The indispensible John Gorenfeld has another great post at Talk to Action about the Rev. Moon and his close ties to social conservatives, in this case Utah Senator Orrin Hatch. Those ties go much deeper than you might expect. He includes video footage of Hatch praising Moon and his wife and details on Hatch writing a song for a Moonie project designed to eliminate the cross as a religious symbol and replace it with the Crown of Glory, the very symbol he was given in a ceremony in a Senate office building a few years ago. Before that ceremony took place, there was an earlier ceremony in February of 2004, where Moon’s son, Preston, picked up a crown for his father. A Moon minister declared at the time:
“One unique dimension was the debuting of a special song called the “Jerusalem Peace Song”, inspired by our Middle East Peace Initiative and authored by US Senator Orrin Hatch, Utah Senator Howard Stephenson and others. The performers of the song were quite inspired to reflect the spirit of reconciliation among the children of Abraham.”
It is one of Moon’s major projects to unite all religions under his rule, and doing away with the cross is one of the ways he intends to do that. If you want to see more information on Moon’s Take Down The Cross campaign, see this article by Gorenfeld. If this doesn’t convince the religious right to stop associating with Moon, nothing will.