Strippers Protest Ohio Church Protesting Them

(AP)  Strippers in bikinis sunbathe in lawn chairs, their backs turned toward the gray clapboard church where men in ties and women in full-length skirts flock to Sunday morning services.

The strippers are protesting a fundamentalist Christian church whose Bible-brandishing congregants have picketed the club where they work. The dancers roll up with signs carrying messages adapted from Scripture, such as "Do unto others as you would have done unto you," to counter church members who for four years have photographed license plates of patrons and asked them if their mothers and wives know their whereabouts.

The dueling demonstrations play out in the U.S. state of Ohio, where nine miles of cornfields and Amish-buggy crossing signs separate The Fox Hole strip club from New Beginnings Ministries.

Club owner Tommy George offered to call off his not-quite-nude crew from their three-month-long protest if the church responded in kind. But pastor Bill Dunfee believes that a higher power has charged him with shutting down the strip club.

"As a Christian community, we cannot share territory with the devil," Dunfee said. "Light and darkness cannot exist together, so The Fox Hole has got to go."

New Beginnings is one of four churches in this one-traffic-light village of 900 people, 60 miles outside Columbus. There's one gas station and a sit-down restaurant that serves country staples like mashed potatoes with gravy and Salisbury steak.

On Sunday, four of The Fox Hole's seven strippers and more than a dozen supporters garnered both scorn and compassion from churchgoers - and quite a few honks from pickup trucks and other passing vehicles.

Laura Meske - known as Lola, stage age 36 but really 42 - hid behind a sign proclaiming, "Jesus loves the children of the world!" as the preacher extended his hand for a shake.

Two nights earlier, Dunfee and more than a dozen churchgoers had stood outside the club, one of them calling out Meske's stripper name.

"Everybody has sinned, and that doesn't mean I'm not gonna get into heaven," Meske said, the stud piercing in her chin shimmering in the sunlight. "I believe in Jesus. I don't believe what they preach. They preach hate."

Debi Durr, who attends the church, disagreed. "You don't stand up there for four years for hate. That's not hate. That's love," she said.

Dunfee has offered to help the strippers pay for food, rent, utilities and gas if they leave The Fox Hole. But many of the women say their jobs are only a stopover on the way to work in cosmetology or the medical field - a meal ticket that shelters them from another stigma: welfare.

"No little girl is growing up like, 'I wanna do a pole trick,"' said Anny Donewald, a former stripper who lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and ministers to dancers, prostitutes and porn stars.

She and other Christian groups that work with women in the adult entertainment industry have criticized Dunfee's methods of ministry as a means of putting the strippers on the defensive instead of showing support.

The Fox Hole operates in a white plywood box of a building. Beer cans and a dollar bill peaked out from the grass like Easter eggs last Sunday.

The club encourages customers to check out its $30 (euro24) private dance special, promoting it on the kind of sign convenience stores use to advertise cheap milk and cigarettes. It's here where dancers strip down to panties and pasties for cash.

Meske - a tattooed mother of four - said she made $30 instead of a couple hundred dollars (a hundred fifty euros or so) last Friday with the protesters outside.

"I'm not the most beautiful woman in the world," she said. "I go out there and I try to make my money."

A few houses and a restaurant separate the club from another white building, a church where some of the strippers donate blood during drives for the American Red Cross.

"I got a church 900 feet down the street that causes me no problems," club owner George said. "And I got this moron nine miles down the street that causes me more headaches."

[rockcutr]

It is written,"I command that ye love one another."
Simply does not apply to religion, apparantly.
Hate, discust, unforgiveness, inability to play nice with others is the path of this so called church. The real issue and lesson here is for the church folk to grow up spititually. These are babys with automatic weapons. My way or the highway kind of thinking is not what the Master Jesus taught. Sin is sin, there is no distinction in one being worse than another. Everyone written about in this story are children of GOD who also happen to be all sinners. Get over yourselves. Arrrgggg!!!! The duality of it all.
Realizing the goal of those on the path of Jesus is enlightenment. This the first step. Discernment vs. judgement needs to be mastered for anyone to move toward the light. To discern is a conscious choice, to judge condemns. When ones own house glows with the light within, no words can further the action of the grace bestowed upon the wise and holy within.
Have a Enlightened day.

[ffoulkes-2009]

So....how long is this going to be considered a news story?

[rwsmith29456]

Are there complaints from neighbors or are people being victimized, crime, people peeing on lawns? Ok, we know about the strippers. Now, the church people need to be looking inside themselves. Someone once said, Let them that have no sin cast the first stone.

[formrusmcsgt]

"...who for four years have photographed license plates of patrons and asked them if their mothers and wives know their whereabouts."
-----
How arrogant.

On what authority?

And what business is it of THEIR'S who knows what about what?

These people are daft.

[mitch0927]

The Bible this, the Bible that. When are people going to realize that the Bible that is read these days was written by a scribe being dictated to by someone form the 13th century interpreting what he thought was written form the word of God. I wish people would wake up to the fact that everything in there was interpreted by so many people throughout the years, who knows exactly what was written thousands of years ago. So many people try and hide behind what the Bible says, they can't even think for themselves without finding sonething that could relate to what was written when most people used their hands to whipe their butts after taking a dump.

[wdh3007]

Morality, and those that have no shame is part of the problem with america today and people wonder why the divorce rate is so high.

[magnumdr]

Strippers complaining about the morral issues about stripping. Wow I guess that some people don't even know what a sin is anymore?

[omnibus66]

It would seem that the one thing that Bible-thumpers are really, really good at is intolerance. The thing they are really, really bad at is following the teachings of their accepted savior. I think that's called hypocrisy.

[Dubai_expat]

I don't frequent these sorts of establishments myself, just not my style. Can we call this part of the "economic stimulus package"?

From a practical perspective, I'm only opposed to the ugly strippers (age 42?). We must have standards, people!

[texbelle123]

To the members of this church, and to those posting here who agree with them, talking about reading the Bible to see what the Bible says about them.

Well, here is what the Bible says about YOU:
Romans 2:1 "Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you dondemn yourself, because you the judge, are doing the very same things." (New Revised Standard)

Be careful, you who call yourselves Christian. You are quick to pass judgment, to decide "where the devil is" as this pastor has, and to declare your own moral superiority while pointing out the transgressions of others.

Exactly the behavior Jesus condemned in the Parishee and Saducees. And if you really read and study the Bible, you will see that God commands us to love one another without judgment, while speaking against exactly this kind of behavior in passage after passage. The Bible spends a lot more time condemning judgmental behavior than it does condemning "sinful" behavior.

Before you disagree with me, know that I'm a retire minister and I've spent time studying this amazing book. Obviously, the pastor of this church has not.