The Thirty Years War

From: hm@allianceokc.com
Date: 4 Apr 2001 09:10:05 -0700
Subject: Thirty Years War

Urantia friends,

Attached is a copy of Michael Foundation's Motion for Summary Judgment, together with an affidavit I signed in that connection.

I have avoided saying much publicly on the subject of this lawsuit. However, Michael Foundation's brief is now filed and is hence a matter of public record. Since comment is certain to ensue, I thought I should give the Urantia community my view on how all this litigation came about, and its likely outcome.

The underlying controversy was Michael Foundation's publication of Jesus--A New Revelation, a volume that embodies the life and teaching of Jesus as they are found in papers 121-196 of the Urantia Book. Urantia Foundation said that JANR violated their copyright to the Urantia Book. Michael Foundation agreed that JANR came from the Urantia Book but said that no violation of copyright took place because the Urantia Book is in the public domain.

In an effort to cause me to withdraw JANR without going to the expense of a court proceeding, Urantia Foundation embarked on an extensive public relations effort, which they styled as following "Jesus' grievance procedure." In this campaign the Foundation encouraged its supporters to contact me personally and express their deep displeasure regarding the fact that I had "gone against the revelatory commission's plans" -- code for any Urantia activity that isn't subordinate to Urantia Foundation.

The Foundation's effort did have an effect on certain people. I began to receive angry telephone calls, both at work and at home, from people I don't know. I received several threats to my physical life and, more often, was informed that the survival of my soul was at risk if I did not fall into step with the revelators' plans as embodied in the policies of Urantia Foundation. The information about my diminishing prospects for eternal life came not only from various human beings, but also by means of mysterious letters without return addresses, which purported to be written by various celestial personalities who deemed it important to make their feelings about the matter known to me.

I certainly don't believe that the trustees or their staff directly caused those threats to my life temporal or spiritual. However, the Foundation advanced (and continues to advance) the idiotic conceit that Urantia Foundation is the revelatory commission's ongoing agent to be in complete control of the revelation. From there, it's hardly a "species jump" for certain of the Foundation's more benighted followers to conclude that anyone opposing Urantia Foundation is opposing God (i.e., the jihad rationalization).

Despite all of the Foundation's huffing and puffing, their copyright position was so weak that I never truly imagined the trustees would be reckless enough to litigate the issue with someone who could afford to defend himself. Obviously, I was wrong. As a follow-up to "Jesus' grievance procedure" in November 1999, Urantia Foundation filed a lawsuit in Arizona.

One of the Foundation's principal efforts was to make me feel uneasy about the potential financial repercussions of standing up to them. One employee of Urantia Foundation was quoted to me as having said, "We're going to make Harry hurt over this." That hearsay was borne out in their Arizona filing, in which the Foundation asked for damages of $100,000 *per copy* of JANR distributed. On the basis of 2600 copies distributed, this came to $260,000,000. (I'd never seen the power of the gospel quantified in such a way!)

In an effort to have the case tried in the 9th Circuit where they had a favorable copyright ruling against Kristen Maaherra, the Foundation filed their suit in Phoenix despite the fact that neither Urantia Foundation nor Michael Foundation nor I had any business presence there. Predictably, the suit was thrown out for lack of proper jurisdiction.

I never had any desire to be in litigation with Urantia Foundation (or anyone else for that matter), but once the Foundation actually filed papers in Phoenix, it was abundantly clear that a lawsuit was going to transpire one way or the other. Therefore, for reasons of personal convenience and, more importantly, in order to prevent further forum-shopping by Urantia Foundation, Michael Foundation filed a Motion for Declaratory Judgment in Oklahoma City. This kind of motion asks the court to determine whether certain things are true -- in this case, whether the Foundation's copyright to the Urantia Book is valid.

The most probable result of the litigation will be the loss of Urantia Foundation's copyright. (If you have any tolerance for reading legal documents, you can read the motion and judge for yourself.) But all this was so unnecessary! All the Foundation had to do was allow others to serve God as they felt led -- to live and let live. Instead, acting in consonance with the arrogant delusion that the trustees of Urantia Foundation are not only *entitled* to control everything related to the Urantia Book, but moreover have a *duty* to do so, the Foundation will likely end up with no copyright at all.

Urantia Foundation broadened the litigation in Oklahoma, adding trademark infringement claims based on the fact that Michael Foundation and I had registered several Internet domain names that included the words Urantia or Urantian. The suit cited the injury to Urantia Foundation being caused by the existence of these web domains, despite the fact that none of them had ever been activated.

Although I felt comfortable that the Foundation's trademarks on the terms Urantia and Urantian were invalid, still I tried to make that part of the lawsuit go away, preferring to focus on freeing the revelation. I therefore offered to turn those Internet domains over to Urantia Foundation free of charge in exchange for them dropping their trademark lawsuit claims. The Foundation refused my offer, which left me with no alternative but to engage them on the trademark front as well. Legally, it is a mandatory defense to a trademark action that the defendant assert the invalidity of the trademarks that are claimed to have been infringed.

It was totally unnecessary for Urantia Foundation to expand the litigation, but that is exactly what they did. Now the Foundation will have the opportunity to explain to the court certain disagreeable facts: e.g., how it *wasn't* fraud for Urantia Foundation to have asserted to the Trademark Office under oath that the word "Urantian" had no meaning prior to being "coined" by Urantia Foundation in 1973, etc. I had offered to sign over those domain names to Urantia Foundation for free; all the trustees had to do was "live and let live." But, as a result of that same species of arrogance that causes the trustees of Urantia Foundation to believe that they have to control everything, the trustees will most likely end up with their trademarks invalidated as well.

I have come to the conclusion that the only way to end Urantia Foundation's reign of threats and litigation, dividing, as it has, brother from brother, is for the Foundation to be legally stripped of its instruments of control -- the copyright to the Urantia Book and the trademarks on the words Urantia and Urantian. (The Foundation's claim of trademarrk on the banner of Michael is equally vulnerable, but someone else can work on freeing that.)

History has abundantly proven that Urantia Foundation is not capable of allowing believers to serve God unmolested when -- as must usually be the case -- their service involves using the text of the Urantia Book or the word Urantia. The trustees view any such activity as impinging on their duty to control the outworking of the fifth epochal revelation. In the name of "safeguarding the revelation," Urantia Foundation has set up an ecclesiastical authority that presumes to determine which believers, and to what extent those believers, shall be permitted to use the fifth epochal revelation in their service ministries. Such attempts to mold believers, especially by threat of litigation, are no less improper now that they were when Jesus condemned such presumption in Urmia. (Paper 134 section 4 is directly on point.)

The Foundation's litigious posture began (more or less) in 1971 when Martin Myers became an official representative of Urantia Foundation. Prior to Martin's ascendancy, Urantia Foundation had never sued anyone. But in consonance with a new control theory -- fully set forth in his pathetically mistitled 1973 talk, "Unity Not Uniformity" -- litigation against believers ensued. (Revealingly, the Foundation does not sue when the integrity of the revelation is genuinely at stake -- as with J. J. Benitez's works -- but only when the alleged offender is part of the believer community Urantia Foundation endeavors to control.) Martin's legacy not only endured his personal departure but, in my opinion, has hardened with the current board of trustees. This thirty years of litigation has been most deleterious to the Urantia community, and in my opinion, to Urantia Foundation as well.

It being thirty years since Martin Myers gained his official position, and assuming that the Urantia Book is freed as a result of this litigation, my prayer is that we are about to see the end of what might appropriately be named, "The Thirty Years' War."

Every good wish,
Harry McMullan