Des Moines GOP Official, Linked to Rev. Moon, Allegedly Harasses California Journalist
by John Gorenfeld

Last week I made a phone call to Des Moines to ask a man about a Web domain my family wants and he owns. The name is "Gorenfeld.com," just like our last name.

But a year ago someone took control of the name, someone who dislikes articles I've written about a wealthy New Age group that owns The Washington Times. That someone is not named Gorenfeld, which may be why he hired a service called Domains By Proxy to keep his identity secret. I found out who he was anyway.

He knew it was me before I could identity myself.

"Hello, John," said David Payer, a Republican Party official in Iowa, and a political operative in the Unification Church.

I asked Payer whether he might be willing to hand it over. It had expired, but was still in his cyber-grip.

"No, I think I'm gonna hold onto it," he said with a breezy menace that made me wonder what John Malkovich movies he'd been studying for inspiration. "I want people to know a little about John Gorenfeld... I want to give you your 15 minutes."

[Here it is, John!]
A phone call to the Polk County, Iowa, Republicans confirmed that Payer, a failed candidate for the state legislature, is an elected officer in the group's central committee. He also maintains the party's official Web site, PolkGOP.com.

Payer was inspired to buy my name, he said, when he didn't like my reporting on an event that triggered a small scandal in 2004: the "Crown Of Peace" ritual on Capitol Hill, honoring the controversial Reverend Moon as the new Messiah.

Just to recall: Senator John Warner (R-Virginia) said he'd been "deceived" into hosting Moon's ceremony naming himself humanity's new savior to replace Jesus. As featured on ABC's "World News Tonight," politicians did more than just pay witness. They bowed down and wore white gloves, bringing to Moon a crown and flowing robes resembling King George III's.

The king part was what I found interesting. The gentleman with the monarchial sense of style was no minor character. He owns The Washington Times and calls in favors from American presidents.

As for the Des Moines GOP's Payer: the man seems to be doing double duty in a quest to open doors in Washington for Moon, where the Reverend wants to end the separation of church and state. Moon's major American Web sites, including FamilyFed.org, are registered in Payer's name, according to a WHOIS search. And his Iowa influence groups are registered to Payer, according to corporate filings.

Payer complained that I tried to make Moon look "odd." And in my fixation on the crowning, he said, I ignored the evening's spirit of love, in which local civic leaders received plaques.

"You gave it a perspective, or a view, that was cast so diabolically," Payer told me. "As if there was something to do with becoming the King of America or something."

(In my defense, I went with the spin from a top Moon official, who wrote in a March 2004 memo: "The crowning means America is saying to [Moon]: 'Please become my king." The memo was reported in the newsletter of Americans United For Church & State.)

I suggested that another Web address -- say, eDavidPayer.com or DavidPayer.us -- might be a great forum for his ideas.

"No, no, it's about you," he Malkoviched. "That's what it's about."

So that's something to look forward to: a Web site put up about a journalist by the Unification Church, whose leader, Rev. Sun Myung Moon, is on record as calling for an "automatic theocracy to rule the world."

Is that something the Polk County GOP will want to get behind? And do Red State voters in Des Moines know their officials, supposedly hard at work defending American traditions, are linked to a New Age guru's scheme to use the United States Senate to outshine Jesus Christ?

[Um, gee, maybe I should quickly buy up LindaThieman.com!]
(Source)  Used with permission. 

John Gorenfeld (pictured above) lives and works in the Bay Area, where he writes about unusual things for Salon magazine, messes around with musical instruments, and tries to find interesting things to see and do. As a result of his reporting, featured on ABC's "World News Tonight," his domain name Gorenfeld.com is currently being cybersquatted on by a minor official of the Des Moines, Iowa, Republican Party. It has become increasingly clear that all of this stems from Gorenfeld's failure to follow the advice of his 8th grade algebra teacher, Mr. Liddi, who advised him to change his attitude.


Submitted by Rick Mullin, webmaster, Woodbury County Dems.