Okay. This is one of those bizarrely weird stories that sends conspiracy theorists into orbit. The fact is: Last March 23rd, Sun Myung Moon has had himself crowned “King of Peace” at the Dirksen Senate Office Bulding in Washington, declaring himself to be “savior, Messiah, Returning Lord and True Parent” and asserting: “I am God’s ambassador, sent to earth with his full authority. I am sent to accomplish His command to save the world’s six billion people, restoring them to Heaven with the original goodness in which they were created.”
Where the conspiracy part comes in is that multiple congressmen were in attendance at the event. One (Rep. Danny Davis [D-Ill]) was even the chap who plunked down the crown on Moon’s head. This could be taken as evidence that Moon’s “Unification Church” has numerous covert followers among the nation’s lawmakers.
That’s probably not the case. Moon’s money has bought him disturbing access to the nation’s lawmakers, but they probably aren’t crypto-Moonies. In fact, as repoted in The Hill, multiple lawmakers who were at the event deny that they knew Moon was going to be there or that the bizarre crowning was going to take place (Rep. Davis, who performed the crowning, would be an exception). Other lawmakers claimed by the Moonies to have been there deny that they were in attendance. The event has the earmarks of a Moon-staged event that was sprung on a bunch of surprised and alarmed congressmen.
The story didn’t gain prominence until recently, through videos of the event that appeared on the Web (they have since been taken down). You can read a transcript of one of the videos here. Now that it’s come to the press’s attention, the embarrassed lawmakers who were involved are distancing them from Moon and his “King of Peace” claims faster than the speed of light.
While conspiracy theorists might see the event in overly sinister (rather than simply silly) terms, the fact that the event took place at all is disturbing and reveals the extent to which Moon has been able to spread his influence through Washington. He’ll never become president or king or anything else of the United States, but that hasn’t stopped him from gaining undue influence through his money. Hopefully this event will serve to marginalize him and diminish the influence he has bought.
Well, one wacko at Capital Hill. Wouldn’t really add much to the crowd would it 😛