through a story about the cathedral near the World War II concentration Camp Buchenwald.
“The Incense of the ceremonial prayers within the church outside Buchenwald, rising upward to God, and over the wall just beyond,” he said, “The smoke from the chimneys of the death camps, the ashes of our brothers and sisters rising upward… and the two streams of smoke meeting above. Who’s prayers are being answered by God? Kings Bay Naval Base is labeled as a death camp for the entire world in the waiting.”
“What I’m charged with just seems so very petty compared to nuclear annihilation,” Colville said. “Yes, we went in the night and cut through the fence. We’re called to go into the darkness, to bring in light, to expose what is hidden.”
It is not known when Judge Cheesbro will make his ruling following this hearing. If he rules against the defendants’ motion to dismiss a date will then be set for their trial.
The Plowshares movement began in the early 1980s and advocates active resistance to war usually involving symbolic protest and the damaging of weapons and military property. There have been about 100 Plowshares protests worldwide.
“The victory of the day,” said Patrick O’Neill after the hearing, “Was that truth was spoken by all defendants.”
“It is clear that is the threat.”
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