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They are the masters of protest and civil disobedience. They refuse to obey what they consider are bad laws. They think government has become a big bully, flexing its muscles at the expense of the people. They even have found ways to beat City Hall.
Barbara Lyn and Rachel B. Lapp; their, father, Jacob; and Greenpeace activist Frank Parlato Jr. are taking their campaign against government abuse to the public. They will discuss civil disobedience in a free lecture from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Tuesday in Unitarian Universalist Church of Buffalo,
695 Elmwood Avenue. The Lapp sisters' topic: "When the law is wrong, when the government is a bully, what can you do?"
These activists are persistent, highly principled and -- in the views of some -- outlandish in their beliefs and actions. Some would describe Parlato and the Lapps as an odd pairing -- the city-suburban developer-activist and the Mennonite farm family.
It takes a huge umbrella to cover the issues dear to the hearts of the Lapps and Parlato:
The Lapp sisters, their father and brother-in-law spent eight months in jail for defying authorities and harboring 15-year-old Billy Stefan on their family farm in Cassadaga in 1993. The boy, whose father was accused of abusing him, was reunited with his father after he turned 16.
"One of the deepest issues right now is when the government tells you how to raise your children," Barbara Lyn Lapp said recently. "I'm going to tell all parents it's time to decide who is more important, the government or their children."
The Lapps believe citizens have many ways to seize power back from their government, including not voting, staging non-violent protests, withholding personal information on income-tax forms and voting their conscience as jurors, even if it means contradicting a judge's instructions.
Parlato -- who describes himself as a green-space preservationist, an"underdeveloper," an inner-city housing advocate and a yoga instructor -- led the fight to keep land near Sturgeon Point wild for future generations.
Like the Lapps, Parlato believes government has gone too far in controlling people's lives.
"The people in government aren't evil," said Parlato, who will preside at Tuesday's meeting. "Most of them are good and sincere people. But the very nature of government creates a mind set that inspires them to increase their authority, always at the expense of the people."
"Truly, government has forgotten that it's a servant of the people,"
Parlato added. "It's acting more like it's the master."
Parlato and the Lapps share an abiding faith in non-violent civil
disobedience.
"We insist on being respectful in our means of resistance," Barbara Lyn Lapp said. "But if we claim to care about our neighbors, we must protest government injustice."
Non-violence has to be the watchword, Parlato said, calling civil
disobedience the antithesis of the violent militia movement. Such
non-violence can serve as an antidote to government oppression, he added.
"If a law is unjust or you're given an order without moral or legal
authority, you should refuse it," Parlato said. "And, if need be, you have to be brave enough to accept the consequences."
Rachel Lapp says she believes government can be good, when it controls the aggressors in society. Instead, it too often comes down on the side of the aggressors, who enforce child-protection laws, compulsory education, disclosure rules on tax forms and seat belt laws.
"We want people to see the correlation between what happened to us and what can happen to anyone when government gets out of hand," Rachel Lapp said.
The Lapps and Parlato will be joined by Samuel Radford III, a critic of public education who was arrested and pleaded guilty to reduced charges following a 1993 disturbance at the City Campus of Erie Community College.