Talk:Sun Myung Moon coronation

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[edit] Requested move

The New York Times called it a "coronation," and so did anyone else with good sense. From the June 24, 2004 issue: "As a shining symbol of democracy, the United States capital is not ordinarily a place where coronations occur. So news that the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the eccentric and exceedingly wealthy Korean-born businessman, donned a crown in a Senate office building and declared himself the Messiah while members of Congress watched is causing a bit of a stir."Johngorenfeld (talk) 17:18, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Pictures of the "coronation"

Perhaps someone could add a picture?

Pictures of the (cough, cough) "coronation". http://www.iapprovethismessiah.com/images/kingscourt.jpg http://iapprovethismessiah.com/uploaded_images/story-743069.jpg

From this site: http://www.iapprovethismessiah.com/2004/06/this-really-happened-at-senate-office.html

The home page: http://www.iapprovethismessiah.com/ 4.246.207.143 08:29, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Subsequent "Cosmic Level Coronation"

Perhaps it would be good to mention the subsequent "Coronation Ceremony of the King and Queen of Peace on the Cosmic Level" (June 13, 2006). -Exucmember 21:35, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

The Unification Church has held quite a few coronation ceremonies. And politicans often attend religious ceremonies and celebrations. Steve Dufour 07:15, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
Steve, I think a better name for this article would by Crown of Peace or Crown of Peace award ceremony. The 2004 event was not a coronation, because the U.S. Congress is not authorized by the constitution to elevate anyone to the monarchy.
Moreover, the viewpoint of the article should be that there was a ceremony or two, and that various parties interpreted the meaning of these ceremonies as they saw fit. In particular, Moon supporters and opponents disagreed as to what the ceremonies meant.
I'd like the article to give a clear and even-handed description of what happened & when, along with how the various sides interpreted the events. Also, if there is a controversy about how much the various congressmen were told before and after the ceremony (and who told them). --Uncle Ed (talk) 01:43, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Views of media gadflies

John Gorenfeld says Moon "tricked" congressmen into attending, but in the same paragraph he also notes that:

If the congressmen had simply run "Ambassadors for Peace" through the Google search engine, they would have discovered the group was tied to Moon

I'm not sure how to describe this logic. Is Gorenfeld saying AFP is clearly tied to Moon, or that its ties to Moon are well hidden? --Uncle Ed (talk) 02:02, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

This is from the AFP's own website. Steve Dufour (talk) 12:30, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
I guess we'd have to say that media response was mixed, with sources disagreeing on whether the "Moon connection" was well-publicized, easily detectable, or subtly hidden.
Apparently one or two media sources chose to interpret the 2004 event as a "coronation", but I couldn't find any backup for that from church sources. So the Wikipedia guidelines on reporting POV take effect here:
  • Two journalists referred to the crowning event as a "coronation".
Would that be an effective wording? (I refer to Gorenfeld and possibly the Washington Post.) --Uncle Ed (talk) 21:58, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Purge

I'm not aware of any guideline that says church members can't edit a page related to their church. Would the anonymous contributor like to explain his 'purge' comment? --Uncle Ed (talk) 22:15, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't know that I strongly take sides here, but please don't call your preferred version the "consensus version"[sic!] -- AnonMoos (talk) 00:03, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mass delete

Exuc, you and I have usually been able to get along in the past. Perhaps you were unaware that when you deleted Steve's changes you also deleted all mine.

Moreover, one or more of Steve's deletions were of supposed quotations which were {fact} tagged. I myself spent a long time on Google trying to find references for them.

If there are any disparaging passages which are properly reference, please go ahead and put them back, but I hope you will bear in mind the Wikipedia guidelines on "biographies of living persons". --Uncle Ed (talk) 14:44, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New Title

There has been no response to my proposal 2 weeks ago, to change the article title to Crown of Peace award ceremony. So if no one objects in the next day or two, I'll go ahead and move the page. --Uncle Ed (talk) 15:27, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually, it was more of an offhand suggestion in passing, rather than any formal "proposal" on your part. I object to such a renaming because "Sun Myung Moon Coronation" is instantly understandable to anyone who read the original Washington Post article, or followed the resulting controversy in the media, while "Crown of Peace award ceremony" is rather flowery and ornate but completely vague (since it doesn't mention any specific name of a person, place, or group, or any date, or other information that would help in a practical sense to narrow things down for people). AnonMoos (talk) 22:58, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Part of the problem, a big part actually, with this article is "reliable sources." There have been hundreds of UC events which have been almost or totally ignored by the press (and by WP). For instance, I recently wrote an article on the Million Family March which was a much bigger event than this one, at least it involved more people. However, no one had bothered to start an article on it before and it had very little mention on the Internet. The Yoido Island rally in 1975 is not even mentioned in any WP UC article yet it involved around a million people and may have had an important effect on Korean history. I recently attended a public speech by Mrs. Moon in which she received letters of congratulations from a number of political figures, one of whom is much more important than any mentioned in this article (she is on the front page of the newspapers at least once a week). That event (it was part of a speaking tour which covered 12 US cities) was ignored by the press, as was the event talked about in this article -- until outsider John Gorenfeld brought it to their attention. Anyway, I oppose the name change since it is too vague. However the present name gives a false impression of the uniqueness and importance of this one event. I don't know what should be done. Maybe nothing for a few years until neutral, disinterested people start to write about the UC. Steve Dufour (talk) 23:00, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
This event received attention because it was claimed to have occurred on U.S. federal government property, and it was claimed that several U.S. congressmen seemed to at least tacitly quasi-endorse it. In any case, the fickle finger of fate has clearly selected out this event for a greater degree of mainstream media coverage... AnonMoos (talk) 09:51, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
True. Steve Dufour 13:56, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
On the other hand, the article could be retitled the Sun Myung Moon Coronation controversy since almost the whole article is about the controversy which arose when the Washington Post reported on the event. Steve Dufour (talk) 23:22, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Or even better, Sun Myung Moon coronation controversy (not sure why "coronation" is currently capitalized...) AnonMoos 09:09, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
If we are agreed, I'll retitle the article with the "move" function. --Uncle Ed 14:56, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to see a retitling which indicates that there is a controversy. The two points of controversy are:

  1. Was the "crowning" some sort of coronation?
  2. How many of the congressmen intended their presence to be an endorsement of "the coronation of Rev. Moon"?

It might be interesting to find some church sources which talk about how the church wanted this event to be interpreted. Are there any official speeches or announcements which described the "Crown of Peace" event as a coronation?

If not, maybe we should re-cast the article as a controversy over (A) the church's POV vs. the POV of opponents like Gorenfeld. --Uncle Ed 20:17, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

  • Object to move / name-change -- I agree with AnonMoos (talk · contribs), and object to a move or name-change. AnonMoos (talk · contribs) is correct, specifically I agree entirely with AnonMoos' initial 11/28 statement, at the top of this subsection. Cirt 14:08, 3 December 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Was it a coronation?

Deleted from article:

in what media commentators have called a 'coronation ceremony.'

Which media commentators called it that? The quote immediately following this sentence didn't use the word coronation. --Uncle Ed 15:27, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Who says it is?

Only John Gorenfeld calls it that, and he's not "notable". His Wikipedia article was deleted [1]

The only mention in the Washington Post is oblique. It's not clear whether the writers regarded the ceremony as a coronation, or whether this is the view of a person they were interviewing

Some Republicans who attended the event, including Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett (Md.), said they did so mainly to salute the Washington Times, a conservative-leaning newspaper owned by Moon's organization. "I had no idea what would happen" regarding Moon's coronation and speech, Bartlett said yesterday. [2]

If I can't find any references other than church opponent John Gorenfeld, I'm inclined to rename the article again. The article should not imply that the Crown of Peace ceremony was intended or seen as a coronation, unless someone involved in it called it that.

How about we change the focus of the article, so that it gives the whole story about the Ambassadors for Peace and the awards they got? Then we can mention (not in passing, of course!) that the founders of AFP got a special award.

If a campaign by John Gorenfeld to contact each congressman afterward and "dare them" to confirm or deny their connection resulted in a quote like "I object to the coronation and do not endorse it" then we can report that as straight news. Something like:

  • Gorenfeld, a blogger who calls Rev. Moon "somewhere to the right of the Taliban" spent 6 weeks searching for congressmen who whould repudiate their involvement with the ceremony. [imagined quote, has not been found yet!]

Better yet, how about a series of articles or article sections on all of Rev. Moon's appearances on Capitol Hill. He has addressed parts of congress before, several times. --Uncle Ed 16:38, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Good ideas. I once started an article on Ambassadors for Peace but it was deleted since the only source I could find was their own site. Steve Dufour 20:15, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
Well, I suppose I could try to write an Ambassadors for Peace article out of my own head, but maybe it would be better to ask one of the Ambassadors to write it. I can ask around and see if I can find one willing to set up an account. --Uncle Ed 00:22, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Deletion proposal

The article has been proposed for deletion on the grounds that the title is a made-up expression, not used in the original sources. Although the proposer has a point I am against deletion on practical grounds. This article was originally a part of Sun Myung Moon. It was spun out because it took up a large part of that article and gave undue weight to this one incident. I think people are interested in the incident and/or the "controversy" and it should have an article. Steve Dufour (talk) 11:23, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

If they mean that "coronation controversy" is a made-up expression, I think Wikipedia allows that. It simply means that the article covers the controversy over what some original source called the coronation of Rev. Moon. By the way, I'm still looking for that source.
If we cannot find anyone who referred to the ceremony as a "coronation" then the cited rule might force us to make yet another title change: to something like Crown of Peace ceremony or Crown of Peace controversy. I'm told that the way Google indexes redirects will support this change without "hiding" the article, in case anyone uses the made-up name for search keywords. In other words, if someone searches for "Sun Myung Moon coronation" they should get this article, right? --Uncle Ed (talk) 18:51, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] List of "attendees" removed

I took this off since it was only sourced by a copy of an invitation to the event which was posted on a blog. I personally feel that the information is probably legitimate. However, it is not well enough cited. Anyone could have printed up the invitation and anyone could have posted it. Steve Dufour (talk) 14:54, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] POV fork

This article is a POV fork and needs to be merged onto Sun Myung Moon ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 00:27, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Disagree the event is mainly of interest because of the controversy over the participation of United States public figures in a religious ceremony. There is very little information in this article about Rev. Moon himself. Steve Dufour (talk) 18:53, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I see that there is already a summary in the main article, so this would be acceptable as per WP:SUMMARY. I will remove the tags. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 18:56, 26 December 2007 (UTC)