More Drama Than “Who’s The Daddy”!

My daughter Jamie suggested today that our current issues with the American Fork Police – and the City Attorney, Tucker Hanson, of course, who is pressing the charges even though a simple reading of the law proves we are not in violation, is turning into more drama than a Maury Povich show, which our family calls “Who’s The Daddy” after one of his most popular themes along with “My 10 year old daughter is a prostitute/wants to have a baby”.

Really, this thing is escalating rapidly and it is just so insipid!

I know it bothers people when status quo churches are taken to task and the temptation is strong to deny any wrong doing performed in the name of religion especially when it’s your religion, but the fact is Mormons are persecuting and prosecuting their neighbors for not being Mormon or being in line with the Mormon Church.

Their primary response to our protest of their crimes against us are that if we don’t like it we should move out of Utah.

So now, only Mormons have a right to live in Utah?

Why did they agree to join the United States of America if they really meant to keep Utah a Mormon only State?

Why did they write a Utah State Constitution that reinforces religious rights and freedoms in even stronger terms than the United States Constitution if they only meant it to apply to the Mormon practice of religion?

Why don’t they practice their own religion and take a look at their own articles of faith, especially #11?

Local parents disrespect their neighbors and teach their children directly or by example to likewise disrespect their neighbors, to lie, cheat and steal.

In Utah, the “screw your neighbor state” this is considered appropriate and completely in line with Utah’s pioneer heritage philosophies of “Lying for the Lord” and “Beating the Devil at his own game” which gained general popularity during the presidencies of Brigham Young and John Taylor as the Mormon Church and it’s members attempted to decieve the United States Government (and people) regarding their marriages and murders and take retribution for Utah’s Government Seizure by the Feds.

So, these two boys last May lied about their ages so convincingly that a nice girl lost her job and was charged, convicted and paid a fine for being conned by them.

I hope they are enjoying their tattoos!

Then when they got busted (or bragged) to/by their parents, they lied again and said that they just filled out paperwork (didn’t mention claiming to be adults) and were not required to show ID.

Of course their ID was photocopied on the back of the releases – and why should the lying stop with the studio when dad needs to be lied to also.

The studio has fewer signs posted now than then (I despise policy signs) but all that was removed was I considered excessive redundancy.

We had two signs on the door that told minors that they could not recieve tattoos at all (parents can’t consent in Utah County for tattoos) and that minors were denied entrance without a parent or legal guardian.

We also had several signs indoors outlining the same policies and on the release the age related right to recieve services must be verified in writing several times before services can be rendered – as well as providing Government Issued, Photo ID which is photocopied on the back of the release for a permanant record.

All of these things are preventive measures of our own.

The law only requires that we verify age, not that we take only government issued ID or that we post any signs or that we require court papers to prove guardianship – those are all things we do over and above the law to try to be good neighbors.

All of these policies have been instituted due to Utah children and too often parents as well, attempting to obtain services that are in violation of the local laws, showing total disregard and disrespect for both the law and the law abiding status of the studio and it’s staff.

They don’t care if they make us break the law, just as long as they get their tattoo or piercing – that is all that matters to them!

And they feel confident that if they get busted, parents, neighbors and law enforcement will believe that they were somehow victims of the evil tattoo people – and we all know that tattoo people just live to break laws and entice innocent little children into behaviors that their parents disapprove of – um……though the parents practice those behaviors themselves (lying, deceiving) with profound regularity.

Then, some “adult” woman throws a tantrum in our studio and throws a phone at a staff member. She feels she has a right to do that, because after all, we are just tattoo people.

The police do a crap-ass semblance of an investigation and basically do nothing in spite of my demand that she be charged with assault.

The American Fork Policeman that responded to my call even told me that if I performed the same behavior in the Police Department as she did at our church that I would not be charged with assault!

I won’t be surprised if you think that is a crock of shit like I do – and later (much later) his boss, Lt. Liddiard, agreed with you and me on what would really happen.

But, what did happen, since it was us and not them?

Nothing.

In the minds of the “member mafia” Police and City Attorney, it was just what we deserved – to be assaulted – cause after all – we practice a different religion than them and we like tattoos (which they like too) and their “prophet” says tattoos and piercings (except for permanant makeup and one piercing in each ear for women only) are a desecration to the holy temple of their boob and butt job, 300 lb. carcass’s.

Did someone say hypochristianity?

Then, some brat get’s her visiting mom to let her get her lip pierced and Utah dad disapproves as it reflects on the local perception of his personal “holiness” and he decides to take his frustration out on the studio that performed a perfectly legal service since he can’t take it out on his ex-wife or daughter.

You always lose when you fight with a teenage daughter.

Then when she wants more services, but mom is back home in another state and dad won’t consent to the service, she tries to bully my staff into providing the service illegally or selling her materials to do it herself and when refused, enlists dad’s assistance to get revenge on the studio that wouldn’t let her get her way.

Dad doesn’t care that his daughter is a liar when he has an opportunity to be a hero and close down a church he and his church don’t personally approve of.

Since he is a liar and lives in the screw your neighbor State of Utah, he knows just what to do to make himself feel better – fuck over the people at the tattoo studio.

He doesn’t care that we have family to feed and house, bills to pay and honest, law abiding lives to lead and that it is only the reflection in his child of his own dishonesty that riles him so.

No, he doesn’t give a crap about anyone but himself – good Mormon Christian that he is.

The police meanwhile just haven’t been able to get a good case against that damn tattooing church (since we haven’t broken any laws) and jump at the chance to invent some bullshit charges against the studio staff.

Maybe they know they can’t make any of the charges stick, but it gives them the opportunity to harass and intimidate and terrorize the simple artists who practice their religion and exercise their God given talents helping “people who want and are legally entitled to their services” to enhance their spirituality in a manner not any different really than the wearing of a cross or a CTR ring (Mormons often wear a “Choose the Right” emblem) or fancy temple underwear with spiritual markings on them.

The only real difference of course is that it takes a lot of commitment to face the discomfort (or fear of it) of a tattoo/piercing and the permanence of that personal and spiritual form of self-expression.

So the children are lying, the parents are lying, the police are lying and the city attorney is lying.

They all are practicing fraud and deceit in an effort to appear holy.

Do you get this crap???

None of them care in the least that they are breaking the law and violating other people’s religious and civil rights.

None of them care in the least that the people they are so viciously persecuting are law abiding citizens, practicing their Constitutionally protected rights to live their own religion (instead of Mormonism) and exercise the talents and gifts that God gave them in a legal and socially conscious manner.

We go to great lengths, far beyond what is required by law – though the law cannot require a church to do any of these things anyway – (if you don’t like it – go burn the Constitution, ok) to try to protect the community from itself.

I understand how hurt other Mormons, those in State and Federal Law Enforcement, who are probably genuinely nice people, maybe even Christian in spite of their church mandated bigotry and hypocrisy, are when they see how awful their Mormon fellows behave and what a bad example they are to the world.

Mormon “prophet” Gordon Hinkley after all has only ever worked in the Public Relations Department of the Mormon Church so it is not such a surprise that public image has become more important to Mormons than honesty and Christian practice.

I think GBH is a bigot, hypocrite and tyrant.

Just the kind of church leader that Jesus hated.

And also those who follow his lead in total disregard of their claim to be “The Only Authorized Representatives of Jesus Christ” to the world and beyond.

It is also very hard for County and State and perhaps even local Federal Law Enforcement to overcome their own religious bias, since they are all Mormons themselves and defend a different church against religious discrimination and civil rights violations by members of their own church.

I sure appreciate those who do overcome such difficulty, but it has been obvious the turmoil they go through.

And unfortunately, not all of them do overcome their bias and they then join the persecutors in spite of their job as protectors of the Constitution and preservers of peace.

Happy Valley Tattoo Massacre’ (Part 3)

The Happy Valley Tattoo Massacre’
Overview

On January 3rd, 2008, the American Fork, Utah Police Department served a search and seizure warrant on Happy Valley Tattoo & Piercing, a service division of Whole Life Ministries on a complaint that the ministry had displayed photographs of pierced genitals to two minors.

The raid required 6 police officers who inspected every inch of the studio for over an hour including adjacent parsonage and storage areas.

Artist portfolios, tattoo art “flash” books, drawings and paintings were seized though not described in the warrant.

The police have engaged in and ongoing assault of harassment and intimidation against several staff members repeatedly threatening them with prison and unnecessarily interfering with their opportunity to offer services.

Photographs of genital piercings, at the heart of the present dispute, kept in a separate photo album clearly marked in big red letters as “Adult” body piercings, fit the description on the Utah Attorney Generals website as material not obscene or pornographic, but rather are of sociological value to minors and though restricted by the ministry to adults only, according to the definition of the Utah AG, are appropriate to be viewed by anyone of any age as would a National Geographic Magazine which is an example the AG uses.

The charge first detailed that the alleged inappropriate display was by the giving over the counter a book of photographs to two 14 year old girls in the day or two after Christmas 2007, the story later changing to 6 minors (3 boys/3 girls) not being given the book to look at but rather viewing it as it sat on a bookshelf in the public reception area on one unspecified day sometime during the two months before Christmas, later changing to 4 minors on one unspecified day during the two months before Christmas.

Minors are prohibited from entering the studio without parents or legal guardians as posted on both front studio doors (until Jan 6, 2008 – now posted once) and traffic is very limited this time of year (all fall).

Staff members do not recall 2 minors asking to see or looking at such materials and do only recall one group of minors around Halloween who did not look at any books but demanded service without a parent to consent for one girl who had received a lip piercing the previous April with her mother’s consent.

She now wanted a second lip piercing and when denied, wanted the piercer to meet her at a local Albertson’s Grocery and do the piercing in the bathroom.

When that request was also denied, the teens wanted to purchase a needle and jewelry so they could do the piercing themselves at home.

When that request was denied, the kids threw a fit and had to be told to leave.

This appears to be the group of 6 kids the police refer to.

The teens at first identified Dr. Lowrey as one of the two persons who supposedly handed them the book to look at, but as he was 1,000 miles away from Sept to late Dec, the police instead chose to disregard the identification of old, white hair and white beard and substitute a student at the studio who was 22 years old at the time.

The child had access to the photo albums which were previously kept in a public area while she was in the company of her mother, having from April to December to advise her friends of it’s content.

She also could access similar photos by the thousands in the many online piercing galleries that do not screen for minor access and thus could easily describe typical genital piercings even if she had not had access to the studio’s piercing book.

As all staff members are pictured online on the studio website http://tat2me.com and were all prominently featured in cable television advertising that ran from September through November 2007, it would not be hard for people who had never even been in the studio to make positive identifications of staff members.

The children were in violation of studio policy and while neither children nor studio violated any actual laws, the children did attempt to induce our staff to violate the law and the police are using the incident backwards to persecute and illegally prosecute staff members when they actually were going out of their way to protect the interests of the community in general and the parents of these (can I say snot nosed brats?) in particular.

Today, Dr. Lowrey was served a summons to appear in court in American Fork, February 22, 2008 on charges of Unlawful Tattooing of a Minor (2 counts) from an incident last May 2007 where two 17 year old boys by fraud and deceit, obtained tattoos in spite of providing ID that showed they were a few weeks (3/6) on the wrong side of their birthdays.

Dr. Lowrey was in Detroit, Michigan at the time of the incident but is being charged as the Owner of the studio and he contends that this current charge is simply harassment in retaliation for his sticking up for his staff and the law.

Police reports prove that the boys tricked (scammed) the receptionist and declared themselves to be adults of legal age to receive services several times in writing on the studio release form.

Both boys were charged with communications fraud to which they plead guilty and paid a fine.

The receptionist was violated by the government when she was charged, as she was a victim and the police investigation proves that she was not complicit and was deceived into providing prohibited services she would under normal conditions refuse.

The receptionist, both artists and Dr. Lowrey are thus exonerated by state law Utah State Code 76-10-2201-(4), which law is adopted intact by American Fork City as the City Ordinance.

Since this is the law that the American Fork Police are attempting to prosecute under, I would think they would read clause (4) as well as 1,2,3 & 5 especially as clause 4 specifically invalidates 1-3 & 5 as regards this incident.

American Fork has already falsely charged, prosecuted and convicted (by intimidating her into pleading guilty when she was a victim not an offender) the receptionist and now is engaging in more false prosecution.

The American Fork Police have repeatedly claimed that they decided to not prosecute Dr. Lowrey and the two artists on these charges, but when Dr. Lowrey advised Lt. Falslev of his intention to not fire his Assistant Manager (since she did every thing right and nothing wrong) and to advise her to demand a jury trial if she was charged as Lt. Falslev kept threatening, the Lt. began to threaten Dr. Lowrey with a renewal of interest in the previous charges, indicating that if Dr. Lowrey did not scapegoat his staff member (suggesting firing her would be sufficient, in addition to their charging her) that Dr. Lowrey and the artists could be charged on the old issues and in fact could be expecting charges in the next few days.

On January 14, 2008, due to Dr. Lowrey’s protest over the further victimization of his assistant manager (Shandi Child) over the new charges of display to a minor, the city has elected to resurrect their investigation and charge Dr. Lowrey in the incident from the previous May where his innocence has already been proved by the American Fork Police and the Court in their own investigation and charges against the boys.

Dr. Lowrey also claims his and his staff’s rights were violated over an incident occurring between these two incidents, when police refused to charge with assault an adult female who threw a cell phone at another assistant manager when she could not get the service she desired in the time frame she wanted.

This is simply an effort by local government to practice religion against religion discrimination by charging the victims of these crimes in an effort drive the church and it’s spiritual tattoo and piercing services out of town because the predominant religion disapproves of such practices and the “member mafia” assumes the prerogative to drive out by any means including illegal means and invented charges, anyone who believes differently than them.

Rather than tell local parents that their children need to obey posted restrictions on their entry to the studio without parents or legal guardians or to receive services without parents or guardians the police prefer to fabricate unsupportable violations against the church in an effort to harass and intimidate us until we move out of town, which is the solution they repeatedly and snidely suggest.

The ACLU is considering taking on the case and the FBI is launching an investigation as are the Utah Attorney General and the Utah POST. (State Police Officer Training Department)

Previous posts on this blog detail these events.

Sunday’s Message, er…….Monday

Jesus said, “Don’t be a Dick.” Matthew 22: 36-40

It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Saturday before last I emailed over 50 National and International newspapers about our experience. I have not gotten a single reply beyond a few immediate receipt of email confirmations.

That really confuses me, but it looks like there is interest developing in government and legal agencies and since I am still not in jail, I do have the opportunity to attend to all the many other research, emails and phone calls that this intrusion has engendered – not like I didn’t already have more than I could get to.

I think I have found legal assistance but am waiting for actual confirmation and the government claims to be investigating but I am still waiting for the investigators.

So, now I still have to research American Fork and Utah County ordinances, which have been known to run counter to State and Federal Law as in the Utah County Law that over-rides the state parental consent law and denies parents the right to consent to tattoo and some piercing services for their minor children, but gives that right to give consent for such services for the same minor children to any Medical Doctor – still preserving the rights of parents to consent to boob and butt jobs for minor children of any age.

Of course, Medical Doctors have it fixed so they are pretty much totally unregulated by government, but who expected the government to mandate them to take over parenting responsibilities?

Certainly, the idea in Utah County (they are so sneaky) is to appear permissive, while actually being more restrictive, and illegally dictating morality.

It is not too hard to elicit the response (if you ask the question) that parents who would consent to a tattoo or tongue piercing (prohibited here by the Health Code for minors, but not adults – er…..so what’s the health issue??) um…….well if they would agree to that they just don’t deserve to make choices about their own children.

Can’t those (immoral, stupid) parents just be happy with plastic surgery for their children instead?

Well, anyway, this is the week that all the investigations are supposed to start and so today I get to start making phone calls to the media since email doesn’t seem to get the job done.

I think it kind of sucks when you have to badger law enforcement to enforce the law, but I hope that once the ball is rolling I won’t have to be a-cranking 24/7 and can get some of my planned work done.

I do want to say though that I think it is disgusting when local “news” routinely ignores news that might tarnish the public image of the majority religion.

I do understand that newspapers, radio and television primarily exist to sell advertising and in Utah, stories that darken the image of “the church” can make media advertising directors worry over potential loss of revenue.

That, I guess is just another day of life under fascism.

On a lighter note:
Yup there is still a good side to life, even for me…Kita and I have been devoting our Sundays to finishing the remodeling work, pounding and painting at the studio.

The reception area is mostly done and Kita has been painting some great window art. I am sure that the locals are hating the painting of an Oni but already loving the Geisha.

I suppose most people know a geisha is a fancy prostitute but for those who don’t know how to google, here is some info on Oni’s – which basically are now considered protectors.

Depictions of oni vary widely but usually portray them as hideous, gigantic creatures with sharp claws, wild hair, and two long horns growing from their heads. Their skin may be any number of colors, but red and blue are particularly common.

In more recent times, oni have lost some of their original wickedness and sometimes take on a more protective function. Men in oni costumes often lead Japanese parades to ward off any bad luck, for example. Japanese buildings sometimes include oni-faced roof tiles called onigawara , which are thought to ward away bad luck, much as gargoyles in Western tradition.

The tokusatsu production Kamen Rider Hibiki builded up on the image of the Oni as protectors of humans from other malevolent creatures and demons in Japanese folklore; in this case, however, they are not purely supernatural beings but empowered humans who are said to have “shed their humanity.”

Many Japanese idioms and proverbs also make reference to oni. For example, the expression oya-ni ninu ko-wa oni-no ko means literally “a child that does not resemble its parents is the child of an oni,” but it is used idiomatically to refer to the fact that all children naturally take after their parents, and in the odd case that a child appears not to do so, it might be because the child’s true biological parents are not the ones who are raising the child. Depending on the context in which it is used, it can have connotations of “children who do not act like their parents are not true human beings (because real human children always take after their parents),” and may be used by a parent to chastise a misbehaving child. Variants of this expression include oya-ni ninu ko-wa onigo and oya-ni ninu ko-wa onikko.

Well, everyone is showing up for work, so I need to have our morning meeting and get on the phone.

Just remember – Don’t be a Dick! It’s the whole message of Jesus in four little words.

Doc

PS

I will try to post again today on the continuing story of the Happy Valley Tattoo Massacre’.

The Happy Valley Tattoo Massacre (Part 2)

Rev. Dr. Gregory Lowrey

Healer, Counselor – CEO

Whole Life Ministries

the raid…

So now the complaint has been made and the American Fork Police are doing whatever it is they do as they prepare to raid Happy Valley Tattoo.

On Thursday morning, January 3^rd, 2008 Dr. Lowrey was sitting on the couch in the reception area of Happy Valley Tattoo & Piercing which is in the front portion of the Whole Life Ministries building, drinking morning coffee and writing on his laptop.

Three men in sports jackets came to the front door and peered through. They looked like salesmen to Doc and when they noticed the “closed” sign and checked the posted hours they left.

Doc and Kita continued to prepare for their day.

The studio had been closed Thursdays for several months while Doc and Kita were in Michigan, but now it had become a day that they performed services together without other artists or assistants.

The studio opened on time at 12 pm and right away a patron appeared to request a tattoo, some oriental symbols representing part of his spiritual quest in life. Paperwork completed, Kita went to work performing the tattoo service, while Doc went back to writing.

Just as the tattoo was wrapping up, at about 1pm, the “salesmen” from earlier returned, this time entering the studio and walking up to the front desk.

There were only two men this time and Doc considered that they might be managers from the loan company next door dropping in to say hi and inquire about services.

From the couch by the window, Doc spoke; “Hi there, are you here for a tattoo or piercing today?”

The taller of the two men (discovered days later to be Police Chief Lance Call – the guy who doesn’t return phone calls) replied, “Not either, really.”

The other man (Head of Detectives, Lt. Darrin Falslev) turned and walked over to Doc, extending a piece of paper as he arrived in front of him.

“I’m here to serve this search warrant.” He said.

Doc recoiled slightly, his hands retreating from his computer and the extended paper in the officer’s hand.

“You know of course that this is a church.” “I don’t think you can walk in and just serve a warrant like this.”, Doc replied.

“We can and we are.” Responded the Lt., dropping the warrant on top of Doc’s now closed computer.

Dr. Lowrey quickly read over the two page document, noting the description of the order to search that read: “Items to be searched for include: Books containing photographs of male and female genital with piercings and tattoos, as well as any loose photos of the same nature.”

Still slightly overcome by surprise, Doc replied that it looked like they could make their search and stood up to take the officers, now obviously not salesmen, over to where the books they were looking for were kept behind the front counter.

Lt. Falslev was surprised too. “Doc, I thought you were out of town till February?” he asked.

“Well, I was supposed to be, but had to return early.” “We have been here almost three weeks now”, said Doc. “What exactly is the problem?”

The officer asked if a few other police officers could be invited in to help the search go faster and Doc agreed.

During the several minutes while the other officers were being fetched a client came in seeking service.

Doc spoke to her for a few minutes and then turned her over to Kita, who would be doing her service.

Kita gave her a tattoo art book to look at for the art she was seeking – a string of 5 hearts down her cheek.

Chief Call, Lt. Falslev and one or two more male officers and two female officers, one blond and one brunette, entered the studio.

Lt. Falslev began to recount the charge that two 14 year old girls had come into the studio a day or two after Christmas and some girl behind the front counter had handed them a piercing photo portfolio containing pictures of male and female genitals to look at.

Doc responded that we don’t show those materials to minors as he took Lt. Falslev around the counter and showed him the bookcase containing portfolios and other art.

Doc pulled out three of his own piercing portfolios – one marked in big red letters “ADULT body piercing photos” and one brand new portfolio just put together a few days earlier by his assistant manager and body piercer Shandi, which contained examples of her piercing work including one or two genital piercings.

Lt. Falslev indicated that two of the books appeared to contain the material he was seeking and that the other piercing portfolios and artist’s portfolios containing photos of tattoos and drawings for tattoos were not needed.

The other officers were kind of standing around in the front area and the blond female officer had taken the seat on the couch that Doc had just vacated.

The woman looking for the heart tattoo seemed undeterred by the ongoing raid even when the art book she was looking at was taken right from her hands by one of the officers for inspection.

The Lt. suggested to the group that the books he had in hand were probably all they needed, but the blond female officer from the couch wanted to look at all the binders from the bookcase which the brunette female officer began to collect up and stack on the front counter for her, another male officer assisting in passing them to the couch.

While those three officers made themselves busy looking at lettering books and books full of traditional tattoo designs, the first two policemen, Chief Call now taking over, began asking Doc to open drawers in the front office area for them to inspect for “loose photos”.

No photos were found and books left by staff members on top of file cabinets under the counter proved to be on spiritual topics rather than the dirty books the officers at first presumed.

Doc suggested to the client that if she wanted to wait, she could take a seat until the police were done, but that it was not practical to help her more until then.

Kita went to sit in her work area and the client sat down in the reception area while the police continued their search.

Lt. Falslev and Chief Call now had Doc take them to each private artist work area and open for them each drawer in the artist’s private work stations.

Again, no loose photos of any character were found, nor were there any other objectionable materials, simply art and tattoo equipment and supplies and in the piercing station, piercing tools and supplies.

Chief Call now directed Dr. Lowrey to show him the rest of the building, starting in the furnace room and moving to the bathroom and back to the kitchen, garage and other areas of the attached apartment where Dr. and Mrs. Lowrey are living while they finish remodeling the studio.

When remodeling is complete the apartment will make a clinic for healing and counseling services and a general ministry meeting area in addition to a small living space.

The separate entrance will allow clinic and other patrons to enter through a separate part of the building from the studio as that has been a minor issue for some people seeking more traditional ministry services such as counseling and healing.

The chief did not seem to find anything of interest in the parsonage portion of the building and he and Dr. Lowrey returned to the studio area where the other officers were mostly standing around, except for the one blond female officer who was still sitting on the couch looking at tattoo books.

Doc was asked about the drawers under the jewelry display case and the piercing jewelry catalogs on top of it. Doc opened each drawer, once each for Chief Call and Lt. Falslev to look for photos or books with photos. The drawers only contained jewelry and other supplies, a few outdated jewelry catalogs and the cash drawer.

Now the whole building had been searched and nothing had turned up except the portfolios that had been produced in the beginning of the raid.

The blond girl officer now started asking to have art, drawings and paintings taken off the walls in the artist’s private stations to add to her growing pile of material being seized.

Kita was emotionally overwhelmed as one of her original religious paintings was branded obscene and taken down and turned over to the police.

The officers now had decided to seize all of the artist’s personal portfolios as well as most of the “idea books” that patrons browse while considering what tattoo they desire.

They also decided to seize any art of any kind that depicted any minor degree of nudity as well as quantities of art that had no nudity at all.

Kita saw these seizures as crippling to the studio and couldn’t help but ask the officers why they were doing this to us.

Lt. Falselv and Chief Call were happy to answer her.

Lt. Falslev began telling us as though it was a proven fact, that we had provided pornographic materials to minors and our protests that none of our materials were pornographic just seemed to increase his counter protests that they were and his insistence that they had been “shown” by our staff to minors just the week previous.

Doc said something about how minors are not shown the book clearly marked adult, and that minors never want to look at it anyway as they seem to consistently consider adult piercings gross and icky.

Falslev voiced his contrary opinion adding that it was our responsibility to make sure no minors entered the studio unattended.

We countered that we had posted on both glass front doors our policy that minors must be accompanied by a parent or legal guardian but that we were often unable to discern who was a minor and who was not, identification not being required until services were contracted.

Both Chief Call and Lt. Falslev then began a lecture telling us that it was “against the law” for us to allow minors in the studio and that we were violating the law on a regular basis by doing so.

They both seemed to feel that we should be able to tell how old each person was and demanded that we permanently position someone by the front door to check the identification of every person as they attempted to enter.

I said that would be a bizarre way to operate a church and again said that it was our own policy and not the law that made prohibitions on minor’s access to browse in the studio and that I couldn’t see us sitting someone at the door like that.

I also told the officers that we were not required to check the identification of browsers, only of people who were contracting services and that it would be unreasonable to do so or to ask us to especially since it was their opinion and not the law that would require it of us.

When I voiced my complaint of the disrespect we get from the community and local government here and how the parents pass the idea to their children that our rights and policies are not worthy of the respect they demand for their own, Chief Call snidely and contemptuously said, “If you aren’t happy about the disrespect you get from the government and community, why do you live in Utah?”

I told Chief Call, though he never did introduce himself and it wasn’t till days later that I found out that the tall, rude cop was actually the Chief who never returns phone calls, that it was none of his business why I live in Utah, that I had as much right to live there and practice my religion and art and live unmolested, enjoying my civil and religious rights as anyone else.

During the raid, we were told a couple more times by Lt. Falslev and Chief Call that we should a) move out of Utah, or b) go back to Detroit.

Then we got another lecture about how if we were smart, we would prohibit minors completely and not offer services even with parental consent, a suggestion we often get from other people who own tattoo studios and find dealing with minors more bother than it’s worth.

I replied that services to minors was a miniscule portion of our activity.

We generally serve one or two minors per month and that it would make life much easier for us if we did just as the officers and others recommended, especially as, not all, but certainly most of the minors here in Utah seem to be much more rude and disrespectful than we have ever encountered anywhere before.

However, we have always felt, in spite of how annoying too many minors seem to be, that it was a public service that we perform for the benefit primarily of the parents, that if their child is set on getting a piercing that there is a clean, friendly studio practicing professional standards that cared about the health and relationships of children and families that would be there to provide those services rather than just having kids out behind the school gym piercing one another as so often happens.

Were it not for our feelings of responsibility to local parents, being parents of six children (5 of them girls) ourselves, we would not have anything to do with minors in the studio who are interested in tattoo or piercing services.

Of course there are other ministry services that minors are as much candidates for as adults and for which there are no legal prohibitions and for those church services, it would be likely that minors would have access to the studio anyway.

The two cops (Falslev and Call) then instructed us that we had to make sure minors did not come in the studio unaccompanied and that it was our legal responsibility to ensure they did not or we would be held legally liable, suggesting that we add to our no minors sign another sign (I despise signs) that threatened minors with prosecution should they disregard the other signs we had up.

They told us that if we put up a sign, as we did temporarily, that said “Violators Will Be Prosecuted”, that then the police would have something they could enforce and that they would charge minors if they had been warned that prosecution was the penalty for disrespect.

My protests about my unwillingness to threaten children were treated contemptuously at best and we were told that we had to comply or face prosecution ourselves.

After several more instructions on how we should lay out the studio, placing the piercing station as far back in the building as possible, etc. and how we should conduct our policies and allegations that our staff do not follow our policies when we are out of town, the police rounded up the pile of books and art they had collected, gave us a receipt and left, first telling us that the city and county attorneys would be looking at the materials in order to decide what charges they would prefer against us and that everything not needed would be returned, giving us the impression that we would see our art back in just a day or two.

Kita was so shaken that she asked the client who had sat waiting through the entire raid, that she was not really up to doing her best art, and could the girl come back in an hour or the next day to receive her face tattoo, but the client felt she had driven too far to come back later and wanted her service right then – so Kita complied, and did a great job in spite of her stress.

I locked the door and made a closed today sign to stick up and watched through the day as 8 prospective clients came, read the sign and drove away.

I looked at the Utah Attorney General’s website about pornography and found that according to the website, nothing in our studio, even the pictures of male and female genitals qualified as prohibited material and that they would be considered educational in nature “having value” to children and no different than looking at a sociological text or a copy of National Geographic – and perfectly legal.

The AG’s website also reminded me that the studio was a place that minors legally had a right to be and this really made my new “violators will be prosecuted” sign weigh on my mind.

On reflection we considered that our religious and civil rights had been violated, especially as the AG outlines how in the case of selling XXX films to minors which is certainly far beyond anything we were doing, the State would contact the seller, investigate to ascertain if any laws were in fact being violated and then give the store 30 days to come up to standards, that failing, then charging them with a misdemeanor violation.

In American Fork of course we were not given the courtesy of an informal investigation and assessment and negotiation, the police here prefer the sneak attack, based soley on the presumed word of one 14 year old girl, her information passed to the police through her angry father who didn’t really care about her disrespect and disregard for his rules and ours as much as he cared about kicking us out of town.

I called and left a message with the Utah ACLU and heard back later in the evening from the director who after about 20 minutes discussion agreed that we had a likely enough case for her to discuss it with one of her staff lawyers, which she would do and then get back to me.

Soon to come….part 3 (later today or tomorrow)

Utah County Attorney Jeffrey R. Buhman 801-851-8026

American Fork City Attorney Tucker Hansen 801-224-2273

American Fork City 801-763-3000

American Fork Police Administration 801-763-3020

Chief Lance Call – Lt. Darrin Falslev

The Happy Valley Tattoo Massacre’

Rev. Dr. Gregory Lowrey

Healer, Counselor – CEO

Whole Life Ministries

It was a spring afternoon, April 2007.

A young, estranged mother travels from Missouri to visit her daughter in Utah.

The daughter lives with her father.

The Daughter hangs out with the “misfit” crowd. Geeks and weirdos, abused and abusing – some too tall and skinny, some short and fat, some too smart, some too dumb – all dark and depressed and sliding downhill in social normalcy.

Now she needs a badge of courage, honor and nonconformity.

Soon.

Bold, free – cool.

But in spite of her coolness and 14 year old maturity, she is still just an angry, confused teenage girl.

And a rebel.

And a bit of a snot!

The 14 year old asks mother for a piercing.

She wants a piercing her friends uptight parents won’t let them get – a ring through her lip.

In the non-Utah world it is a half-snake bite. A ring on each side makes a snake bite.

Mother understands why a 14 year old girl in Utah without her mother feels like she needs a fang-bite, fang-bit symbol, not slipped so easily on and off your finger like a CTR ring, but pierced with a 14 gauge needle right through your mouth and cold steel jewelry installed with hard steel pliers.

Mother gathers driver’s license and birth certificate together and drives her 14 year old to a professional piercer for some good mother – daughter bonding.

Voted #1 year after year in the Provo Daily Herald’s “People’s Choice Awards” and nestled in the curve on State Rd. in American Fork, Utah sits Happy Valley Tattoo & Piercing.

Happy Valley is owned and operated by world famous husband and wife artists Doc Loco and Kita Kazoo.

Happy Valley Tattoo is in a church.

This is a different kind of tattoo studio!

Happy Valley Tattoo & Piercing performs as two of many community services, tattoo and body piercing, both of which the owners and artists consider a deeply spiritual practice – even if sometimes it takes a client awhile, perhaps years, to realize the spiritual nature of their personal act of self expression, the spirituality of the act and the effect it has on wearer and viewer is undiminished.

Happy Valley Tattoo is the name of one of the service departments and schools of Whole Life Ministries.

Artist and Reverend Dr. Gregory Lowrey and his famous artist wife, Kita Kazoo are the ministers who provide spiritual services, including tattooing and piercing along with their healing, counseling, painting, music and authoring services.

They also conduct a church art school accepting only the most promising, ethically minded and dedicated young artists – many living on the fringe of acceptance in repressive Utah, to be apprentices and learn to support themselves and their families by learning and practicing professional standards in art, tattoo, piercing, health, business and community relations through the practice of personal service, dedication to purpose, personal integrity and constant practice of the golden rule.

Their clean, modern studio reflects the cutting edge of an industry that the Lowrey’s have been practicing as ministers and artists for almost 20 years and is home to 6 artists who occupy the five modern art work stations.

Only Doc Loco has no place to call his own.

His world is his laptop and his cell phone – making an office where ever he is needed.

Docs 20,000 tattoos and thousands of piercing services have been completed, his 6 children raised and his work is now full time in the other services, healing, counseling, writing and performing transformative music for the ministry as well as a few love songs for Kita Kazoo.

But this isn’t so much about Dr. Lowrey (aka doc loco) or Kita Kazoo – not today anyway.

It is about a wonderful piercing apprentice, devoted wife and mother, accomplished belly dancer (a real fun and talented person) and assistant manager and one of Doc’s great students and wonderful people – Shandi Child, a Utah Native, now living in Utah County.

Shandi graduated with a Medical Assistant degree and worked in a midwifery clinic. She found the work satisfying in many regards, but the business practices to be stifling.

Shandi had a strange dream of a career in body piercing.

Unusual for a good Mormon girl in Utah.

Doc Loco was looking for a Registered Nurse to train to work as a part time piercing apprentice.

After a year of searching no RN’s were applying.

A client of Kita’s knew just the perfect and wonderful person – bright, honest, delightful personality, high sense of ethics and a real desire to be in just that business – Shandi.

Shandi proved to be all her friend had promised and was soon on her way to becoming a professional body modification specialist – a body piercer.

For several months she spent three or more days every week in the evenings after work at the studio, (20 hours a week was mandatory – extra was recommended) watching Doc perform eyebrow piercings, naval piercings, lip and cheek, tongue and nose, finger, nipple and genital piercings – hundreds of piercings of all kinds and for every kind of people at the studio in the old Pleasant Grove City Jail.

The people we were piercing were very nice mostly.

About 95% LDS; about half active – all taking the plunge into representing themselves by an act of self-actualization, an act of freedom and an exercise in faith and trust in the high quality, precision technique and the personal concern for a job done right that is the hallmark of Happy Valley Tattoo and their students.

Shandi’s husband Paul, now a tattoo apprentice Intern at Happy Valley and other friends and relatives stepped up to be Shandi’s piercing models, to let her learn, practice and hone her new skills in their flesh.

Soon Shandi was ready for her Internship and quickly was moved into additional training for a position of Assistant Manager, helping Doc run the business.

Piercer Managers are better, according to Doc, because their services take just a few minutes which makes them more available, more often, to the public and staff than tattoo artists, who often are stuck in a service for an hour or more at a time and must devote time between clients to drawing art for services.

Shandi is a prize.

Every student at Happy Valley Tattoo & Piercing is a special prize, says Doc.

They are all very special and wonderful, honest and good people and artists.

The best of Utah.

Shandi is a graduate piercer.

She is a great piercer, a dedicated staff member, team player and friend.

Any company would be thrilled to have her on their staff.

Shandi was afraid of management.

Doc said it would stretch her.

Shandi was afraid, but could see the wisdom in overcoming her fears and learning to be affirmative and confident.

Shandi is on her way to becoming a 4^th generation Master Piercer and has learned to run many of the operational phases of business – the dreaded book keeping training is taught a small bite at a time, over a long period of time, but the service portion is already top notch and customer service skills are dearly bought but worth every sleepless, stress filled night as people are often on their worst behavior when they make their first visit to a tattoo studio.

This particular April, in 2007, (remember the lip piercing part of the story?), Doc and Kita are in Detroit, Michigan not due back in Utah till June 07 and Shandi is on duty as Assistant Manager and Body Piercer.

In the door walks, mother and daughter.

Identification is produced and photocopied, jewelry is selected, money is paid, paperwork is completed and after care instructions are given.

The piercing begins.

A new Utah law requires mom to watch.

Parents enjoy watching tattoos on their children, but they don’t like to watch piercings.

In Utah county, minors can’t get tattoos, so at Happy Valley, parents only come in for piercings and a lip piercing was being done today.

Perhaps it was a late 14^th birthday present.

Doc has provided photographic portfolios of his piercing work, a chronicle of 20 years, poking holes and jewelry through people of every age and interest.

These books he tells clients, are very important to reassure prospective clients of the technical precision and aesthetic concern employed in piercing by him or under his direction and training and also to show that it didn’t hurt so bad that they couldn’t take the time to take a picture.

Smiling faces of very normal, nice looking neighbors beam from nearly every page along with a clinical close up of of a perfectly placed piercing.

It is a privilege of the practice of the golden rule to help your neighbor, and viewing a picture of your piercing and a your happy, friendly smile helps calm a lot of nerves in many people who want the piercing, but fear the procedure.

The Mother and daughter in question peruse the piercing portfolios.

The daughter’s supposed familiarity with some of the pictures of genital piercings in the artist piercing portfolio suggest that mom wasn’t too concerned when her daughter ignored the warning “ADULT” in big red letters on the “adult’ piercing album.

Page after page of clinical photographs of pierced nipples and genitals – both male and female – apparently were an eye-opener for the girl.

Doesn’t she have the internet?

Or a sociology textbook?

Anyway, apparently, mom thought it was fine.

Dad apparently, does not approve.

This difference in perspective is probably why they no longer live together.

Mom is about to piss off dad, and guess who is going to get tagged to pay for it.

If you said the tattoo studio, you win a nickel!

Well, the daughter gets her lip piercing.

It’s perfect – she is now officially cool.

So is mom.

So is Shandi.

Months go by; May, June – Doc and Kita come back for the summer to see a granddaughter born at the American Fork Hospital and to attend to students and business concerns for the ministry. Dr. and Mrs. Lowrey are back for June, July and August and then head back to Michigan where more students and a search for a building for a new ministry office and art studio are waiting.

September, October…

It’s been six months since the girl got her piercing.

She has bragged to her friends about her cool, mature, radical and rebellious experience.

Perhaps she wishes she could live with her mom, a normal issue for girls at 14 who are separated from their mothers – her dad is square.

The “new” mom, if there is one, isn’t her mom.

It is not difficult to imagine that over the months she has also bragged about the pictures of male and female genitals she likely saw in the piercing portfolio.

Friends are impressed – girl’s status is elevated.

One day around Halloween 2007 the girl and several teen friends drop in the studio.

The police can’t say if it was 2 girls in the days following christmas or 6 kids, three boys, three girls, or maybe just 4 kids, some of them girls who came into the studio sometime in November or December…um…just can’t tie down the month…(is this sounding dumb enough yet?)

There are two signs on the doors that proclaim “minors must be accompanied by parent or legal guardian”.

She and her pals are just too cool for signs and too mature for some dopy studio policy.

She is just too cool for her life.

The girl is happy to see her piercer at work – Shandi.

She wants Shandi to pierce the other side of her mouth – to complete her snake bite.

Mom is gone home to Missouri and Dad won’t consent, so she wants Shandi to just do the piercing based on her mother’s previous consent.

She doesn’t accept Shandi’s recital of studio policy, state and county law that require a parent or legal guardian each and every time for services to minors.

The girl throws a fit.

A brilliant 14 year old idea forms.

If Shandi would come to Albertsons Grocery store, a mere block and a half away, she could pierce the girl in the Albertsons Bathroom and no one would know.

Shandi declined.

Now the kids tell Shandi they want her to sell them a piercing needle and some jewelry so they can do the piercing themselves at home.

Shandi declines, again it is against studio policy to sell supplies to the public regardless of age or occupation.

We only supply our own artists.

The girl and her friends threw a tantrum and were asked to leave.

These are the only “group” of minors that the staff can recall coming in the studio all fall.

They did not look at piercing portfolios at all but rather were hanging out at the jewelry case trying to get Shandi to give a piercing in violation of the law and studio policy, which she refused to do.

I call that kind of kid a “snot nosed kid”.

Probably the child of a snot nosed adult!

November and December pass.

The slow season is so slow it puts meat in Doc’s claim that in Utah the tattoo business has two seasons – slow….and slower.

On average, only one or two people come in the studio per hour.

No one is buying services, just looking for the cheapest price.

Every prospect leaves without spending money.

All the artists are broke.

They are good artists, and great people – the best; but artists struggle harder somehow than regular people to learn about money and it’s mysteries.

These artists are learning that payment comes from personal service and high quality.

Unfortunately broke artists have a hard time thinking and resolving about these kind of issues.

They worry about rent and groceries.

Artist depression can be extra sad and unproductive.

Doc and Kita are supposed to be back in town in mid-February but business is so unnaturally slow that they feel they must get back to Utah, even two months early, or they won’t even have a business to come back to come February.

The much needed rest – filled with 18 hour days, training students and dealing with government work, writing and counseling, hunting for buildings and then the Utah studio not making enough to sustain itself made full time work and not much rest for Doc and Kita while in Michigan through the fall – September – mid December.

Now, after almost three weeks back in Utah, which felt like three days – there was so much to do, they finally settled back in enough to resume services and remodeling left uncompleted way last March.

But on January 3^rd, on a Thursday when Doc and Kita were working alone – the Raid happened!

The Happy Valley Tattoo Massacre’ had begun.

Over the Christmas holiday friends on school break meet together often and perhaps news of the friends visit to the tattoo studio months before leaked out.

The girl’s father was not happy.

Father heard or was told about all the naked body parts the girl had seen in the photo book.

What a way to divert hostility from yourself for violating your fathers rules (I’m presuming he made a rule that prohibited visits to the tattoo studio) switching it neatly to the sweet and unsuspecting tattoo people – and of course, it would serve them right for not breaking the law for her by giving her prohibited services or selling her supplies back in October – and making her look stupid and much less cool in front of her friends!

To make a better story and to cover their anger over Shandi’s refusal to perform the illegal piercing, the teens decided it was payback time.

The girl had enjoyed months and months of bragging to her friends about her first experience and the cool adult pictures she got to see with her mom while they were browsing for her piercing.

All the friends now enjoyed a second hand familiarity with those books also.

It is easy to tell the cops that it is a first hand familiarity though.

Of course these kind of piercings are also available to be viewed on hundreds of websites devoted to body piercing where the only requirement for genital piercing galleries is that the model be over 18 and have signed a model release.

There is no age control for viewing such websites and the traffic is tremendous.

If teens want to look at genital piercings they don’t need to bother themselves to sneak down to the tattoo studio.

Nevertheless, Dad made the call, voiced his complaint.

That dirty, evil place is a corrupter of children, a desecrater of the holy temples of their young bodies.

They already hate church!

You police have to close them down.

What am I paying taxes for anyway, so you can pick your noses and play canasta at the courthouse?

While I am trying to figure the answer to that question you can ponder this real life cartoon as the member mafia, redneck cops (but they’ve watched COPS, so it’s ok) prepare to burst into the frame.

Thanks to anyone who has called any of the numbers I left on past posts. I have to find an attorney for Shandi and us too I guess, tomorrow somehow, especially since Shandi has been threatened with a year in prison over this teenage, bad marriage bullshit from which she is emerging as the prime victim.

While you wait for the rest of this story and the great back-story demonstrating more fascist dumb cop behavior and even more of the ongoing persecution of the victim by this local Hatfield and McCoy government, just realize that the American Fork Police, Chief Lance Call and his Head of Detectives, Lt. Darrin Falslev are involved in a continuing harassment and psycho-cop intimidation (likely learned in a weekend seminar) primarily targeting a sweet and defenseless and wonderful young woman.

Instead of telling this complaining father that his kid doesn’t respect him, his religion or anyone else and that he should look to himself for the source of his problems and not scapegoat the tattoo studio or the wonderful young wife, mother and artist that works there, they are victimizing a wonderful young family and the church that is helping them realize their life goals and develop their god given talents in a positive, pro community manner.

Interestingly, at first, I was identified as the man who was in the studio when the kids supposedly looked at the “pictures” but since I was 1,000 miles away at the time, the police are “letting me off the hook” and claiming that the old, white haired guy was really the 22 year old husband of the girl body piercer.

This young couple is being emotionally raped by the American Fork Police just so they can say to the complaining father and to the community that they eliminated the problem – by eliminating the person.

What a creepy way to run a city.

American Fork, be ashamed.

Be very ashamed.

I am protesting this abuse of this poor girl to everyone I can.

I am looking for an attorney.

I need a free one.

You are free to protest too.

It is still the land of the free and the home of the brave if you stand up and make it that way.

That’s what I’m doing.

I’m going to wear myself out preserving your freedoms.

Are you?

History of our Ministry part 1

History of Our Ministry

 

Before I begin this summary, I would like to address a few issues that I am sure will arise in reader’s minds regarding our ministry and our history of offering tattoo and piercing services to the community as a spiritual service.

 

Whole Life Ministries has evolved over the years since establishing a formal ministry, beginning as People For Peace in Detroit, Michigan in the mid-1980’s.

 

While serving in the United States Navy (1971-1973) during the Vietnam Conflict for which I was a volunteer, I experienced a religious awakening. This awakening was accompanied by extreme personal trauma as I discovered the lack of substance and moral mission in my life.

 

I had attended the Mormon church since my mother’s conversion when I was five years old and while I did absorb a lot more than I realized, I had not been formally indoctrinated into religion.

 

My father was extremely patriotic and though agnostic still had a very strong commitment to Christian service and personal honesty and moral behavior, though he saw himself as a more moral mix of Frank Sinatra and Hugh Hefner. (so I had great music to listen to and everyone’s favorite magazine to read)

In spite of his semi-racy outlook, Dad was not a “swinger” and was extremely devoted to his wife and family and his commitment to fidelity.

I don’t know if it’s his fault that I like the way girls look, but I’m not complaining.

 

In spite of my “hippie” allegiance during the 60’s, I remained active in the Boy Scouts, being the first boy in 30 years to earn his Eagle Scout Badge in the Mormon Detroit Ward Boy Scout Troop 335, where later as an adult I also served as Scoutmaster and President of the Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Association (YMMIA), Church Librarian and Adult Sunday School Teacher.

 

As I had no guidance in my sudden quest to discover my purpose in life, it was fairly tumultuous and perhaps a bit strange.

I had experienced the new evangelical “Jesus Freak” movement as a teenager and while I didn’t join in, I did attend many meetings with friends who were temporarily converted to that version of Christianity and was exposed to and even regularly carried and studied a pocket edition of the four Gospels.

 

My other relatives were Methodists, Southern Baptists and Corner Church attendees and 13 years of holiday arguments over religion (and how my family was going to hell) as all my relatives (on my Mom’s side) gathered at her parents for two weeks at a time twice a year, and that, coupled with my meager understanding of Mormonism formed my basic understanding of religion at that time.

 

As is often the case, when searching for meaning in life, I found myself sunk to the depths of despair, surely exacerbated by waking each day in the Navy with a great hangover.

 

I went to live in a cabin high in the mountains of British Columbia where I studied “hippie” Buddhism, Nostradamus, Mother Shipton and the Urantia Book while contemplating what locals took to be UFO’s which I could observe as huge round orange lights landing in droves behind the next mountain peak from my cabin.

 

None of these studies satisfied my quest for guidance and meaning in my life and as I had already given up on the Christianity I was familiar with, I went back to the Navy.

 

I was assigned to work for the Mormon Chaplain at the recruit training center north of Chicago and while there, he encouraged me to read, for the first time, the Book of Mormon.

 

I had a very strong spiritual experience on completion of the BoM and made the attribution from that “burning in the bosom” that I had been taught to apply both by my mother and the book’s own “promise” which is that it was a “witness” that the BoM and by extrapolation the “Church” was true.

 

I became a TBM (True Believing Mormon) and was very surprised when in spite of my past irreligious lifestyle I was “called to serve” as a full time missionary for the LDS/Mormon Church in Las Vegas, Nevada where I was very successful, breaking all mission records for teaching, baptizing and dinner appointments. (sorry about that)

 

It was during that LDS mission that I first encountered the insincerity and deceitfulness in LDS leaders that would trouble me, as a Mormon, for many years, driving me into a vicious cycle of inactivity and reactivation.

 

Eventually, I was “led” to live in Utah and found the home I had purchased put me in the same church congregation as many church leaders, including Ezra T. Benson who was then the President of the LDS Church.

 

I served in the ward Elder’s Presidency and my wife and I attended the Salt Lake City Temple every morning for the 5:30 am temple session where I was a permanent “veil worker” and in two weekly temple “sealing groups”.

 

I had many experiences of a profoundly spiritual nature as a Mormon including an intimate and unusual experience in the Salt Lake Temple involving every General Authority of the Church and culminating with a short personal visit with President Benson where he chose to give me an impromptu blessing.

 

I was very surprised when portions of this experience brought me to a certainty that the exclusive authority to speak for God did not exist in the LDS church.

Because of the overwhelming nature of my “witness” of the BoM, it had not yet occurred to me that authority to interpose between God and man was not a true principle and was actually contrary to the teachings and mission of Jesus.

By this of course I mean the actual self-stated mission of Jesus, not the abuse of his history or the mangling of his teachings from those who use religion to subject rather than serve their neighbor.

 

I was again brought to the depths of despair as years of study and activity seemed now for nothing and my surety about my spiritual path seemed suddenly and disastrously compromised; I was unwilling to consider that the “priesthood” or ultimate authority to act for God could be gone from earth – which was the only prospect my LDS education sustained.

 

As I was dealing with the fallout from my new perspective, I was again spiritually “led” to Mormon Fundamentalism where my quest to find the “authority of God on earth” was re-ignited as I spent the next 14 years as an active member in both the LDS Church and the AUB (the polygamous fundamentalist group Apostolic United Brethren).

 

The AUB taught at the time that the LDS church was still accepted by God by virtue of the “lesser” priesthood (The AUB being the only repository of the “higher” Priesthood) and that LDS Church members should continue to attend LDS services (though few do) until they were excommunicated.

So with my family, I attended both sets of meetings, paid tithing to both groups, was re-baptized, re-ordained and sealed in the AUB “temple” to my wife and six children and and served in the Elder’s quorem in the LDS Church and taught the AUB adult Sunday School class where my students included the “prophet” Owen Allred and his “apostles”.

 

The AUB was also quite overwhelming and disturbing. Still, I felt I had been led there by God and so I tried to seek the spirit of God and appreciated some few really sincere, wonderful and spiritually inclined people, even though “the group” generally speaking was a cesspool of evil and political chicanery.

 

As Utah prepared for the 2002 Winter Olympics, the LDS church attempted to clear their membership of all persons who the media might interview who might cast an undesirable light on the image the church was promoting.

 

When my LDS bishop inquired as to who I would follow, Jesus or Church President Gordon Hinkley in event of disagreement in teachings between the two, I did not hesitate to tell him that I would always choose to follow Jesus – for which choice I was summarily excommunicated – my wife being excommunicated along with me just for being married to me.

 

Soon after, I began to see that my AUB “prophet” and his “apostles” were also deceitful and immoral in ways that my LDS beliefs required me to consider that they also did not wield the “Authority of Heaven”.

I eventually found my personal quest to find “God’s authority” in man had finally been satisfied as I concluded it immoral to place any human between oneself and one’s God.

 

It is very humbling to find after years and years of intensive study and church/spiritual activity that you have been a dupe, but that was my ultimate realization – Joseph Smith, who I had adored and modeled for nearly 30 years and the exclusive “authority” he claimed were both a grand fraud.

Talk about a humbling realization!

From early in my days in Mormonism my personal studies of Jesus and his teachings and the conclusions I drew from them put me at odds with the other LDS.

I couldn’t understand how anyone could not want to study, study, study the teachings of Jesus and Joseph and was surprised to find my LDS contemporaries so ignorant about their own history and system of belief.

It was a regular though I considered it bizarre experience when other church members would have such overwhelmingly positive and enthusiastic experiences when I brought up the simple teachings of Jesus in church classes. It was as if they had never read the Bible at all!

I also ran into doctrinal conflicts, which I felt generally were due to other people’s ignorance more than a real division between Jesus and “the Church”.

Bit by bit, I began to find that there was a real schism between the real LDS church doctrine and the portrayed LDS church beliefs.

One of the areas where I divided early on with the LDS church was on the concept of service.

 

The church encourages people to give money to the Bishop and let the church do the charity work, inviting members to participate by formal invitation while teaching them to fear their neighbors and actively discouraging individual charity services.

 

My studies of Jesus had led me to the conclusion that while I should fully support the church’s charity program, I should more importantly take opportunities to serve my neighbors personally and to perform personal acts of charity without having to be directed by man.

As a young man my father taught me to volunteer and not to hesitate to dig in and get dirty when help was needed.

 

This concept of personal service, individual responsibility, the Law of Reciprocity and the Golden Rule is what led to the formation of People For Peace (Detroit) and Whole Life Ministries (Utah) and Big City Ministries (elsewhere).

 

At first I was trying to help establish physical peace and while the Government was passing laws demanding peace and placing firepower worldwide to enforce it I found myself of just the opposite posture.

 

You cannot make a law and say, “Ok – there is peace now – if you don’t practice peace, we will annihilate you!” but that is just what Ronald Reagan and George Shultz were attempting to do.

 

I prepared a plan to end the cold war, which President Reagan refused twice before I sent it along to then USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev who apparently liked my plan as he executed it just a few months later and the cold war was ended.

 

I expected that my ministry would take some form of national or international service but found instead that I was mostly a lone and unknown man just being a good neighbor, husband and father and continuing to study the practice of the “golden rule”.

 

I worked many sales jobs to support my family and ministry and performed healing services in my off work hours for patients who were referred to me.

 

During our first time living in Utah at the time that I found all my formal religion to have failed me, I suffered a traumatic emotional breakdown and was unable to work for a long period.

 

It was then that neighbors convinced my wife, a wonderful artist, to tattoo them and I eventually followed in the study of tattooing though I expected it to never be more than a hobby for me.

I expected healing and writing and performing social and spiritually reforming music to be my primary activities.

 

We couldn’t afford to keep our home and moved to Yuma, Arizona where I figured that no matter how bad our money situation got, our family would not freeze and could find plenty of my favorite foods, oranges and dates, regardless of our lack of income.

 

When we got to Yuma, we set up a tattoo studio at home but before the week was out my wife was invited to apprentice with acclaimed master tattoo artist Dan Brown, who had been trained by world renowned tattoo artist Lyle Tuttle.

After a few months Dan less formally took me under his wing and after a year invited me to tattoo at his studio, which invitation I declined, preferring to open my own private studio in my home.

 

While I was learning but not practicing tattooing I worked the “front end” for my wife Kita while she practically served as the lone tattooist for 30,000 Marines from the Yuma Marine Air Station, I had plenty of opportunity to study the history of body art from Dan’s tattoo library.

 

At first tattooing to me seemed not much more than a harmless diversion, just as many people first see it today, but as I became more intimate with the history of the art and the clients in the studio I became aware that tattooing and piercing, branding etc. were all very ancient and spiritual practices utilized by every culture in all times from every part of the earth.

I began to see that my own tattoos were of a spiritual and self-affirming character and that they had been from the beginning though I had not at first realized it, and that all body arts were spiritual in nature whether the wearer or the giver had realized it yet or not.

 

In 1992 Kita and I opened our own tattoo studio in the Metro Detroit area – Royal Oak Tattoo.

 

My involvement was supposed to be temporary, but our training and belief in old fashioned values and the practice of the Golden Rule coupled with Kita’s artistry quickly put our studio in great demand.

Within 6 months of opening Royal Oak Tattoo, my plan for a separate ministry and healing office were forced to change as we found ourselves operating a bustling five artist studio and I was back to seeing patients at home after work which continued until 1997 when my AUB “prophet” requested we move back to Utah.

An unembodied voice speaking to me in the celestial room of the Toronto Temple simply said “Move to Lehi.”, thus confirming in my mind the order of the man I at the time considered God’s one and only official spokesman and so in August of 1998 we went off again to Utah, selling our Michigan studio, Royal Oak Tattoo, to our last apprentice there – “Big Ed” DeLoney. Visit Ed at www.royaloaktattoo.com

 

The LDS church had not yet come against tattooing or piercing and as I taught priesthood lessons in the Troy, Michigan Ward in 1997-1998, I often passed around interesting photos of my tattoo work during the lesson.

Royal Oak Tattoo had by then become a service division of our ministry, where we also held weekly non-denominational bible study groups and I performed healing services and Kita and I discovered that we very often were engaged as impromptu spiritual counselors as soon as the tattoo needles penetrated flesh.

Our monthly trips to the LDS Toronto, Canada Temple where I continued to serve as a veil worker were not a problem for those who found a tattooed and pierced hand reaching through the veil to test their knowledge of ritual as I represented God in the temple drama.

 

When we got back to Utah though, while the AUB President/Prophet Owen Allred defended us and our tattooing – and he endured quite a lot of harassment over supporting us in that way, many members of the local LDS ward in Lehi, where we lived, seemed to be too bothered by it and our bishop in Lehi didn’t stick up for us publicly, so, not wanting to offend our neighbors and to make life a bit easier for Owen, we didn’t tattoo and instead opened a full time healing clinic, Kita running a discount health product supply for my patients.

Our clinic quickly became a full time charity service and I was performing healing and counseling services 45 – 60 hours per week.

As most of my patients seek me out after they have already seen every other kind of doctor without finding relief, they most often had been unable to work or earn an income for some time prior to seeing me, so most of my patients were not in a position to donate to our work.

 

We kept expecting that our services would provide for our livelihood as well as expand the ministry, but when money from the sale of our Michigan studio ran out after three years of subsidizing our Utah venture, we felt we had no other option but to engage some of the other talents God had given us, even if our neighbors disapproved, and Kita and I opened Happy Valley Tattoo and Piercing in Orem, Utah.

I also had gotten an opportunity to attend Utah Valley State College (now UVU) in Orem to formally study the research behind the lay counseling services I had been providing through common sense and the guidance of “the spirit” and the Golden Rule since the mid 1970’s.

 

We found that even though we built out a separate office in the studio for patients, few wanted to receive their charity services in a tattoo studio (which really kind of annoyed me) and gradually, tattoo and piercing services took over as our primary services to the public while healing and counseling took their old place “back at home” after studio hours.

 

We also began taking in promising young artists who appeared to share our ethical values, or wanted to, training them in the arts of tattoo and piercing and teaching them how to survive in the business world.

Artists who vary from Nature or LDS art most often receive little respect (more shunning than anything else really) in Utah and we have been very happy to be able to offer training in life skills most artists never learn – which dooms most to a life of poverty working non art jobs and changing jobs often and to help them gain self-respect and see their talents as much a valuable gift from God as any other.

We teach that not all flowers in God’s garden are meant to be roses and that each of God’s creations has at least as much beauty as any other for those who will avail themselves of it.  (people included – though in “haters” the beauty is often buried pretty deep)

 

In spite of being voted Best Tattoo Studio year after year in the local People’s Choice Awards, we found it necessary to move several times over the ensuing years to find accommodations we could afford which eventually brought us to American Fork, Utah March 1^st, 2007.

 

As four of our six children, now ready to have families of their own decided to move back to Metro Detroit, we decided to also take students there and open a ministry office, clinic and studio in Michigan that would allow us to spend regular time with our children and grandchildren as well as to enjoy the higher demand for services that would subsidize and thus ease some of the financial precariousness of our Utah ministry.

Michigan also seemed a much more fertile field for teaching the golden rule and the neighborliness that we feel is so important to redeeming our broken neighborhoods in America, though we still have many wonderful people in Utah who value our support for their fight against oppression and their claim on personal and spiritual freedom.

 

Traveling back and forth approximately every three months or so from Michigan to Utah this last year and a half has been very difficult and has been compounded by problems we began to experience in American Fork almost immediately after we arrived back in Michigan in the spring of 2007.

To be continued…

Utah Police Violate Church Pt. 2

Rev. Dr. Gregory Lowrey

 

Healer, Counselor, CEO

 

In Part 2 of this report, I will try to summarize Part 1 and include a summary history of the efforts of American Fork City to harass Whole Life Ministries since we moved to American Fork, Utah in March 2007.

 

Since writing part 1, I have been in contact with several private and government agencies regarding this matter and have found support at the County, State and Federal levels of Government while locally; American Fork Government is typically giving me the cold shoulder.

 

I have been gratified to receive very positive assistance already from members of the community and have been offered assistance from Utah’s Southern Baptist Convention, Utah American Civil Liberties Union, Utah Attorney General and the Utah Department of Public Safety POST (Utah Peace Officer Standards And Training).

The Utah Attorney General’s Office has recommended I file a complaint with the FBI for Civil Rights Violation and the Utah County Attorney, Jeff Buhman spoke at length with me recommending I phone Police Chief Lance Call and demand the return of our improperly seized property.

Mr. Buhman insists that he had no knowledge of the alleged complaint or ensuing raid and that Lt. Falslev was in error (lied) when he told us that our property would be taken to both the County and then the City Attorney’s to view expressly to help them decide whether or not to press charges against us.

I phoned Chief Call, but he and Lt. Falslev (head of the Detective Division) who was the officer who led the raid on our studio had both taken Friday off and I was told they would not be back in the station till Monday.

The last time I phoned Chief Call – which was about the misconduct of one of his officers in responding to an assault at our church, he never called back but two weeks later he had the Lt. in charge of the patrol division call me in his stead.

I was quite impressed with Lt. Liddiard during our conversation, but I was also very disturbed by Chief Call’s lack of interest or follow up and as with my other experiences with the American Fork Police, the reports Lt. Liddiard promised to send to me in Michigan never arrived.

Anyway, Monday I will try again and will demand our property be returned, and I will continue with my other new errands, making complaints to the FBI and POST and others.

I am so fed up with American Fork City’s nasty attempts to intimidate us with threats of prosecution when we have broken no laws and their harassment and snide behavior.

I know that there are “citizens” also who are going out of their way to make life difficult for us and we have had to deal with our patrons being harassed by our neighbor’s landlord – who is not even on site, but comes down to threaten everyone – ever since we moved in.

The portion of this posting titled the History of our Ministry has been moved here: http://docloco.com/2008/01/05/history-of-our-ministry-part-1/

It can also be found under the title “History of our Ministry part 1″ in the Happy Valley Tattoo Massacre’ category menu.

 

 

Want to call for or against us?

City of American Fork 1-801–763-3000

Police Chief – Lance Call 1-801–763-3020

AMERICAN FORK, UTAH – POLICE INVADE CHURCH THAT TATTOOS

On January 3, 2008 at approximately 1pm the head of the Detectives Division of the American Fork, Utah Police and another unknown police officer, both in plain clothes, walked into Whole Life Ministries via the public services office – Happy Valley Tattoo & Piercing, at 275 E. State Rd. in American Fork presenting a search warrant to the Reverend and CEO Dr. Gregory Lowrey.

Dr. Lowrey informed the officers that they were in a church and that he didn’t believe they could serve a warrant or be in the office in an official capacity without an invitation.

Lt. Falslev told Dr. Lowrey that they could and would search the office and invited four other plainclothes officers waiting outside to come in to assist.

Reverend Lowrey felt he had no method to prohibit the ensuing search and seizure of artist portfolios, original art and art reproductions in portfolios from the office by no less than six officers of the law.

The warrant was issued by the Utah County Attorney Jeffrey R. Buhman 801-851-8026 and the American Fork City Attorney Tucker Hansen 801-224-2273 on allegation that on some unstated day, sometime after Christmas 2007 a un-named female staff member at Happy Valley Tattoo allowed two 14 year old girls to view a body piercing portfolio containing one or more genital piercing photographs.

According to the police, the girls immediately ran home and told their father who then made the complaint for the Ministry to be charged (presumably) with Indecent Public Displays of pornography to minors.

Of course, the police didn’t think to ask the father why his daughters were visiting a “tattoo studio” and looking at piercing photos, especially when there is ample notice that minors are prohibited without the company of their parents.

Nor did the city and county attorneys or police detectives consider that the alleged statements of the alleged minors were hearsay and that the clinical display of piercings does not constitute pornography.

Nor did they consider that any adult could have browsed or simply presumed the presence of such materials and fabricated the complaint.

Nor did the city and county attorneys or police consider the possibility of simply informing the ministry of the complaint and seeking a solution that did not involve a knee-jerk approach and the threat of prosecution.

Instead the local government saw an opportunity to attack something they just don’t like without first validating the complaint enough to know on what day the alleged incident occurred.

In the nearly 20 years of offering tattoo and piercing services to the public we have never had a single complaint against us – until we moved last March to American Fork.

We feel our reputation has been attacked and that our reputation is something we are proud of and wish to maintain intact and we do not intend to be slandered or denied our constitutional and constitutionally protected religious rights and freedoms.

We have always made great efforts to conduct ourselves in a manner that would make the community feel we were a valued asset, but in Utah it is difficult to be taken at face value.

In my opinion, this is essentially a pogrom of the Mormon Good-ol’-Boy Government of American Fork intending to deny us our Constitutionally protected religious freedoms because we aren’t Mormon.

And in traditional, Utah – Screw Your Neighbor – Good-ol’-Boy fashion, many Mormons will do anything they choose to deny to others the rights they claim for themselves, regardless of how they violate the laws in their illegal, bigoted activities.

Artist portfolios are kept in a bookcase behind the front counter and must be asked for to be perused.

While there is a piercing portfolio marked “Adult” that exclusively contains adult piercing examples, one artist apparently had one or two genital piercing examples in another general portfolio and it is not known even to the police which portfolio the girls supposedly were allowed to view.

The police had so little information and such a questionable story that I really think it likely they made it up just to harass us.

Staff members do not hand out artist portfolios to minors unless they have their parents or legal guardians present.

Browsers do not have their identification checked and staff members rely on the honesty of patrons unless they have reason to suspect they are in the office in violation of studio policy.

There has always been a sign on the entrance door stating our policy of prohibiting entrance to minors without a parent or legal guardian.

Minors (and adults) who disregard this policy are asked to leave.

There is a daily head count kept of how many people actually come through the door and it is not too many this time of year, perhaps 10 to 20 people in an 8 hour period.

All staff members agree that there were no minor girls, attended or unattended, in the office on any days following the holiday.

I was in the studio on all of those days and no one came in that didn’t purchase services – with the exception of one couple who were turned away because they brought their baby with them.

There simply were no “teen girls”.

In the spring and summer, the staff routinely turns away minors who attempt to receive services using false identification cards.

Adult and youth community members seem to feel that since “the LDS Church” claims that tattoos and piercings are a “desecration” and that all churches besides the Mormon Church are led by “the Devil”, that disrespecting our rights and violating our policies are just fine.

Some Mormons here actually believe they are serving (their) God by breaking the law and violating our rights. Others simply don’t care about rights or rules as long as they get what they want.

Well parents in Utah – don’t shoot the messenger – many of your kids don’t give a crap about your religion; they don’t believe Gordon Hinkley is a Prophet; they don’t respect you or your rules and they are likely following your bad example of bigotry and hypocrisy.

It is often impossible to ascertain someone’s age simply by appearance and there are likely many occasions where minors violate the posted policy restricting their entry.

To obtain service however, Government issued photo identification must be hand copied, then be validated in writing by two staff members and photocopied for a permanent record.

So while the occasional older-looking minor might slip into the studio, it is nearly impossible for them to fake their way through to receive service.

During the search one officer who appeared to be second in charge snidely asked, why, if a lack of respect for their personal and religious rights was such an affront, did the Lowrey’s choose to remain in Utah?

Reverend Lowrey replied that they had as much right to be in Utah and conduct their legal operations as anyone else – unmolested by a disrespectful public.

The Law protects those rights even though those entrusted to enforce the law often don’t.

There was nothing in any of our materials that a minor could not be exposed to in any Jr. High School Art or Biology Textbook, Public Library, Art Gallery, Medical Office or Church that represented the unclothed human form in a clinical or artistic manner.

Photos in the Adult Piercing Portfolio depict the piercing process and genitalia with jewelry inserted as an example of services we render to adults and are neither sexual nor erotic in nature.

By the standards of the Utah Attorney General as examined on the official website, these photographs are instructional in nature and are no different than might be found in a sociological textbook or magazine such as National Geographic and appear according to Utah Law – decidedly not pornographic and would not be legally prohibited from minors anyway.

There are no photographs or art representations of the human form that depict sex acts or are designed to promote or appeal to prurient interest.

Studio prohibitions regarding minors as browsers are voluntary efforts by the ministry to serve the interests of the community and are not required by law.

The search and seizure warrant detailed “Items to be searched for include: Books containing photographs of male and female genital with piercings and tattoos, as well as any loose photos of the same nature.”

However the officers also seized personal, original artwork, some of a distinctly religious nature from the private work areas of several artists.

While there were two portfolios that did contain “photographs of male and female genital with piercings” there were none that contained genitals with tattoos and there were no loose photos of that nature.

Yet 11 books were seized – 9 of them “flash books” containing hundreds of drawings of a large variety of typical tattoo art, essentially non-sexual in nature and containing no photographs whatever.

These items; drawings and paintings and tattoo art “flash” books were not authorized in the search warrant and did not reflect “male and female genital with piercings and tattoos.” as the warrant described.

The artist’s personal portfolios are integral to prospective clients selecting their services and the taking of these portfolios which contained none of the material described in the warrant appears to me to indicate an effort to stifle opportunity.

The officers also searched the personal work stations of each staff member though none of them were in any public area, opening and searching every drawer and cabinet also searching the ministry’s service area and the parsonage even though it was obvious from the complaint that materials being sought were in the “public” reception area and not in the artist’s private work areas or the parsonage or other portions of the building.

I believe our church has been targeted by local Mormons and local Government.

I believe they engage in an active effort to undermine and slander our ministry and harass and prosecute us falsely (or threaten to prosecute us) with the end in mind to harass us till we leave town.

In three separate incidents in less than a year (today’s included) American Fork law enforcement has refused to apply the law equally in our behalf.

The police have attempted to prosecute us when we have been victims and have refused to prosecute those who have violated our civil rights.

The American Fork Police have blatantly lied about the application of law and refuse to provide police reports to the Ministry CEO

On one occasion officers refused to respond to an ongoing assault in the Ministry office because the CEO, who was involved by phone in the actual incident, was making the report from out of town.

On each occasion, these police officers have insisted that the dishonest, disrespectful and criminal behavior of American Fork locals was the Ministry’s fault simply because we perform tattoo and piercing services.

Our policies regulating the admission of minors to only those accompanied by their parents or legal guardians, which also prohibit babies and small children, are clearly posted.

The officers have, on each occasion – in person and by telephone, insisted that if the Ministry did not appreciate the disrespect and victimization at the hands of the government and the local citizenry that their solution should be – to “leave Utah”.

The officers have all maintained that the Ministry is engaged in what they term a “high risk” service and that attempts by local teens and sometimes even by their parents to exercise coercion, fraud and deceit to obtain services not allowed by law are seen as the fault of the Ministry rather than of those who show as much disrespect for State and local laws as they do for us.

On one occasion, Reverend Lowrey was told by Lt. Falslev that if he was not happy about being victimized that he “should engage in a low risk business like the guy who sells fruit across the street.” Reverend Lowrey went across the street and asked “the guy” about his experience and was told that he also was a constant victim of fraud and theft.

The problem is not with the Ministry offering legally approved services to the public in a responsible manner.

It is the public disrespect for our services which have for over 7 thousand years been exercised as a spiritual practice in all cultures.

The majority (Mormon) religion in Utah has recently taken upon itself to aggressively and slanderously attack these services as a “desecration” to the human body and an affront to “God” to such a degree that many Mormon Church leaders deny spiritual services, including temple marriage and communion for their own members who have tattoos and piercings, thus effectively denying their access to the Mormon Heaven because as of the year 2000, their God only approves of one piercing in each ear (for women only) and no tattoos for anyone.

The Mormon “God” apparently allows tattooed permanent make-up and apparently makes no distinction between propriety for male vs. female in that department as well as approving plastic surgery, for which Utah has the highest number of plastic surgeons in the country.

As this county is about 97% Mormon, this kind of slander is especially effective and the criminality of the “good Mormons” of American Fork have cost honest, hardworking members of the community their jobs and have jeopardized the livelihoods and damaged the reputations of many Mormon and Non-Mormon individuals and families.

Even the Attorney General points out that abstaining from engaging those services that are found offensive is the appropriate practice, but locals seem to feel that their personal disdain legitimizes their dishonest efforts.

I consider this behavior hypocritical, disgusting and a reprehensible violation of the both the Constitutions of the United States and Utah and worst of all of the “Christianity” this community supposedly holds so dear and claims to exclusively represent.

As if Utah didn’t have enough to be ashamed of already!

Wonderlust King – Gogol Bordello