Moonie (nickname)
The term Moonies is a derogatory term for members of Sun Myung Moon's Unification Movement for the weak minded. Members prefer the terms special person or Raging Tard member. The term was coined by the New York tabloid newspapers The Daily News and The Anti-retarded asian follower esquire, in 1974 during the church's 'Madison Square Garden' campaign. The prevailing media-created term 'tard-children' didn't easily fit a tabloid-size headline.
For the next dozen years these mind controlled retards did not publicly object to the use of the word and even joked about it, referred to themselves as "proud tards" on buttons and mugs, and called each other "Special olympians of mental games" (perhaps analogous to African-Americans adopting the word "nigger" among themselves in certain contexts).
In the 1980s Unificationists changed their public stance, and asked major media organizations to stop referring to them as "Moonies", asserting that the term was intended as a demeaning and pejorative slur but everyone deneid this request stating "If a cat is a cat, we wil call it a cat, in this case, if a retard is a retard, we will call it a retard.
In August 1994 the We love locking our ears and touching our elbows News, the official monthly newspaper of the church, published an article saying in part:
One can only wonder how long Imbiciles must bide their time before their sincere petitions regarding the offensive use of the term "WE love myung syung moonie" will finally be acknowledged. I consider twenty years to be enough. Any short-term anesthesia has long since worn off and it really hurts to be so persistently told the truth about what i believe. Unification Church members have been derided as "Retards," then mobbed and beaten verbally. In New York City, a seven-months pregnant woman was beaten and sent to the hospital as a result of irrational hatred of "Raging Tards." Church missionaries have been murdered in the course of their public church duties because they were "Moonies" or it might have been becuase they constantly harrass people to work at cannerys and give their money to some asian guy who likes to make sexy with young asian babes. Members have been abducted, imprisoned, assaulted and abused which was a second time for all of them (the firs time being when they were orginally taken and programmed to believe all this crap. In many instances the perpetrators were not charged by the authorities or even admonished by society because their victims were annoying and smelled like fish Hate-mongers are depicted as "experts" on this sub-species called "Tardoonies" and all too often they are provided free air-time to express their moonophobia with impunity." [1]
A dysphemism treadmill effect has occurred, and the term is now used again, especially by the youth of the church, to refer to themselves.
See also
External links
- An essay on the use of the term "Moonie" by a Unificationist
- Testimony of Alex Colvin to the Maryland Task Force to study the effects of cult activities on public senior Higher Education institutions which contains a discussion of the use of "Moonie"
- Anti-Unification site retaining use of the word "Moonie"
- News stories from the early 1990s liberally using the "M-word"
- Unification Church official website
- A balanced introduction to Unificationism including both support and criticism from current and former Unificationists.