title: Unification Church

text: Moon has emphasized the similarity between Unification views of sexuality and evangelical Christianity, "reaching out to conservative Christians in this country in the last few years by emphasizing shared goals like support for sexual abstinence outside of marriage, and opposition to homosexuality."


title: Unification Church

text: In the early 1960s John Lofland lived with HSA-UWC missionary Young Oon Kim and a small group of American members and studied their activities in trying to promote their beliefs and win new members. Lofland noted that most of their efforts were ineffective and that most of the people who joined did so because of personal relationships with other members, often family relationships. Lofland published his findings in 1964 as a doctoral thesis entitled "The World Savers: A Field Study of Cult Processes", and in 1966 in book form by Prentice-Hall as "."


title: Unification Church

text: In 1977 Frederick Sontag, a professor of philosophy at Pomona College and a minister in the United Church of Christ., spent 10 months visiting HSA-UWC members in North America, Europe, and Asia as well as interviewing Moon at his home in New York State. He reported his findings and observations in "Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church", published by Abingdon Press. The book also provides an overview of the "Divine Principle". In an interview with UPI Sontag compared the HSA-UWC with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and said that he expected its practices to conform more to mainstream American society as its members become more mature. He added that he did not want to be considered an apologist but a close look at HSA-UWC's theology is important: "They raise some incredibly interesting issues."


title: Unification Church

text: In 1984 Eileen Barker published "The Making of a Moonie" based on her seven-year study of HSA-UWC members in the United Kingdom and the United States. In 2006 Laurence Iannaccone of George Mason University, a specialist in the economics of religion, wrote that "The Making of a Moonie" was "one of the most comprehensive and influential studies" of the process of conversion to new religious movements. Australian psychologist Len Oakes and British psychiatry professor Anthony Storr, who have written rather critically about cults, gurus, new religious movements, and their leaders have praised "The Making of a Moonie". It was given the Distinguished Book Award for 1985 by the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion. In 1997 Barker reported that Unificationists had mostly undergone a transformation in their world view from millennialism to utopianism.


title: Unification Church

text: In 1998 Irving Louis Horowitz, sociologist, questioned the relationship between the HSA-UWC and scholars whom it paid to conduct research on its behalf.


title: Unification Church

text: Unificationism holds that the Jewish people as a whole were prepared by God to receive the Messiah in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, with John the Baptist tasked from birth with the mission to lead the Jewish people to Jesus, but failed in his mission. According to the "Divine Principle", the Jews went through a "course of indemnity" due to the failure of John the Baptist to recognizse Jesus as the Messiah, in spite of publicly testifying to him at the Jordan River, whilst receiving the baptism.


title: Unification Church

text: In 1976, the American Jewish Committee released a report by Rabbi A. James Rudin which stated that the "Divine Principle" contained "pejorative language, stereotyped imagery, and accusations of collective sin and guilt." In a news conference which was presented by the AJC and representatives of Catholic and Protestant churches, panelists stated that the text "contained over 125 anti-Jewish references." They also cited Moon's recent and public condemnation of "antisemitic and anti-Christian attitudes", and called upon him to make a "comprehensive and systematic removal" of antisemitic and anti-Christian references in the "Divine Principle" as a demonstration of good faith.


title: Unification Church

text: In 1977, the HSA-UWC issued a rebuttal to the report, stating that it was neither comprehensive nor reconciliatory, instead, it had a "hateful tone" and it was filled with "sweeping denunciations". It denied that the "Divine Principle" teaches antisemitism and gave detailed responses to 17 specific allegations which were contained in the AJC's report, stating that the allegations were distortions of teachings and obscurations of the real content of passages or the passages were accurate summaries of Jewish scriptures or New Testament passages.


title: Unification Church

text: In 1984, Mose Durst, then the president of the Unification Church of the United States as well as a convert from Judaism, said that the Jewish community had been "hateful" in its response to the growth of the Unification movement, and he also placed blame on the community's "insecurity" and Unification Church members' "youthful zeal and ignorance". Rudin, then the national interreligious affairs director of the American Jewish Committee, said that Durst's remarks were inaccurate and unfair and he also said that "hateful is a harsh word to use". In the same year Durst wrote in his autobiography: "Our relations with the Jewish community have been the most painful to me personally. I say this with a heavy heart, since I was raised in the Jewish faith and am proud of my heritage."


title: Unification Church

text: In 1989, Unification Church leaders Peter Ross and Andrew Wilson issued "Guidelines for Members of The Unification Church in Relations with the Jewish People" which stated: "In the past there have been serious misunderstandings between Judaism and the Unification Church. In order to clarify these difficulties and guide Unification Church members in their relations with Jews, the Unification Church suggests the following guidelines."


title: Unification Church

text: Protestant commentators have criticized Unification Church teachings as being contrary to the Protestant doctrine of salvation by faith alone. In their influential book "The Kingdom of the Cults" (first published in 1965), Walter Ralston Martin and Ravi K. Zacharias disagreed with the "Divine Principle" on the issues of Christology, the virgin birth of Jesus, the movement's belief that Jesus should have married, the necessity of the crucifixion of Jesus, and a literal resurrection of Jesus as well as a literal Second Coming.


title: Unification Church

text: In 1974 Moon founded the Unification Theological Seminary, in Barrytown, New York, partly in order to improve relations of the movement with other churches. Professors from other denominations, including a Methodist minister, a Presbyterian, and a Roman Catholic priest, as well as a rabbi, were hired to teach religious studies to the students, who were being trained as leaders in the movement.


title: Unification Church

text: In 1977, Unification member Jonathan Wells, who later became well known as the author of the popular Intelligent Design book "Icons of Evolution", defended Unification theology against what he said were unfair criticisms by the National Council of Churches. That same year Frederick Sontag, a professor of philosophy at Pomona College and a minister in the United Church of Christ, published "Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church" which gave an overview of the movement and urged Christians to take it more seriously.


title: Unification Church

text: In 1982, Moon was imprisoned in the United States after being found guilty by a jury of willfully filing false Federal income tax returns and conspiracy. (See: "United States v. Sun Myung Moon") HSA-UWC members launched a public-relations campaign. Booklets, letters and videotapes were mailed to approximately 300,000 Christian leaders in the United States. Many of them signed petitions protesting the government's case. The American Baptist Churches in the U.S.A, the National Council of Churches, the National Black Catholic Clergy Caucus, and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference filed briefs in support of Moon.


title: Unification Church

text: In the 1980s the Unification Church sent thousands of American ministers from other churches on trips to Japan and South Korea to inform them about Unification teachings. At least one minister was dismissed by his congregation for taking part. In 1994 the church had about 5,000 members in Russia and came under criticism from the Russian Orthodox Church. In 1997, the Russian government passed a law requiring the movement and other non-Russian religions to register their congregations and submit to tight controls.


title: Unification Church

text: In 1995 the Unification Movement related organization the Women's Federation for World Peace indirectly contributed $3.5 million to help Baptist Liberty University which at that time was in financial difficulty. This was reported in the United States news media as an example of closer relationships between the movement and conservative Christian congregations.


title: Unification Church

text: The "Divine Principle" lists the Muslim world as one of the world's four major divisions (the others being East Asia, Hindu, and Christendom). Unification movement support for Islamist anti-communists came to public attention in 1987 when church member Lee Shapiro was killed in Afghanistan during the Soviet–Afghan War while filming a documentary. The resistance group they were traveling with reported that they had been ambushed by military forces of the Soviet Union or the Afghan government. However, the details have been questioned, partly because of the poor reputation of the group's leader, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.


title: Unification Church

text: In 1997, the "Washington Report on Middle East Affairs" (which is critical of United States and Israeli policies), praised the Unification Movement owned newspaper, "The Washington Times" and the "Times" sister publication "The Middle East Times" (along with "The Christian Science Monitor" owned by the Church of Christ, Scientist) for their objective and informative coverage of Islam and the Middle East, while criticizing the "Times" generally pro-Israel editorial policy. The "Report" suggested that these newspapers, being owned by religious organizations, were less influenced by pro-Israel pressure groups in the United States.


title: Unification Church

text: In 2000 the FFWPU co-sponsored the Million Family March, a rally in Washington D.C. to celebrate family unity and racial and religious harmony, along with the Nation of Islam. Louis Farrakhan, the leader of The Nation of Islam, was the main speaker at the event which was held on 16 October 2000; the fifth anniversary of the Million Man March, which was also organized by Farrakhan. Unification Church leader Dan Fefferman wrote to his colleagues acknowledging that Farrakhan's and Moon's views differed on multiple issues but shared a view of a "God-centered family". In 2007 Rev and Mrs Moon sent greetings to Farrakhan while he was recovering from cancer, saying: "We send love and greetings to Minister Farrakhan and Mother Khadijah."


title: Unification Church

text: In the 1990s and 2000s the Unification Movement made public statements claiming communications with the spirits of religious leaders including Muhammad and also Confucius, the Buddha, Jesus, and Augustine, as well as political leaders such as Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Leon Trotsky, Mao Zedong and many more. This was reported to have distanced the movement from Islam as well as from mainstream Christianity. From 2001 to 2009 the Unification movement owned the American Life TV Network (now known as Youtoo TV), which in 2007 broadcast George Clooney's documentary, "A Journey to Darfur", which was harshly critical of Islamists in Darfur, the Republic of Sudan. It released the film on DVD in 2008 and announced that proceeds from its sale would be donated to the International Rescue Committee. In his 2009 autobiography Moon praised Islam and expressed the hope that there would be more understanding between different religious communities. In 2011, representatives of the Unification Church took part in an international seminar which was held in Taiwan by the Muslim World League. The said purpose of the seminar was to encourage inter-faith dialogue and discourage people from resorting to terrorism.


title: Unification Church

text: In 2009 the FFWPU held an interfaith event in the Congress of the Republic of Peru. Former President of the Congress Marcial Ayaipoma and other notable politicians were called "Ambassadors for Peace" of the Unification Church. In 2010, the church built a large interfaith temple in Seoul. Author Deepak Chopra was the keynote at an interfaith event of the Unification Church cohosted with the United Nations at the Headquarters of the United Nations. In 2011, an interfaith event was held in the National Assembly of Thailand, the President of the National Assembly of Thailand attended the event. In 2012, the Unification movement affiliated-Universal Peace Federation held an interfaith dialogue in Italy that was cosponsored by United Nations. That year, the Universal Peace Federation held an interfaith program for representatives of 12 various religions and confessions in the hall of the United Nations General Assembly. The President of the United Nations General Assembly, the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, the Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations and other UN officials spoke.


title: Unification Church

text: The "Divine Principle" calls for the unification of science and religion: "Religion and science, each in their own spheres, have been the methods of searching for truth in order to conquer ignorance and attain knowledge. Eventually, the way of religion and the way of science should be integrated and their problems resolved in one united undertaking; the two aspects of truth, internal and external, should develop in full consonance."


title: Unification Church

text: In the 1970s and 1980s the Unification Movement sponsored the International Conference on the Unity of the Sciences (ICUS), in order to promote the concept of the unity of science and religion. American news media have suggested that the conferences were also an attempt to improve the often controversial public image of the church. The first conference, held in 1972, had 20 participants; while the largest conference, in Seoul, South Korea in 1982, had 808 participants from over 100 countries. Participants in one or more of the conferences included Nobel laureates John Eccles (Physiology or Medicine 1963, who chaired the 1976 conference) and Eugene Wigner (Physics 1963).


title: Unification Church

text: The relationship of the Unification Movement and science again came to public attention in 2002 with the publication of "Icons of Evolution", a popular book critical of the teaching of evolution written by member Jonathan Wells. Wells is a graduate of the Unification Theological Seminary and has been active with the Discovery Institute as an advocate for intelligent design.


title: Unification Church

text: In the 1940s, Moon cooperated with Communist Party members in support of the Korean independence movement against Imperial Japan. After the Korean War (1950–1953), he became an outspoken anti-communist. Moon viewed the Cold War between liberal democracy and communism as the final conflict between God and Satan, with divided Korea as its primary front line. Soon after its founding, the Unification movement began supporting anti-communist organizations, including the World League for Freedom and Democracy founded in 1966 in Taipei, Republic of China (Taiwan), by Chiang Kai-shek, and the Korean Culture and Freedom Foundation, an international public diplomacy organization which also sponsored Radio Free Asia. The Unification movement was criticized for its anti-communist activism by the mainstream media and the alternative press, and many members of them said that it could lead to World War Three and a nuclear holocaust. The movement's anti-communist activities received financial support from Japanese millionaire and activist Ryōichi Sasakawa.


title: Unification Church

text: In 1972, Moon predicted the decline of communism, based on the teachings of the "Divine Principle": "After 7,000 biblical years—6,000 years of restoration history plus the millennium, the time of completion—communism will fall in its 70th year. Here is the meaning of the year 1978. Communism, begun in 1917, could maintain itself approximately 60 years and reach its peak. So 1978 is the border line and afterward communism will decline; in the 70th year it will be altogether ruined. This is true. Therefore, now is the time for people who are studying communism to abandon it." In 1973, he called for an "automatic theocracy" to replace communism and solve "every political and economic situation in every field". In 1975, Moon spoke at a government sponsored rally against potential North Korean military aggression on Yeouido Island in Seoul to an audience of around 1 million.


title: Unification Church

text: In 1976, Moon established News World Communications, an international news media conglomerate which publishes "The Washington Times" newspaper in Washington, D.C., and newspapers in South Korea, Japan, and South America, partly in order to promote political conservatism. According to "The Washington Post", "the "Times" was established by Moon to combat communism and be a conservative alternative to what he perceived as the liberal bias of "The Washington Post"." Bo Hi Pak, called Moon's "right-hand man", was the founding president and the founding chairman of the board. Moon asked Richard L. Rubenstein, a rabbi and college professor, to join its board of directors. "The Washington Times" has often been noted for its generally pro-Israel editorial policies. In 2002, during the 20th anniversary party for the "Times", Moon said: "The "Washington Times" will become the instrument in spreading the truth about God to the world."


title: Unification Church

text: In 1980, members founded CAUSA International, an anti-communist educational organization based in New York City. In the 1980s, it was active in 21 countries. In the United States, it sponsored educational conferences for evangelical and fundamentalist Christian leaders as well as seminars and conferences for Senate staffers, Hispanic Americans and conservative activists. In 1986, CAUSA International sponsored the documentary film "Nicaragua Was Our Home", about the Miskito Indians of Nicaragua and their persecution at the hands of the Nicaraguan government. It was filmed and produced by USA-UWC member Lee Shapiro, who later died while filming with anti-Soviet forces during the Soviet–Afghan War. At this time CAUSA international also directly assisted the CIA in supplying the Contras, in addition to paying for flights by rebel leaders. This funneling of supplies to the Contras escalated after Congress cut off CIA funding for the rebel groups.


title: Unification Church

text: In 1980, members in Washington, D.C., disrupted a protest rally against the United States military draft. In 1981, the Appellate Division of New York State Supreme Court ruled that the HSA–UWC was not entitled to property tax exemptions on its New York City properties since its primary purpose was political, not religious. In 1982, this ruling was overturned by the New York State Supreme Court itself, which ruled that it should be considered a religious organization for tax purposes.


title: Unification Church

text: In 1983, some American members joined a public protest against the Soviet Union in response to its shooting down of Korean Airlines Flight 007. In 1984, the HSA–UWC founded the Washington Institute for Values in Public Policy, a Washington, D.C. think tank that underwrites conservative-oriented research and seminars at Stanford University, the University of Chicago, and other institutions. In the same year, member Dan Fefferman founded the International Coalition for Religious Freedom in Virginia, which is active in protesting what it considers to be threats to religious freedom by governmental agencies. In August 1985, the Professors World Peace Academy, an organization founded by Moon, sponsored a conference in Geneva to debate the theme "The situation in the world after the fall of the communist empire." After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 the Unification movement promoted extensive missionary work in Russia and other former Soviet nations.


title: Unification Church

text: In 1991, Moon met with Kim Il-sung, the North Korean President, to discuss ways to achieve peace on the Korean Peninsula, as well as on international relations, tourism, and other topics. In 1992, Kim gave his first and only interview with the Western news media to "Washington Times" reporter Josette Sheeran, who later became executive director of the United Nations World Food Programme. In 1994, Moon was officially invited to Kim's funeral, in spite of the absence of diplomatic relations between North Korea and South Korea.


title: Unification Church

text: In 1998, Unification movement-related businesses launched operations in North Korea with the approval of the government of South Korea, which had prohibited business relationships between North and South before. In 2000, the church-associated business group Tongil Group founded Pyeonghwa Motors in the North Korean port of Nampo, in cooperation with the North Korean government. It was the first automobile factory in North Korea.


title: Unification Church

text: During the presidency of George W. Bush, Dong Moon Joo, a Unification movement member and then president of "The Washington Times", undertook unofficial diplomatic missions to North Korea in an effort to improve its relationship with the United States. Joo was born in North Korea and is a citizen of the United States.


title: Unification Church

text: In 2003, Korean Unification Movement members started a political party in South Korea. It was named The Party for God, Peace, Unification and Home. In its inauguration declaration, the new party said it would focus on preparing for Korean reunification by educating the public about God and peace. Moon was a member of the Honorary Committee of the Unification Ministry of the Republic of Korea. Church member Jae-jung Lee was a Unification Minister of the Republic of Korea.


title: Unification Church

text: In 2010, in Pyongyang, to mark the 20th anniversary of Moon's visit to Kim Il-sung, "de facto" head of state Kim Yong-nam hosted Moon's son Hyung Jin Moon, then the president of the Unification Church, in his official residence. At that time, Hyung Jin Moon donated 600 tons of flour to the children of Jeongju, the birthplace of Sun Myung Moon.


title: Unification Church

text: In 2012, Moon was posthumously awarded North Korea's National Reunification Prize. On the first anniversary of Moon's death, North Korean chairman Kim Jong-un expressed condolences to Han and the family, saying: "Kim Jong-un prayed for the repose of Moon, who worked hard for national concord, prosperity and reunification and world peace." In 2017, the Unification Church sponsored the International Association of Parliamentarians for Peace (IAPP)—headed by former Prime Minister of Nepal Madhav Kumar Nepal and former Minister of Peace and Reconstruction Ek Nath Dhakal—visited Pyongyang and had constructive talks with the Korean Workers' Party. In 2020 the movement held an in-person and virtual rally for Korean unification which drew about one million attendees.


title: Unification Church

text: Moon's claim to be the Messiah and the Second Coming of Christ has been rejected by both Jewish and Christian scholars. Protestant commentators have criticized Moon's teachings as being contrary to the Protestant doctrine of salvation by faith alone. In their influential book "The Kingdom of the Cults" (first published in 1965), Walter Ralston Martin and Ravi K. Zacharias disagreed with the "Divine Principle" on the issues of the divinity of Christ, the virgin birth of Jesus, Moon's belief that Jesus should have married, the necessity of the crucifixion of Jesus, a literal resurrection of Jesus, as well as a literal second coming of Jesus. Commentators have criticized the "Divine Principle" for saying that the First World War, the Second World War, the Holocaust, and the Cold War served as indemnity conditions to prepare the world for the establishment of the Kingdom of God.


title: Unification Church

text: In 1998, journalist Peter Maass, writing for "The New Yorker", reported that some Unification members complained about blessing being given to non-members who had not gone through the same course that members had. Since 2001 couples Blessed by Moon have been able to arrange marriages for their own children, without his direct guidance.


title: Unification Church

text: In 2000, Moon was criticized, including by some members of his church, for his support of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan's Million Family March. Moon was also criticized for his relationship with Jewish scholar Richard L. Rubenstein, an advocate of the "death of God theology" of the 1960s. Rubenstein was a defender of the Unification Church and served on its advisory council, as well as on the board of directors of the church-owned "Washington Times" newspaper. In the 1990s, he served as president of the University of Bridgeport, which was then affiliated with the church. In 1998, the Egyptian newspaper "Al-Ahram" criticized Moon's possible relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and wrote that the "Washington Times" editorial policy was "rabidly anti-Arab, anti-Muslim and pro-Israel." Moon has also been criticized for his advocacy of a world-wide "automatic theocracy", as well as for advising his followers that they should become "crazy for God".


title: Unification Church

text: Central to Unification teachings is the concept that fallen humanity can be restored to God only through a messiah, who comes as a new Adam to become the new head of the human race, replacing the sinful parents, through whom mankind can be reborn into God's family. According to the religion, Jesus is this messiah.


title: Unification Church

text: The Unification view of Jesus has been criticized by mainstream Christian authors and theologians. In their influential book "The Kingdom of the Cults" (first published in 1965), Walter Ralston Martin and Ravi K. Zacharias disagreed with the "Divine Principle" on the issues of the divinity of Christ, the virgin birth of Jesus, the Unification Church's belief that Jesus should have married and a literal resurrection of Jesus as well as a literal Second Coming. They add: "Moon makes all men equal in "divinity" to Jesus, thereby striking a blow at the uniqueness of Christ."


title: Unification Church

text: Unificationist theologian Young Oon Kim wrote, and some members of the Unification movement believe, that Zechariah was the father of Jesus, based on the work of Leslie Weatherhead, an English Christian theologian in the liberal Protestant tradition.


title: Unification Church

text: Indemnity, in the context of Unification theology, is a part of the process by which human beings and the world are restored to God's ideal. The concept of indemnity is explained at the start of the second half of the "Divine Principle", "Introduction to Restoration":


title: Unification Church

text: The "Divine Principle" goes on to explain three types of indemnity conditions. Equal conditions of indemnity pay back the full value of what was lost. The biblical verse "life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth" (Exod.21:23–24) is quoted as an example of an equal indemnity condition. Lesser conditions of indemnity provide a benefit greater than the price that is paid. Faith, baptism, and the eucharist are mentioned as examples of lesser indemnity conditions. Greater conditions of indemnity come about when a person fails in a lesser condition. In that case a greater price must be paid to make up for the earlier failure. Abraham's attempted sacrifice of his son Isaac (Gen. 22:1–18) and the Israelites' 40 years of wandering in the wilderness under Moses (Num.14:34) are mentioned as examples of greater indemnity conditions. The "Divine Principle" then explains that an indemnity condition must reverse the course by which the mistake or loss came about. Indemnity, at its core, is required of humans because God is pure, and purity cannot relate directly with impurity. Indemnification is the vehicle that allows a "just and righteous" God to work through mankind. Jesus' statement that God had forsaken him (Matt.27:46) and Christianity's history of martyrdom are mentioned as examples of this. The "Divine Principle" then states that human beings, not God or the angels, are the ones responsible for making indemnity conditions.


title: Unification Church

text: Other Protestant Christian commentators have criticized the concept of indemnity as being contrary to the doctrine of "sola fide". Christian historian Ruth Tucker said: "In simple language indemnity is salvation by works." Rev. Keiko Kawasaki wrote: “The indemnity condition (of the Unification Church) is an oriental way of thinking, meaning a condition for atonement for sins (unlike Christianity).” Donald Tingle and Richard Fordyce, ministers with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) who debated two Unification Church theologians in 1977, wrote: "In short, indemnity is anything you want to make it, since you establish the conditions. The zeal and enthusiasm of the Unification Church members is not so much based on love for God as it is compulsion to indemnify one's own sins."


title: Unification Church

text: In 1977, the Subcommittee on International Organizations of the Committee on International Relations, of the United States House of Representatives, reported that the Unification Church was established by the director of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA), Kim Chong Pil. The committee also reported that the KCIA had used the movement to gain political influence with the United States and some of its members had worked as volunteers in Congressional offices. Together they founded the Korean Cultural Freedom Foundation, a nonprofit organization which acted as a public diplomacy campaign for the Republic of Korea. The committee also investigated possible KCIA influence on the Unification Church's campaign in support of Nixon.


title: Unification Church

text: In 1978, the "Daily Mail", a British tabloid newspaper, published an article with the headline: "The Church That Breaks Up Families". The article accused the Unification Church of brainwashing and separating families. The British Unification Church's director Dennis Orme filed a libel suit against the "Daily Mail" and Associated Newspapers, its parent company, resulting in one of the longest civil actions in British legal historylasting six months. Orme and the Unification Church lost the libel case, the appeal case, and were refused permission to take their case to the House of Lords. The original case heard 117 witnesses, including American anti-cult psychiatrist Margaret Thaler Singer. In the original case, the Unification Church was ordered to pay Associated Newspapers GB£750,000 in costs which was maintained after appeal. The jury of the original case not only awarded Associated Newspapers costs, but it and the judge requested that the Attorney General re-examine the Unification Church's charitable status, which after a lengthy investigation from 1986 to 1988 was not removed. According to George Chryssides, about half of the Unification Church's 500 full-time membership in Britain moved to the United States. The Unification Church sold seven of its twelve principal church centers after the ruling. Other anti-cultists in countries like Germany sought to incorporate the London High Court's decision into law. The Unification Church has won other libel and defamation cases in the United Kingdom, including a similar case against "The Daily Telegraph".


title: Unification Church

text: In 1982, Moon was convicted in the United States of filing false federal income tax returns and conspiracy: see "United States v. Sun Myung Moon". He served 13 months of the sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution, Danbury in Danbury, Connecticut. The case was protested as a case of selective prosecution and a threat to religious freedom by, among others, Jerry Falwell, head of Moral Majority, Joseph Lowery, head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Harvey Cox a professor of Divinity at Harvard, and Eugene McCarthy, United States Senator and former Democratic Party presidential candidate.


title: Unification Church

text: In 2004, at a ceremony on March 23 in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, in Washington, D.C., Moon crowned himself with what was called the "Crown of Peace". Lawmakers who attended included Senator Mark Dayton (D-Minn.), Representatives Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.) and Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), as well as former Representative Walter Fauntroy (D-D.C.). Key organizers of the event included George Augustus Stallings Jr., a former Roman Catholic priest who had been married by Moon, and Michael Jenkins, the president of the Unification Church of the United States at that time. Rep. Danny K. Davis played an active role in the ceremony. "The New York Times", in 2008, suggested that the participation of federal elected officials in this event was a possible violation of the principle of separation of church and state in United States law.


title: Unification Church

text: Historically, Japan has provided 70% of the Unification Church's income. The church gets funding from "spiritual sales." This involves parishioners scanning obituaries, going door-to-door, and saying, "Your dead loved one is communicating with us, so please go to the bank and send money to the Unification Church so your loved one can ascend to heaven in the spirit world." The Unification Church and its leaders have been accused by critics of "exploiting the labor and capital of their followers, including billions of dollars transferred from Japan to the United States, to build a business empire". Tak Ji-il, a professor at Busan Presbyterian University, said the Unification Church is fighting over religious principles on the surface but money in reality.


title: Unification Church

text: Some of the additional criticisms of the Japanese Unification Church are that it conceals its name to entice people to become followers and that it forces followers to marry partners it has chosen for them. In 1984 Yoshikazu Soejima, a senior official of the Unification Church, revealed inside information about the church in the monthly magazine "Bungei Shunjū" released on June 10, 1984. According to Soejima, in the 1970s about 200 billion yen in donations from Japanese believers were sent to South Korea. Also about 800 million dollars were transferred from Japan to the United States in the nine years from 1975 to 1984. Soejima was stabbed several times in front of his house on June 2, just before the magazine was released, He almost died. The police could not identify his attacker.


title: Unification Church

text: In 1987, about 300 lawyers in Japan set up an association called the National Network of Lawyers Against Spiritual Sales to help people who were forced to make expensive donations or forced to buy expensive things like pots and seals. According to statistics compiled by the association's lawyers between 1987 and 2021, the association and local government consumer centers received 34,537 complaints alleging that the Unification Church had forced them to make unreasonably large donations or to spend large amounts of money, amounting to about 123.7 billion yen. The network reported that victims were cheated out of about 300 million yen in 2021. Hiroshi Yamaguchi, a lawyer working for the network said, "The Unification Church should consider the pain and tragedy of the families of its followers. The Unification Church has bankrupted many of its followers". Another lawyer, Yasuo Kawai, accused Japanese politicians and administrators of taking no action against the Unification Church, which he said disintegrates families, for more than 30 years. Kito Masaki called for Japan's National Diet (parliament) to conduct an investigation of the case bipartisanly.


title: Unification Church

text: In civil cases, Japanese courts have issued a number of rulings ordering the Unification Church to pay compensation to the plaintiffs, saying its missionary work is illegal. Criminal cases related to the Unification Church have also occurred. In 2009, the Tokyo District Court sentenced Unification Church members to prison for forcing victims to buy expensive seals. The court ruled that the missionary work was a pernicious act of forcing its victims to buy a seal immediately after instigating their anxiety by linking their worries to their long-time ancestral pasts.


title: Unification Church

text: According to the Japanese Communist Party newspaper "Akahata", for the Unification Church, Japan has a history of aggression against Korea, therefore has an obligation to serve Korea, and as atonement, internally known as "indemnity", collection of money by "Fortune telling fraud"（霊感商法） is imposed. According to of the and the "Zenkoku genriundo higaisha fubo no kai" (literally, National Association of Parents of Victims of the Moonism, 全国原理運動被害者父母の会) – an organization formed by the parents of Unification Church members – the Unification Church's doctrines make Japanese people the target of its fundraising efforts by disseminating a doctrine which depicts Korea as “the Adam nation” and Japan as “the Eve nation” that committed sins, and therefore obliged to pay money and send people to Korea. Moon's theology is that Korea is the Adam country, the home of the ruling race destined to rule the world, and Japan is the Eve country, subordinate to Korea. The church preached that Moon was appointed to save humanity after Eve fell from grace by having sexual relations with Satan. According to Yoshifu Arita, a former journalist and member of the House of Councilors who is investigating the Unification Church, it is taking advantage of Japanese young people's sense of guilt for Japan's 40-year colonial rule of Korea (1905-1945) and defrauding them of money.


title: Unification Church

text: On 9 December 2022, Taro Kono, Minister of State for Consumer Affairs and Food Safety, who will have jurisdiction over the law, stated that he personally recognizes the Unification Church as a "cult".


title: Unification Church

text: On 10 December 2022, the House of Representatives of Japan and the House of Councillors passed two bills to restrict the activities of religious organizations such as the UC and provide relief to victims. These bills were designed to address social problems caused by the Unification Church, and the political parties and the press saw these bills as a way to restrict "cults" in the process leading up to the legislation.


title: Unification Church

text: The new law stipulates prohibited acts and duty of care for juridical persons, including religious organizations, when soliciting donations. Prohibited acts include the following: a juridical persons must not induce the donor to borrow money or sell his/her home or fields in order to raise the funds for the donation, a juridical person must not accompany the donor to a place from which the donor is unable to leave, and a juridical person must not prevent the donor from consulting with someone. The duty of care is that the juridical person shall not suppress the free will of the soliciting subject and that the solicitation shall not make life difficult for the soliciting subject's family. If a juridical person commits a prohibited act, a correction order is issued, and a person who repeatedly violates the order is subject to imprisonment for up to one year and a fine of up to 1,000,000 yen. If a juridical person violates its duty of care, the name of the juridical person will be made public. It was also stipulated that contracts for donations or sales of goods through "spiritual sales" ("reikan shōhō", 霊感商法) can be revoked up to 10 years after the contract is concluded and up to three years after the target of the solicitation becomes aware of the damage. In addition, it is also stipulated that donations contracted while the target of the solicitation is under brainwashing can be canceled. The law also stipulates that the victim's family can also revoke the donation due to improper solicitation, and that the victim or his/her family can claim from the juridical person the amount of past damages as well as living expenses and child support that the child or spouse is entitled to in the future. The new law then defines spiritual sales, in which a contract can be rescinded, as soliciting donations or selling goods after taking advantage of the anxiety of the target of the solicitation or causing the target of the solicitation to become anxious.


title: Unification Church

text: These bills were supported by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito, and opposition parties the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDP), Nippon Ishin no Kai, and Democratic Party for the People, and opposed by the opposition parties the Japanese Communist Party (JCP) and the Reiwa Shinsengumi. The CDP had opposed the bills, seeking legislation to more strictly restrict religious organizations, but switched to support it after a clause to review the law two years later was specified in the bill. According to the CDP and some Unification Church victims, legislation to restrict religious organizations even more strictly is needed.


title: Unification Church

text: The JCP had proposed another bill to restrict religious organizations and therefore opposed the bills.


title: Unification Church

text: According to Defense Intelligence Agency reports in August and September 1994, Moon donated 3.5 billion dollars to Kim Il-sung during his stay in North Korea from November 30, 1991, to December 7, 1992. Most of the money was said to have been donated to the Unification Church by Japanese believers. According to the former chief executive of Pyeonghwa Motors, a Unification Church auto company, the money collected from Japanese devotees was first transferred to South Korea and money laundered, then transferred to Hong Kong and finally to North Korea. He said he had a close relationship with Ju Kyu-chang, a senior member of the Workers' Party of Korea and its weapons development chief. According to Baek Seung-joo, a former South Korean vice defense minister, has analyzed that money donated by Japanese followers of the UC was diverted to North Korea's nuclear development and development of intercontinental ballistic missiles. According to Masuo Oe, who was the public relations director of the Unification Church, when Moon said to Kim Il-sung in a meeting, "Please be my brother", Kim Il-sung replied, "Sure, why not?". According to him, believers heard this anecdote and admired that the Messiah had brought Satan to his knees with the power of love. This was a symbolic event that marked a major shift in the anti-communist policies of the Unification Church.


title: Unification Church

text: According to a 2016 South Korean Defense Ministry parliamentary report, a Tokyo-run company operated by members of the UC sold a Russian Golf II-class submarine still loaded with missile launchers to North Korea in 1994, disguised as scrap metal, and the technology was then diverted to North Korea's development of submarine-launched ballistic missiles.


title: Unification Church

text: Since 1997, the Japanese Unification Church had repeatedly applied to the Agency for Cultural Affairs (ACA), a department directly under the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, for changing its name from "The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity" (世界基督教統一神霊協会) to "Heavenly Parent's Holy Community Family Federation for World Peace and Unification" (天の父母様聖会世界平和統一家庭連合). According to the then chief of the Religious Affairs Division, , the application was rejected by the ACA. When in 2015, Hakubun Shimomura was appointed as the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology under the Third Abe Cabinet, the Unification Church applied for rename again and it was finally approved. Shimomura denied any involvement in the approval process, excusing the final decision was made by the head of the ACA, but Shimomura admitted that he received report about the application of rename, the 2015 head of the ACA also echoed Shimomura's explanation. Maekawa said that for an organization being repeatedly rejected for rename in preview applications, an approval without direct instruction by the parent minister would be unthinkable. Just after the approval, Toru Miyamoto of the Japanese Communist Party requested a copy of the documents of the approval from the ACA, the documents he received were heavily sanitized. In particular the reason for approval from the department and the argument for rename by the Unification Church were completely redacted.


title: Unification Church

text: The UC has historically had close ties to the conservative Liberal Democratic Party, which Nobusuke Kishi founded, and which later had been led by his grandson, then Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe. In 2019, National Network of Lawyers Against Spiritual Sales released a document protesting Abe sending congratulatory messages to events organized by the Unification Church and its affiliated organizations. The association feared that Abe's message would give authority to the Unification Church and encourage its "anti-social activities".


title: Unification Church

text: In 2022, Abe was assassinated by Tetsuya Yamagami, who stated that he resented the Unification Church because his mother was forced to make a large donation to it. She joined the Unification Church in 1998, and sold the land she inherited from her father along with the house where she lived with her 3 children. In June 1999, she donated about 100 million yen ($720,000) to the Unification Church, leading to her family's bankruptcy in 2002 and significantly affecting their family, according to Yamagami. Financially troubled, Yamagami was unable to enter university despite graduating from a prestigious high school. His brother and his father would later commit suicide. Yamagami stated that his original plan was to assassinate Hak Ja Han, the widow of Sun Myung Moon and the current leader of the Unification Church. However, he gave up killing her because he could not get close to her. He believes Abe and his grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, spread the Unification Church in Japan and decided to kill Abe after discovering online that Abe had sent video messages to Unification Church-related organizations.


title: Unification Church

text: Tomihiro Tanaka, a spokesperson for the Unification Church, admitted in a press conference that in the past the Unification Church had problems with its followers due to illegal solicitations and large donations. He claimed that there has been no trouble between the Unification Church and its followers since 2009, when the church began to emphasize legal compliance. On 11 July 2022 the Unification Church issued a press release stating donation amounts are determined by individual members. Chung Hwan Kwak, the Honorary President of the Global Peace Foundation, who had long held a position second to Sun Myung Moon in the UC and left the Unification Church in 2009 after internal strife, apologized on behalf of the Unification Church. He said that the church was responsible for the assassination of Abe. According to Kwak, a wave of bankruptcies, divorces and suicides among Japanese believers had prompted him to attempt to normalize Japan's status as an "economic force" in 2001, but his attempt was thwarted by strong opposition from other church leaders. The Unification Church later denied Kwak's claim, saying that it was Kwak who called for the transfer of Japanese money to the church headquarters.


title: Unification Church

text: The National Public Safety Commission chair Satoshi Ninoyu instructed police authorities to set up a panel to investigate the security lapses which may have been involved in the incident. The Commission chair is among several elected officials who promoted a Unification Church event in 2021. Japan's main opposition party, the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, and two other opposition parties, the Democratic Party for the People and the Japanese Communist Party, have said that they plan to launch their own investigations into the UC's political influence and connections in Japanese politics. On August 31, 2022, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), of which Shinzo Abe was a member, announced that it would no longer have any ties with the Unification Church and related organizations. The Liberal Democratic Party has announced that it will expel its members if they do not break ties with the Unification Church.


title: Unification Church

text: The Unification Church is sometimes said to be esoteric in that it keeps some of its doctrines secret from nonmembers, a practice that is sometimes called "heavenly deception". In 1979, critics Tingle and Fordyce commented: "How different the openness of Christianity is to the attitude of Reverend Moon and his followers who are often reluctant to reveal to the public many of their basic doctrines." Since the 1990s, many Unification texts that were formerly regarded as esoteric have been posted on the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification's official websites.


title: Unification Church

text: Although Moon was commonly known as a religious figure, commentators have mentioned his belief in a literal Kingdom of God on earth to be brought about by human effort as a motivation for his establishment of multitudinous groups that are not strictly religious in their purposes. Moon was not directly involved with managing the day-to-day activities of the numerous organizations that he indirectly oversaw, yet all of them attribute the inspiration behind their work to his leadership and teachings. Others have said that one purpose of these non-sectarian organizations is to pursue social respectability. These organizations have sometimes been labeled "front groups", an expression which originally referred to Soviet supported organizations during the Cold War.


title: Unification Church

text: The Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles (CARP) is a collegiate organization founded by Moon and his followers in 1955. According to the group's website, its goal is to promote "intercultural, interracial, and international cooperation through the Unification world view". J. Isamu Yamamoto states in "Unification Church": "At times CARP has been very subtle about its association with the Unification Church, however, the link between the two has always been strong, since the purpose of both is to spread Moon's teachings."


title: Unification Church

text: Universal Peace Federation (UPF) is an international and interreligious civil society organization that was founded in 2005 which promotes religious freedom. UPF is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit NGO in general consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). "Dialogue and Alliance" is its journal published from Tarrytown, New York.


title: Unification Church

text: The Women's Federation for World Peace was founded in 1992 by Hak Ja Han. Its stated purpose is to encourage women to work more actively in promoting peace in their communities and greater society. It has members in 143 countries.


title: Unification Church

text: Han has traveled the world speaking at conventions on the WFWP's behalf. In 1993 the WFWP held a conference in Tokyo, Japan, at which the keynote speaker was former U.S. Vice President Dan Quayle's wife Marilyn Tucker Quayle, and in a speech at the event Han spoke positively of Mrs. Quayle's humanitarian work.


title: Unification Church

text: In 1993 Han traveled to 20 cities in the United States promoting the WFWP, as well as to 12 countries. At an event in Salt Lake City, Utah, she told attendants: "If a family is not centered on God's ideal of love, there will be conflict among the members of that family. Without God's love as an absolute center, such a family will ultimately break down. A nation of such families will also decline." Her 1993 speeches in the United States focused on increasing violence in the U.S., and the degradation of the family unit.


title: Unification Church

text: In 1995 the WFWP generated controversy when it indirectly contributed $3.5 million to help Liberty University, which at that time was in financial difficulty. This was reported in the United States news media as an example of closer relationships between the Unification movement and conservative Christian congregations. That same year former United States president George H. W. Bush spoke at several WFWP meetings in Japan, and at a related conference in Washington, D.C. There he was quoted by "The New York Times" as saying: "If as president I could have done one thing to have helped the country more it would have been to do a better job in finding a way, either through speaking out or through raising a moral standard, to strengthen the American family."


title: Unification Church

text: The events in Japan drew protests from Japanese people who were wary of unorthodox religious groups. Bush's spokesperson Jane Becker stated "We were satisfied that there was not a connection with the Unification Church, and based on the information we were given we felt comfortable speaking to this group." 50,000 people attended Bush's speech in Tokyo. The theme of the talks was "family values". In the half-hour speech, Bush said "what really counts is faith, family and friends". Bush also spoke on the importance of the relationship between Japan and the United States and its importance for world peace. Han spoke after Bush's speech and praised Moon, crediting him for the decline of communism and saying that he must save America from "the destruction of the family and moral decay".


title: Unification Church

text: In 1999 the WFWP sponsored a conference in Malaysia in which religious and government leaders spoke on the need to strengthen education and support families, as well as the need for peace and understanding between ethnic and racial groups in the nations. In 2009 it co-sponsored, along with the Unification movement affiliated organization the Universal Peace Federation and the government of Taiwan, a conference in Taipei calling for Taiwan's greater participation in world affairs independent of the People's Republic of China. Taiwan's president, Ma Ying-jeou, spoke at the event. The WFWP has also been active in sponsoring various local charity and community events.


title: Unification Church

text: "Service For Peace (SFP)" is a non-profit organization, founded in 2001 by the Sun Myung Moon's third son, Dr. Hyun Jin Preston Moon, to give opportunities to young people who wish to better themselves and their communities. As of April 2007, the organization had established chapters in North America, Central America, Caribbean, Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania. SFP is active in communities and statewide. Colleges have recruited Service for Peace Campus Corps to benefit their fellow peers as well as the communities around them. Some SFP chapters have smaller initiatives designed to meet local needs. In the US, Service For Peace's Backpack Angel program supports students throughout Kentucky by providing backpacks and school supplies for children in need.


title: Unification Church

text: "International Conference on the Unity of the Sciences (ICUS)" is a series of conferences formerly sponsored by the "International Cultural Foundation" and since 2017 by the Hyo Jeong International Foundation on the Unity of the Sciences (HJIFUS). The first conference, held in 1972, had 20 participants; while the largest conference, in Seoul, South Korea in 1982, had 808 participants from over 100 countries.


title: Unification Church

text: Participants in one or more of the conferences included Nobel laureates John Eccles (Physiology or Medicine 1963, who chaired the 1976 conference), Eugene Wigner (Physics 1963), economist and political philosopher Friedrich Hayek, ecologist Kenneth Mellanby, Frederick Seitz, pioneer of solid state physics, Ninian Smart, President of the American Academy of Religion, and Holocaust theologian Richard Rubenstein.


title: Unification Church

text: Moon believed that religion alone can not save the world, and his particular belief in the importance of the unity of science and religion was reportedly a motivation for the founding of the ICUS. American news media have suggested that the conferences were also an attempt to improve the often controversial Unification movement's public image.


title: Unification Church

text: The last two editions of the conference have focused on environmental issues, such as rising sea levels and water temperatures, food scarcity, renewable energy, and waste management. The theme in 2017, at ICUS XXIII, was "Earth's Environmental Crisis and the Role of Science", with a similar theme following at ICUS XXIV, in 2018: "Scientific Solutions to the Earth's Environmental Challenges". At ICUS XXV in 2019, the theme was "Environmental Health and the Quality of Human Life."


title: Unification Church

text: The Unification Church controls a large number of businesses around the world. In 1997 David Bromley, a sociologist at Virginia Commonwealth University, said: "The corporate section is understood to be the engine that funds the mission of the church. The wealth base is fairly substantial. But if you were to compare it to the LDS Church or the Catholic Church or other churches that have massive landholdings, this doesn't look on a global scale like a massive operation."


title: Unification Church

text: The lines between the Church's charities, businesses, religious activities, and related organizations is blurred with money and goods flowing between them. Money is in general believed to flow from East Asia to the United States although these flows are opaque. In the 1990s One Up Enterprises Inc. was the Church's primary American holding company. Business are owned by the Church through arcane corporate structures with many ultimately controlled by the holding company Unification Church International Inc.


title: Unification Church

text: Pyeonghwa Motors is an automobile manufacturer based in Seoul, South Korea, and owned by the movement. It is involved in a joint-venture with the North Korean Ryonbong General Corp. The joint venture produces two small cars under license from Fiat, and a pick-up truck and an SUV using complete knock down kits from Chinese manufacturer Dandong Shuguang. Pyeonghwa has the exclusive rights to car production, purchase, and sale of used cars in North Korea. However, most North Koreans are unable to afford a car. Because of the very small market for cars in the country, Pyeonghwa's output is reportedly very low. In 2003, only 314 cars were produced even though the factory had the facilities to produce up to 10,000 cars a year. Erik van Ingen Schenau, author of the book "Automobiles Made in North Korea", has estimated the company's total production in 2005 at not more than around 400 units.


title: Unification Church

text: In South Korea the Tongil Group was founded in 1963 by Sun Myung Moon as a nonprofit organization which would provide revenue for the movement. Its core focus was manufacturing but in the 1970s and 1980s it expanded by founding or acquiring businesses in pharmaceuticals, tourism, and publishing. In the 1990s Tongil Group suffered as a result of the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. By 2004 it was losing money and was $3.6 billion in debt. In 2005 Sun Myung Moon's son, Kook-jin Moon was appointed chairman of Tongil Group. Among Tongil Group's chief holdings are: The Ilwha Company, which produces ginseng and related products; Ilshin Stone, building materials; and Tongil Heavy Industries, machine parts including hardware for the South Korean military. The Tongil Group funds the Tongil Foundation which supports Unification movement projects including schools and the Little Angels Children's Folk Ballet of Korea.


title: Unification Church

text: The Church owns Master Marine, a shipbuilding and fishing company in Alabama; International Seafood of Kodiak, Alaska; In 2011 Master Marine opened a factory in Las Vegas, Nevada, to manufacture a 27-foot pleasure boat designed by Moon.


title: Unification Church

text: The Church owns True World Foods, which controls a major portion of the sushi trade in the US. True World Foods parent company is the corporate conglomerate True World Group which operates restaurants and markets.


title: Unification Church

text: The Church's foray into the seafood industry began at the direction of Reverend Moon who ordered an expansion into "the oceanic providence." In 1976 and 1977 the Church invested nearly a million dollars into the American seafood industry. Moon delivered a speech in 1980 entitled "The Way of Tuna" in which he claimed that "After we build the boats, we catch the fish and process them for the market, and then have a distribution network. This is not just on the drawing board; I have already done it." and declared himself the "king of the ocean." He also suggested that they could get around the recently imposed 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone by marrying American and Japanese members allowing the Japanese ones to become American citizens, because once married "we are not foreigners; therefore Japanese brothers, particularly those matched to Americans, are becoming ... leaders for fishing and distribution." He also declared that "Gloucester is almost a Moonie town now!"


title: Unification Church

text: Later in 1980 Moon gave a sermon in which he said that "This ocean business is really reserved for Unification Church. How much income would this business generate? Roughly speaking, enough money to buy the entire world. That's true! It has unlimited potential." In 1986 he advised his followers to open a thousand restaurants in America.


title: Unification Church

text: News World Communications is an international news media corporation. It was founded in New York City, in 1976, by Sun Myung Moon. Its first two newspapers, "The News World" (later renamed the "New York City Tribune") and the Spanish-language "Noticias del Mundo," were published in New York from 1976 until the early 1990s. In 1982 "The New York Times" described "News World" as "the newspaper unit of the Unification Church." Moon's son Hyun Jin Moon is its chairman of the board. News World Communications owns United Press International, "The World and I", "Tiempos del Mundo" (Latin America), "The Segye Ilbo" (South Korea), "The Sekai Nippo" (Japan), the "Zambezi Times" (South Africa), "The Middle East Times" (Egypt). Until 2008 it published the Washington, D.C.-based newsmagazine "Insight on the News". Until 2010, it owned "The Washington Times". On November 2, 2010, Sun Myung Moon and a group of former "Times" editors purchased the paper from News World.


title: Unification Church

text: In the 1970s the Unification Church of the United States began making major real estate investments. Church buildings were purchased around the nation. In New York State the Belvedere Estate, the Unification Theological Seminary, and the New Yorker Hotel were purchased. The international headquarters of the church was established in New York City. In Washington, D.C., the church purchased a church building from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and in Seattle the historic Rolland Denny mansion for $175,000 in 1977. In 1991 Donald Trump criticized Unification Church real estate investments as possibly disruptive to communities. As of December 1994, Unification Church had invested $150 million in Uruguay. Members own the country's largest hotel, one of its leading banks, the second-largest newspaper and two of the largest printing plants. In 2008 church related real estate investment partnership USP Rockets LLC was active in Richmond, Virginia. In 2011 the church related National Hospitality Corporation sold the Sheraton National Hotel. U.S. Property Development Corporation, real estate investment


title: Unification Church

text: Yongpyong Resort, which hosted the alpine skiing events for the 2018 Winter Olympics and Paralympics.


title: Unification Church

text: From 2000 until his death in 2012, Moon promoted the creation of an interreligious council at the United Nations as a check and balance to its political-only structure. Since then King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and King Juan Carlos I of Spain hosted officially a program to promote the proposal. Moon's Universal Peace Federation is in "special consultative status" with the United Nations Economic and Social Council and a member of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development, a member of the United Nations Division for Palestinian Rights, a member of the United Nations Human Rights Council, a member of the UNHRC, a member of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs and United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific.


title: Unification Church

text: Three of Moon's non-governmental organizations (NGOs)Universal Peace Federation, Women's Federation for World Peace and Service for Peaceare in consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council.


title: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

text: The gunfight at the O.K. Corral was a thirty-second shootout between lawmen led by Virgil Earp and members of a loosely organized group of outlaws called the Cowboys that occurred at about 3:00 p.m. on Wednesday, October 26, 1881, in Tombstone, Arizona Territory, United States. It is generally regarded as the most famous shootout in the history of the American Old West.


title: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

text: The gunfight was the result of a long-simmering feud, with Cowboys Billy Claiborne, brothers Ike and Billy Clanton, and brothers Tom and Frank McLaury on one side; and Town Marshal Virgil Earp, Special Policemen and Earp's two younger brothers Morgan and Wyatt Earp, and temporary policeman Doc Holliday on the other side. Billy Clanton and both McLaury brothers were killed. Ike Clanton, Billy Claiborne, and Wes Fuller ran from the fight. Virgil, Morgan, and Holliday were wounded, but Wyatt was unharmed. Wyatt is often erroneously regarded as the central figure in the shootout, although his brother Virgil was Tombstone's town marshal and Deputy U.S. Marshal that day and had far more experience as a sheriff, constable, marshal, and soldier in combat.


title: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

text: The shootout has come to represent a period of the Old West when the frontier was virtually an open range for outlaws, largely unopposed by lawmen who were spread thin over vast territories. It was not well known to the American public until 1931, when Stuart Lake published the initially well-received biography "" two years after Earp's death. The book was the basis for the 1939 film "Frontier Marshall", with Randolph Scott and Cesar Romero, the 1946 film "My Darling Clementine", directed by John Ford, and the 1957 film "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral", after which the shootout became known by that name. Since then, the conflict has been portrayed with varying degrees of accuracy in numerous Western films and books, and has become an archetype for much of the popular imagery associated with the Old West.


title: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

text: Despite its name, the gunfight did not take place within or next to the O.K. Corral, which fronted Allen Street and had a rear entrance lined with horse stalls on Fremont Street. The shootout actually took place in a narrow lot on the side of C. S. Fly's photography studio on Fremont Street, six doors west of the O.K. Corral's rear entrance. Some members of the two opposing parties were initially only about apart. About thirty shots were fired in thirty seconds. Ike Clanton subsequently filed murder charges against the Earps and Holliday. After a thirty-day preliminary hearing and a brief stint in jail, the defendants were shown to have acted lawfully.


title: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

text: The gunfight was not the end of the conflict. On December 28, 1881, Virgil was ambushed and maimed in a murder attempt by the Cowboys. On March 18, 1882, a Cowboy fired from a dark alley through the glass door of Campbell & Hatch's saloon and billiard parlor, killing Morgan. The suspects in both incidents furnished alibis supplied by other Cowboys and were not indicted. Wyatt, newly appointed as Deputy U.S. Marshal in Cochise County, then took matters into his own hands in a personal vendetta. He was pursued by county sheriff Johnny Behan, who had received a warrant from Tucson for Wyatt's killing of Frank Stilwell.


title: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

text: Tombstone, located in Arizona Territory about from the Mexican border, was founded in March 1879 after silver was discovered in the area. Like many mining boomtowns on the American frontier, Tombstone grew rapidly. At its founding, it had a population of just 100, and only two years later, in late 1881, the population was more than 7,000 (excluding Chinese, Mexicans, women, and children), making it the largest boomtown in the American Southwest. Silver mining and its attendant wealth attracted many professionals and merchants, who brought their wives and families. With them came churches and ministers. By 1881 the town boasted fancy restaurants, a bowling alley, four churches, an ice house, a school, an opera house, two banks, three newspapers, and an ice cream parlor, along with 110 saloons, fourteen gambling halls, and numerous brothels, all situated among a number of dirty, hardscrabble mines.


title: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

text: Horse rustlers and bandits from the countryside often came to town, and shootings were frequent. In the 1880s, theft of cattle and the smuggling of alcohol and tobacco across the border were common. The Mexican government assessed heavy export taxes on these items, and smugglers earned a handsome profit by stealing them in Mexico and selling them in Tombstone.


title: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

text: James, Virgil, and Wyatt Earp arrived in Tombstone on December 1, 1879, when the town was mostly composed of tents as living quarters, a few saloons and other buildings, and the mines. Virgil had been hired as Deputy U.S. Marshal for eastern Pima County, with his offices in Tombstone, only days before his arrival. In June 1881 he was also appointed as Tombstone's town marshal (or police chief).


title: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

text: Though not universally liked by the townspeople, the Earp brothers tended to protect the interests of the town's business owners and residents; even so, Wyatt helped protect outlaw "Curly Bill" Brocius from being lynched after he accidentally killed Tombstone town marshal Fred White. In contrast, Cochise County Sheriff Johnny Behan was generally sympathetic to the interests of the rural ranchers and members of the loosely organized outlaw group called the Cochise County Cowboys, or simply the Cowboys, to which Brocius belonged. (In that time and region, the term "cowboy" generally meant an outlaw; legitimate cowmen were instead referred to as "cattle herders" or "ranchers".)


title: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

text: Many of the sources describing the events leading up to the gunfight, and details of the gunfight itself, conflict with each other. Newspapers of the day were not above taking sides, and news reporting often editorialized on issues to reflect the publisher's interests. John Clum, publisher of "The Tombstone Epitaph", had helped organize a "Committee of Safety" (a vigilance committee) in Tombstone in late September 1881. He was elected as Tombstone's first mayor under the new city charter that year. Clum and his newspaper tended to side with the interests of local business owners and supported Deputy U.S. Marshal Virgil Earp. Harry Woods, the publisher of the other major newspaper, "The Daily Nugget", was an undersheriff to Behan. He and his newspaper tended to side with Behan, the Cowboys (some of whom were part-time ranchers and landowners) and the rural interests of the ranchers.


title: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

text: Much of what is known of the event is based on month-long preliminary hearings held afterward, generally known as the Spicer hearings. Reporters from both newspapers covered the hearings and recorded the testimony there and at the coroner's inquest, but only the reporter from the "Nugget" knew shorthand. The testimony recorded by the court recorder and the two newspapers varied greatly.


title: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

text: According to the Earps' version of events, the fight was in self-defense because the Cowboys, armed in violation of local ordinance, defied a lawful order to hand over their weapons and drew their pistols instead. The Cowboys maintained that they raised their hands, offered no resistance, and were shot in cold blood by the Earps. Sorting out who was telling the truth was difficult then and remains so to this day.


title: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

text: Though usually opposing each other in their depiction of events, reporting by both the "Epitaph" and the "Nugget" initially supported the lawmen's version of events. Woods, the publisher of the pro-Cowboy "Nugget", was out of town during the hearings, and an experienced reporter, Richard Rule, wrote the story. The "Nugget" staff had a close relationship with Behan, but Rule's story, as printed in the "Nugget" the day after the shootout, backed up the Earps' account. This varied widely from Behan's and the Cowboys' later court testimony. Subsequent stories about the gunfight published in the "Nugget" after that day supported Behan's and the Cowboys' view of events. Other stories in the "Epitaph" countered the "Nugget"s later view entirely and supported the lawmen. In addition, Dr. George Goodfellow, who examined the Cowboys after their deaths, told the court that the angle of the wound in Billy Clanton's wrist indicated that his hands could not have been in the air, or holding his coats open by the lapels, as witnesses loyal to the Cowboys testified.


title: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

text: Part-time newspaper reporter Howell "Pat" Hayhurst transcribed the testimony from the hearings in the early 1930s as part of a Federal Writers' Project, which was part of the Works Progress Administration. According to one report, Hayhurst was a friend of the Behan family. After he completed his transcription, he kept the original document in his home, where it was destroyed in a house fire.


title: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

text: The interpersonal conflicts and feuds leading to the gunfight were complex. Each side had strong family ties. The brothers James, Virgil, Wyatt, Morgan, and Warren Earp were a tight-knit family, working together as lawmen, pimps, and saloon owners in several frontier towns, among other occupations, and had moved together from one town to another. Virgil served in the Union Army during the American Civil War and in 1877 became a police officer in Prescott, Arizona Territory. He followed that with a job as a night watchman before he became a constable. Wyatt had held jobs as either a guard or police officer in the cattle-drive towns of Wichita and Dodge City,


title: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

text: James, Virgil, and Wyatt Earp, together with their wives, arrived in Tombstone on December 1, 1879, during the early period of rapid growth associated with mining, when there were only a few hundred residents. Virgil was appointed Deputy U.S. Marshal shortly before he arrived in town. In the summer of 1880, Morgan and Warren Earp also moved to Tombstone. Wyatt arrived hoping he could leave "lawing" behind. He bought a stagecoach, only to find the business was already very competitive. The Earps invested together in several mining claims and water rights. The Earps were Republicans and Northerners who had never worked as cowmen or ranchers.


title: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

text: The Earps quickly came into conflict with Frank and Tom McLaury, Billy and Ike Clanton, Johnny Ringo, and William "Curly Bill" Brocius, among others. They were part of a large, loose association of cattle smugglers and horse thieves known as the Cowboys, outlaws who had been implicated in various crimes. Ike Clanton was prone to drinking heavily and threatened the Earp brothers numerous times.


title: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

text: Tombstone resident George Parson wrote in his diary, "A Cowboy is a rustler at times, and a rustler is a synonym for desperado—bandit, outlaw, and horse thief." The "San Francisco Examiner" wrote in an editorial, "Cowboys [are] the most reckless class of outlaws in that wild country ... infinitely worse than the ordinary robber." During the 1880s in Cochise County, it was an insult to call a legitimate cattleman a "Cowboy." The Cowboys teamed up for various crimes and came to each other's aid. Virgil thought that some of the Cowboys had met at Charleston and taken "an oath over blood drawn from the arm of Johnny Ringo, the leader, that they would kill us."


title: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

text: Among the lawmen involved in the O.K. Corral shooting, only Virgil had any real experience in combat. Virgil had been constable in Prescott and was the deputy United States Marshal in Tombstone. He was appointed Deputy U.S. Marshal for eastern Pima County by U.S. Marshal Crawley Dake, on November 27, 1879, before the Earps arrived in Tombstone on December 1. He was appointed as Tombstone's acting town marshal on September 30, 1880, after popular Tombstone town marshal Fred White was shot and killed by Brocius. Wyatt had been a deputy city marshal in Kansas, as well as deputy sheriff in Tombstone.


title: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

text: Only six weeks later, Virgil ran for the office on November 12, 1880, but lost to Ben Sippy. However, on June 6, 1881, Sippy asked for a two-week leave of absence. The city soon discovered $3,000 () in financial improprieties in Sippy's records. A few days later Virgil was appointed as town marshal in his place. At the time of the gunfight, Virgil was both Deputy U.S. Marshal and town marshal. The city suspended him as town marshal after Ike Clanton filed murder charges.


title: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

text: After Wyatt first arrived in Tombstone, his business efforts yielded little profit, and he took a job as a stagecoach shotgun messenger for Wells Fargo, guarding shipments of silver bullion. On July 28, 1880, Wyatt was appointed Pima County Deputy Sheriff. He held this position for only three months, until after the election of November 9, 1880, when he resigned. When Virgil was maimed by an assassination attempt, Wyatt was appointed Deputy U.S. Marshal in his place. He held that position until he left Cochise County in April 1882.


title: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

text: Wyatt was an imposing, handsome man: blond, tall, weighing , broad-shouldered, long-armed, and muscular. He had been a boxer and was reputed to be an expert with a pistol. According to author Leo Silva, Earp showed no fear of any man. Wyatt had been an assistant marshal when he and policeman James Masterson, along with a few other citizens, fired their pistols at several cowboys who were fleeing town after shooting up a theater. A member of the group, George Hoyt (sometimes spelled Hoy), was shot in the arm and died of his wound a month later. Wyatt always claimed to have been the one to shoot Hoyt, although it could have been anyone among the lawmen. Wyatt had developed a reputation as a no-nonsense, hard-nosed lawman, but prior to the gunfight he had been involved in only one other shooting, in Dodge City, Kansas, during the summer of 1878.


title: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

text: The 1931 book "" was a best-selling biography by Stuart N. Lake. It established Wyatt Earp's role as a fearless lawman in the American Old West and the legend of the "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral" in the public consciousness. But Lake and many others in the popular media wildly exaggerated Wyatt's role as the central figure in the gunfight. It was only discovered much later that "Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal", based on eight interviews with Earp, was largely fictional. The book and later Hollywood portrayals embellished Wyatt's reputation and magnified his mystique as a western lawman.


title: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

text: Morgan Earp had been a police officer in Montana, but had no known experience with gunfighting prior to their arrival in Tombstone. While Wyatt was Pima County Deputy Sheriff on July 27, 1880, Morgan Earp took over his job as shotgun messenger for Wells Fargo. Morgan also occasionally assisted Virgil and at the time of the gunfight was a special deputy policeman and drawing pay.


title: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

text: Doc Holliday had a reputation as a gunman and had reportedly been in nine shootouts during his life, although it has only been verified that he killed three men. One well-documented episode occurred on July 19, 1879, when Holliday and his business partner, former deputy marshal John Joshua Webb, were seated in their saloon in Las Vegas, New Mexico. Former U.S. Army scout Mike Gordon got into a loud argument with one of the saloon girls whom he wanted to take with him. Gordon stormed from the saloon and began firing his revolver into the building. Before Gordon could get off his second shot, Holliday killed him. Holliday was tried for the murder but acquitted, mostly based on the testimony of Webb.


title: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

text: Holliday had saved Wyatt Earp's life at one time and had become a close friend. He had been living in Prescott, Arizona Territory and making a living as a gambler since late 1879. There, he first met future Tombstone sheriff Johnny Behan, a sometime gambler and saloon owner. In late September 1880, Holliday followed the Earps to Tombstone.


title: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

text: The ranch owned by Newman Haynes Clanton near Charleston, Arizona was believed to be the local center for the Cowboys' illegal activities. Tom and Frank McLaury worked with the rustlers buying and selling stolen cattle.


title: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

text: Many of the rural ranchers and Cowboys resented the growing influence of the city residents over county politics and law enforcement. The ranchers largely maintained control of the country outside Tombstone, due in large part to the sympathetic support of Cochise County Sheriff Johnny Behan, who favored the Cowboys and rural ranchers, and who also grew to intensely dislike the Earps. Behan tended to ignore the Earps' complaints about the McLaurys' and Clantons' horse thieving and cattle rustling. The Earps were known to bend the law in their favor when it affected their gambling and saloon interests, which earned them further enmity with the Cowboy faction.


title: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

text: To reduce crime in Tombstone, on April 19, 1881, the city council passed ordinance 9, requiring anyone carrying a bowie knife, dirk, pistol or rifle to deposit their weapons at a livery or saloon soon after entering town.


title: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

text: The ordinance was the legal basis for City Marshal Virgil Earp's decision to confront the Cowboys on the day of the shootout.


title: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

text: In the borderlands south of Tombstone there was only one passable route between Arizona and Mexico, a passage known as Guadalupe Canyon. In August 1881, 15 Mexicans carrying gold, coins and bullion to make their purchases were ambushed and killed in Skeleton Canyon. The next month Mexican Commandant Felipe Neri dispatched troops to the border, where they killed five Cowboys, including Newman Haynes "Old Man" Clanton, in Guadalupe Canyon. The Earps knew that the McLaurys and Clantons were reputed to be mixed up in the robbery and murder in Skeleton Canyon. Wyatt Earp said in his testimony after the shootout, "I naturally kept my eyes open and did not intend that any of the gang should get the drop on me if I could help it."


title: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

text: On July 27, 1880, Pima County Sheriff Charles A. Shibell, whose offices were in the county seat of Tucson, appointed Wyatt Earp as deputy sheriff. On October 28, 1880, Tombstone Marshal Fred White attempted to disarm some late-night revelers who were shooting their pistols in the air. When he attempted to disarm Curly Bill Brocius, the gun discharged, striking White in the abdomen. Wyatt saw the shooting and pistol-whipped Brocius, knocking him unconscious, and arrested him. Wyatt later told his biographer John Flood that he thought Brocius was still armed at the time, and didn't see Brocius' pistol on the ground.


title: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

text: Brocius waived the preliminary hearing so he and his case could be immediately transferred to Tucson. Wyatt and a deputy took Brocius in a wagon the next day to Tucson to stand trial, possibly saving him from being lynched. Wyatt testified that he thought the shooting was accidental. It was also demonstrated that Brocius's pistol could be fired from half-cock. Fred White left a statement before he died two days later that the shooting was not intentional. Based on the evidence presented, Brocius was not charged with White's death.


title: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

text: The Tombstone council convened and appointed Virgil Earp as "temporary assistant city marshal" to replace White for a salary of $100 per month () until an election could be held on November 12. For the next few weeks, Virgil represented federal and local law enforcement and Wyatt represented Pima County.


title: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

text: In the November 2, 1880, election for Pima County sheriff, Democrat Shibell ran against Republican Bob Paul, who was expected to win. Votes arrived as late as November 7, and Shibell was unexpectedly re-elected. He immediately appointed Johnny Behan as the new deputy sheriff for eastern Pima County, a job that Wyatt wanted. A controversy ensued when Paul uncovered ballot-stuffing by Cowboys and he sued to overturn the election. While San Simeon precinct, east of Tombstone, only had 10 registered voters, Shibell won that precinct with 103 votes to 1. Ike Clanton was the election inspector and Johnny Ringo was the one of the election judges.


title: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

text: Paul finally became sheriff in April 1881, but it was too late to re-appoint Wyatt Earp as deputy sheriff because on February 1, 1881, the eastern portion of Pima County containing Tombstone had been split off into the new Cochise County, which would need its own sheriff, based in the county's largest city, Tombstone. This position was filled by a political appointment from the governor, and Wyatt and Behan both wanted the job. The Cochise County sheriff's position was worth more than $40,000 a year (equivalent to $ million in ) because the office holder was also county assessor and tax collector, and the board of supervisors allowed him to keep ten percent of the amounts paid.


title: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

text: Behan used his existing position and his superior political connections to successfully lobby for the position. He also promised Wyatt a position as his undersheriff if he was appointed over Wyatt. Wyatt withdrew from the political contest and the governor and legislature appointed Behan to the job of Cochise County sheriff on February 10, 1881. Behan reneged on his deal with Earp and appointed Harry Woods as undersheriff instead. Behan said he broke his promise to appoint Earp because Wyatt Earp used Behan's name to threaten Ike Clanton when Wyatt recovered his stolen horse from Clanton.


title: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

text: Tensions between the Earp family and both the Clanton and McLaury clans increased through 1881. On July 25, 1880, Captain Joseph H. Hurst, of Company A, 12th U.S. Infantry, and Commanding Officer of Fort Bennett, asked Deputy U.S. Marshal Virgil Earp to help him track Cowboys who had stolen six U.S. Army mules from Camp Rucker. This was a federal matter because the animals were U.S. property. Hurst brought four soldiers, and Virgil invited Wyatt and Morgan Earp, as well as Wells Fargo agent Marshall Williams. The posse found the mules on the McLaury's Ranch on Babacomari Creek, northwest of Tombstone, as well as the branding iron used to change the "US" brand to "D8."


title: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

text: To avoid bloodshed, Cowboy Frank Patterson promised Hurst they would return the mules and Hurst persuaded the posse to withdraw. Hurst went to nearby Charleston, but the Cowboys showed up two days later without the mules, laughing at Hurst and the Earps. In response, Hurst had printed and distributed a handbill in which he named Frank McLaury as specifically assisting with hiding the mules. He re-printed this in "The Tombstone Epitaph" on July 30, 1880. Virgil later said that McLaury had asked him if he had posted the handbills. When Virgil said he had not, McLaury said if Virgil had printed the handbills it was Frank's intention to kill Virgil. He warned Virgil, "If you ever again follow us as close as you did, then you will have to fight anyway." This incident was the first run-in between the Clantons and McLaurys and the Earps.


title: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

text: On the evening of March 15, 1881, a Kinnear & Company stagecoach carrying $26,000 in silver bullion () was en route from Tombstone to Benson, Arizona, the nearest freight terminal. Bob Paul, who had run for Pima County Sheriff and was contesting the election he lost due to ballot-stuffing, was temporarily working once again as the Wells Fargo shotgun messenger. He had taken the reins and driver's seat in Contention City because the usual driver, a well-known and popular man named Eli "Bud" Philpot, was ill. Philpot was riding shotgun.


title: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

text: Near Drew's Station, just outside Contention City, a man stepped into the road and commanded them to "Hold!" Three Cowboys attempted to rob the stage. Paul, in the driver's seat, fired his shotgun and emptied his revolver at the robbers, wounding a Cowboy later identified as Bill Leonard in the groin. Philpot, riding shotgun, and passenger Peter Roerig, riding in the rear dickey seat, were both shot and killed. The horses spooked and Paul wasn't able to bring the stage under control for almost , leaving the robbers with nothing. Paul, who normally rode shotgun, later said he thought the first shot killing Philpot had been meant for him.


title: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

text: Deputy U.S. Marshal Virgil Earp, along with temporary federal deputies Wyatt and Morgan Earp, Wells Fargo agent Marshall Williams, former Kansas Sheriff Bat Masterson (who was dealing faro at the Oriental Saloon), and County Sheriff Behan set out to find the robbers. Wells Fargo issued a wanted poster offering a $3,600 reward () for the three robbers ($1,200 each), dead or alive. Robbery of a mail-carrying stagecoach was both a federal crime and territorial crime, and the posse consisted of both county and federal authorities and deputies. The posse trailed the robbers to a nearby ranch where they found a drifter named Luther King. He would not tell who his confederates were until the posse lied and told him that Doc Holliday's girlfriend had been shot. Fearful of Holliday's reputation, he confessed to holding the reins of the robbers' horses, and identified Bill Leonard, Harry "The Kid" Head, and Jim Crane as the robbers. They were all known Cowboys and rustlers. Behan and Williams escorted King back to Tombstone.


title: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

text: Remarkably, King walked in the front door of the jail and a few minutes later walked out the back. King had arranged with Undersheriff Harry Woods (publisher of the "Nugget") to sell the horse he had been riding to John Dunbar, Sheriff Behan's partner in the Dexter Livery Stable. On March 19, King conveniently escaped while Dunbar and Woods were making out the bill-of-sale. Woods claimed that someone had deliberately unlocked a secured back door to the jail. The Earps and the townspeople were furious at King's easy escape. Williams was later dismissed from Wells Fargo, leaving behind a number of debts, when it was determined he had been stealing from the company for years.


title: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

text: The Earps pursued the other two men for 17 days, riding for 60 hours without food and 36 hours without water, during which Bob Paul's horse died, and Wyatt and Morgan's horses became so weak that the two men walked back to Tombstone to obtain new horses. After pursuing the Cowboys for over they could not obtain more fresh horses and were forced to give up the chase. They returned to Tombstone on April 1. Behan submitted a bill for $796.84 () to the county for posse expenses, but he refused to reimburse the Earps for any of their costs. Virgil was incensed. They were later reimbursed by Wells, Fargo & Co., but the incident caused further friction between county and federal law enforcement, and between Behan and the Earps.


title: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

text: After he was passed over by Johnny Behan for the position of undersheriff, Wyatt thought he might beat him in the next Cochise County election in late 1882. He thought catching the murderers of Bud Philpot and Peter Roerig would help him win the sheriff's office. Wyatt later said that on June 2, 1881, he offered the Wells, Fargo & Co. reward money and more to Ike Clanton if he would provide information leading to the capture or death of the stage robbers. According to Wyatt, Ike was initially interested, but the plan was foiled when the three suspects — Leonard, Head and Crane — were killed in unrelated incidents.


title: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

text: Ike began to fear that word of his possible cooperation had leaked, threatening to compromise his standing among the Cowboys. Undercover Wells Fargo Company agent M. Williams suspected a deal, and said something to Ike, who was fearful that other Cowboys might learn of his double-cross. Ike now began to threaten Wyatt and Doc Holliday (who had learned of the deal) for apparently revealing Ike's willingness to help arrest his friends.


title: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

text: The fallout over the Cowboys' attempt to implicate Holliday and the Earps in the robbery, along with Behan's involvement in King's escape, was the beginning of increasingly bad feelings between the Earp brothers and Cowboy factions.


title: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

text: Wyatt Earp and Cochise County sheriff Johnny Behan were interested in the same sheriff's position and also might have shared an interest in the same woman, Josephine Marcus, known as Sadie. Citizens of Tombstone believed that Behan and Sadie were married, but Behan was a known womanizer and had sex with prostitutes and other women. In early 1881, Sadie ended the relationship after she came home and found Behan in bed with the wife of a friend and kicked him out, although she used the Behan surname through the end of that summer. She rented her home sometime before April 1881 to Dr. George Goodfellow.


title: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

text: Wyatt Earp lived with Mattie Blaylock, who was listed as his wife in the 1880 census. She had a growing addiction to the opiate laudanum, which was readily available at the time. Earp remained with Blaylock until he left Tombstone in April 1882. There are no contemporary Tombstone records that indicate a relationship between Sadie and Earp, but Earp certainly knew her, because both Behan and Earp had offices above the Crystal Palace Saloon.


title: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

text: Sadie, traveling as either Mrs. J. C. Earp or Mrs. Wyatt Earp, left for Los Angeles on March 25, 1882, and then returned to her family in San Francisco. In July 1882, Wyatt left Colorado and went to San Francisco, where he sought out Sadie and his brother Virgil, who was seeking treatment for his arm. In February or March 1883, Sadie and Earp left San Francisco for Gunnison, where Earp ran a Faro bank until he received a request in April for assistance from Luke Short in Dodge City. Sadie was his common-law wife for the next 46 years.


title: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

text: Tensions between the Earps and the McLaurys further increased when another passenger stage on the 'Sandy Bob Line' in the Tombstone area, bound for Bisbee, was held up on September 8, 1881. The masked bandits robbed all of the passengers of their valuables since the stage was not carrying a strongbox. During the robbery, the driver heard one of the robbers describe the money as "sugar", a phrase known to be used by Frank Stilwell. Stilwell had, until the prior month, been a deputy for Sheriff Behan but had been fired for "accounting irregularities".


title: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

text: Wyatt and Virgil Earp rode with a sheriff's posse and tracked the Bisbee stage robbers. Virgil had been appointed Tombstone's town marshal (i.e., chief of police) on June 6, 1881, after Ben Sippy abandoned the job. However, Virgil at the same time continued to hold his position of deputy U.S. marshal, and it was in this federal capacity that he continued to chase robbers of stage coaches outside Tombstone city limits. At the scene of the holdup, Wyatt discovered an unusual boot print left by someone wearing a custom-repaired boot heel. The Earps checked a shoe repair shop in Bisbee known to provide widened boot heels and were able to link the boot print to Stilwell.


title: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

text: Frank Stilwell had just arrived in Bisbee with his livery stable partner, Pete Spence, when the two were arrested by Deputy U.S. Marshal Virgil Earp for the holdup. Both were friends of Ike Clanton and the McLaurys. At the preliminary hearing, Stilwell and Spence were able to provide several witnesses who supported their alibis. Judge Spicer dropped the charges for insufficient evidence just as he had done for Doc Holliday earlier in the year.


title: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

text: Released on bail, Spence and Stilwell were re-arrested October 13 by Marshal Virgil Earp for the Bisbee robbery on a new federal charge of interfering with a mail carrier. The newspapers, however, reported that they had been arrested for a different stage robbery that occurred on October 8 near Contention City.