Animal-rights activist asks Hegins clergymen to comment on shoot

August 18, 1990

Pottsville (PA.) Republican

By Karen Hube

Religious leaders of the Hegins Valley have been called upon by an Illinois animal-rights activist to break their silence in what he calls a “moral battle” over the future of the annual Labor Day Fred Coleman Memorial Pigeon Shoot.

“A servant of the Lord…may not remain silent in the battle which rages between the violent and the compassionate,” said Steven Hindi of Plano in a letter addressed to the Revs. Jack Murphy of the Friedens Lutheran Church and David Grant of the United Church of Christ, both of Hegins. A third letter was addressed to St. John’s United Methodist Church, Hegins.

The “violent” Hindi referred to include the participants and planners of the shoot. Last year, over 6,000 pigeons were killed at the Hegins Park where the shoot, called a sport by its competitors, is planned for its 56 year this Labor Day on Sept. 3.

And the “compassionate” Hindi referred to are all shoot opposers, including the hundreds of animal-rights activists who protested the pigeon killings at the Hegins Park last year. More than 300 activists – or about 500 by some estimation – demonstrated against the event last year, calling it a game of bloodletting.

Hindi wrote to the reverends, “the lesson, ‘as you sow you shall reap,’ should scare you and your congregation to death, for the seeds have been those of lies, hate, fear, suffering, and death.” The letter is dated Aug. 16.

Reverend Grant said Thursday over the telephone that he has not yet received the letter and will not comment until he has read it.

The other two reverends were not available for comment Friday or this morning.

Those fighting the “cruel and illogical” shoot, “as well as those helpless beings who are its victims,” Hindi said in the letter, “Should have your support as opposed to your silence.”

Hindi said he is not a particularly religious man, but understands the Christian teachings well enough to see that there has been a divergence from God’s word in the destruction of “God’s creatures” at the Hegins shoot.

“How can it be that after the Son of God lays down his life, crucified like a common criminal by perhaps the most cruel execution means ever devised by man, that his servants of today are so devoid of the presence of his spirit, so empty of faith, so arrogant as to ignore his written word?” Hindi asked the reverends.

Hindi said he attended the shoot for the first time last year and was so disturbed by the killing of helpless creatures that in December he wrote to the Rev. Murphy asking for an explanation for the point of view of the shooters.

“There was a desire on my part to understand rather than to judge,” Hindi said.

Getting no response to his letter, Hindi became determined to stop the shoot forever.

His first effort this year came in the form of a challenge to one of the planners of the event, Robert Tobash of Hegins, to a physical confrontation. At stake in the challenge would be $10,000 forwarded by each man, and the future of the shoot.

Tobash shrugged off the challenge, saying it was a publicity ploy and, anyway, he alone had no real control over the future of the event. He said there are about 200 planners in all. Tobash is a former chairman of the Hegins Park Association, which is in charge of the planning.

If not a fight, how about a debate? That was the next of Hindi’s challenges – without stakes – posed to the park association’s former attorney James P. Diehl. The proposal for a debate did not, however, nullify the challenge for a fight, which was also offered to Diehl. But Diehl turned down both challenges.

This issue has been debated at length by legislators over the past two years, Diehl said, when animal-rights activists tried to pass a law banning pigeon shooting in Pennsylvania.

And as for the fight, that would be completely out of the question because it is illegal, he said. Hindi said he has a lawyer who has stated she will draft all necessary legal documents to make the fight possible within the limits of the law.

Gov. Robert P. Casey’s point of view is also of concern to the animal activist. Hindi has written two letters to Casey asking that he make his position on pigeon shooting clear, but has received no response.

A meeting has been set up for Aug. 27 at the Capitol Building in Harrisburg with representatives from national animal-rights groups and the department secretary to the cabinet of public affairs at the Governor’s office. Hindi said so far, there are 13 nation-wide activist groups that have said they will definitely be represented at the meeting.