July 24, 2012 05:02 PM UTC

The Strange Drama of Keith Mason, Personhood USA Founder

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• by: Colorado Pols

A fascinating story relayed to us last week that deserves a mention–we didn’t see any reference to this in local media, but apparently the backers of Colorado’s (and other states’) “Personhood” abortion ban measures made a splash nationally with a story in Newsweek at the end of June.

Following the publication of that Newsweek article, as Religion Dispatches magazine picks up the story, things got a little weird with Personhood USA founder Keith Mason, of Westminster:

On July 2, still glowing from the national media spotlight, Personhood USA issued a press release, “Personhood Leaders Suffer Violent Attacks From Pro-Abortion Terrorists Following Newsweek Feature,” with photos and a description of shattered front-door glass, spray-painted coathangers and “F— You” with a backward “F”  scrawled across the front of their house in the Denver suburbs. The release claimed that the Newsweek profile had led to physical threats and the posting of the Masons’ home address in comments, and implicated The Daily Beast’s “notoriously liberal” readers and “pro-choice criminals” in the alleged vandalism.

“Our reaction is one of puzzlement. What kind of person would terrorize the home of a family with young, innocent children inside? We’re left wondering what these abortion fanatics hoped to accomplish,” said Mason, who noted that the hateful attacks “renewed our resolve to press forward.”

The conservative media machine, from Live Action News, to Newsbusters, to Free Republic, ran with Mason’s story of being attacked by violent pro-choice advocates, pushing the narrative that violent assaults against pro-life Americans are on the rise…

The story of Keith Mason’s vandalized house spread like wildfire among the pro-life community via a range of conservative news sites–somehow we seemed to have missed these stories, but they’re all there with long trains of angry comments. Mason announced that his family had “gone into hiding” for their own protection. Sen. Kevin Lundberg expressed his outrage:

“My immediate reaction is extreme disappointment that the opponents of Personhood, or some, would stoop to such an ugly tactic like intimidating someone’s family and destroying their property,” Senator Kevin Lundberg (R-Berthoud) told LifeSiteNews.com in a telephone interview Tuesday.

The only problem seems to be,

“Sounds like Mr. Mason has embellished,” [Pols emphasis] said Westminster Police Investigator Cheri Spottke for the third time, dismissing several reports on the incident. For example, two squad cars had responded, as is protocol (not four as reported in news stories), and there was nothing about the rock thrown through the door window being 45 pounds.

In addition, the police report doesn’t mention home security lights being “yanked down,” nor is there mention of children, children’s toys, “or anything on children at all.” This includes the alleged tricycle that, Mason claimed, should have signaled the presence of kids to the vandals, which prompted him to tell the Daily Beast that there are “some really bad cats out there.”

“Sounds like Mr. Mason is being a little dramatic,” said Spottke, when asked about the Masons’ move to a safe house. “I don’t mean to laugh. But this is low-level criminal mischief and we would never tell him to go into hiding,” she said…

And as it turns out,

The most serious threat to Mason’s claim is that police are investigating the case as a personal vendetta by fellow pro-life Christian activists; an approach that has nothing to do with the pro-choice movement. Despite last week’s conservative media frenzy, the Mason case is officially personal-it’s “coincidental,” not politically motivated or associated.

According to investigator Spottke, the “person of interest” is actually a couple the Masons had a falling out with-former friends who “have the same beliefs and standings as the Masons.” Spottke informed RD that Mason had asked the police to talk to someone they knew well [Pols emphasis] who’d posted “pretty derogatory remarks” on The Daily Beast, specifically against his wife.

But sometime after that, it appears Mason thought it better to blame “the pro-choice crowd”–at least publicly. Which makes sense, because this kind of messy personal infighting between fellow pro-lifers isn’t nearly as interesting! For good measure, the story by Religion Dispatches’ Katie Toth goes on to briefly recount the well-documented history of aggressive acts committed against Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains employees. “19 incident reports per month.”

Given that we could be hearing a great deal from Mason and the “Personhood” crew in the coming months as they make their third try on our statewide ballot, we thought this was a story worth sharing in its entirety. There’s never an excuse for crime, or making stuff up.