Jeremy Cheezum, who for the purposes of this post will serve the role of straw man to demonstrate how hypocrisy and corruption manifest and how they can be combatted, is or was the pastor of Trinity Reformed Presbyterian Church in Montrose, Colorado. Years ago the author asked Cheezum to help terminate a pattern of abuse and lies by members of his family that had already raged for years and would go on to derail over a decade of the author’s life. Cheezum responded to the author’s appeals by spreading and reinforcing the lies in violation of his professed beliefs. Emails of his and of other faith leaders of the Presbyterian Church in America were instrumental in inducing a crooked judge to unlawfully silence the writer for five years, during which he helplessly watched loved ones diminish and die while he tried to recover the life he had meant to have with them. The bent judge resigned amid a public furor two years later, and his ruling was eventually tossed out, but Jeremy Cheezum and his confederates continue to enjoy the public trust, a source of peace the writer has been denied for close to a third of his life and counting.
Imagine allowing a single precious day of a person’s life to be despoiled by your family’s failings, transgressions, lies, and filth. Then imagine going on with your life with resolute indifference for not merely a week or a month but for 10 years: pursuing your vocation, rearing children, furnishing your house à la Martha Stewart, decorating Christmas trees, and going on picnics and vacations.
Rev. Jeremy Cheezum, who, like other officials of the sect he subscribes to, has seemingly responded to revelations of serial lying and false swearing by trying to disassociate himself from their context.
I emailed Rev. Jeremy Cheezum in 2012, after I’d been already been subjected to six years of false accusation and defamatory lies by his sister- and brother-in-law, Tiffany and Phil Bredfeldt, which would go on for twice that long. The emails I sent to Cheezum (two, I think) were lucid, earnest, and civil. Cheezum never answered, and I’m persuaded by correspondence between his fellow faith leaders and him that I was likely a topic of gossip among the brethren. Their emails were dumped in my lap—in a lawsuit filed less than a year after I had asked Cheezum to please intervene.
That was nine years ago.
Cheezum has four kids. I don’t have children, and I don’t anticipate that I ever will. Cheezum’s father-in-law, Ray Bredfeldt, who has probably been Cheezum’s go-to babysitter and who has also likely contributed to Cheezum’s financial security, is also an official of the Presbyterian Church in America.
A few years—that’s years—after I appealed to Cheezum, Ray Bredfeldt would join in on another lawsuit, this time to have me imprisoned. The motive? To conceal that a woman had grown up on the end of leash, was apparently married off to a candidate with the right pedigree and faith orientation, was probably discontented, and then played around and lied to hide the fact. This is what the influence of stifling religious morals engenders. (I would be told by a friend of the woman’s that she sometimes stayed out all night, which would pretty much have to mean that the husband, Ray Bredfeldt’s son, consented.)
People of means like these people can and do hire attorneys without great sacrifice. But they don’t hire them to rectify the evil they’ve done or defended; they hire attorneys to make their violations invisible.
Then they wade into church on Sunday to be washed squeaky clean.
When the court put a stop to the accusations in 2018, I listened to a couple of Cheezum’s sermons online expecting to hear a quasi-literate bible-beater with a backwater drawl. He turned out to be exactly what I thought he was when I wrote to him for help: seemingly warm, earnest, and charismatic.
The impression I’m left with is that social institutions like the church are no different from government institutions like the court. Both are neck-deep in political role-playing: What’s right is what suits them.
Everything else is the glossy veneer that preserves their authority.
PASTOR CHEEZUM STROKES HIS FLOCK
“Then I looked and behold on Mt. Zion stood the lamb, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his father’s name written on their foreheads,” Jeremy Cheezum quoted to his congregation in a sermon on Revelation 14:1-5 he gave a few years ago. “These have been redeemed from mankind as first fruits for God and the lamb, and in their mouth, no lie was found.”
Then Cheezum, cementer of lies, thanked God for his words.
According to Cheezum’s citation, 144,000 souls are to be redeemed in Christ’s triumphal return.
Wikipedia reports that members of Cheezum’s sect, the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), number over 380,000.
Even if Christ drew from this pool exclusively, well over half of the PCA’s followers wouldn’t make the cut.
“Isn’t that encouraging?” Cheezum asked his congregation.
Then he pointed out that 144 is the square of 12 and 12 are the tribes of Israel, which, he said, means that all of those faithful to Christ are good to go, apparently whether they’re liars or not.
TUTORIAL AND COMMENTARY
What precedes is basic bit of public criticism, presented from a few different angles, that’s fully protected by this nation’s First Amendment laws. If you’re the victim of a bad rap, absorb how this works. See how you can make both logical and emotional appeals—and even throw in some wit.
Satire, hyperbole, metaphor, opinion, facts, mockery, sarcasm, “bad words,” slurs, epithets, and innuendo are all protected speech. Exceptions to freedom of expression are very few, and they’re narrowly defined. Commit them to memory so that if you choose to relate your experiences to others, you know how to do it within the letter of the law.
You may not (thou shalt not?) lie about someone or misrepresent a fact. If you say someone is a “psycho,” that’s defensible as hyperbole (exaggeration). We say this all the time. If you say someone is a clinically diagnosed psychopath, and no such diagnosis exists, then you’re treading on thin ice. Lying about someone is a no-no and qualifies as libel, for which you may be justly sued. Remember: Almost anything can be couched in terms like, “I believe, “I would surmise,” “I feel confident,” “I suppose,” “If I’m right,” etc., to immediately make a categorical statement a conditional one. You’re just offering your perspective, which is, whether right or wrong, protected speech.
You may not threaten. Pronouncing, “I think X deserves to die,” might be defensible as an opinion but it’s ill-advised. That said, saying “people like X don’t deserve the air they breath” doesn’t actually refer to X at all. There are always workarounds. But this writer’s recommendation is that you steer clear of anything that sounds like you mean to do anyone physical harm or induce others to.
You may not address writing TO any specific person (to avoid running afoul of a harassment injunction). The First Amendment protects this: “X can fuck himself.” The First Amendment doesn’t protect this: “Fuck you, X.” It’s all in how you say it. You’ve probably seen bumper stickers that read, “Fuck Biden.” This is protected speech…even though it’s speech ABOUT the President. (Joltin’ Joe, incidentally, is the author of the Violence Against Women Act, which represents a host of laws that have nearly facilitated false accusation and bullshit to a level rarely seen outside of Communist states, Shariah law courts, and witch trials.) Speech ABOUT anyone or anything (save, perhaps, state secrets) is protected speech.
While it’s also true that you may not invade a person’s privacy, what privacy exists these days is debatable. Home addresses may be public records available from a search engine with a few key strokes. Do not publish someone’s medical records. But don’t qualm about citing a medical condition you have certain knowledge of that, for example, might incline him or her to act irrationally or lie pathologically. (One of the writer’s own accusers, for instance, is reportedly diagnosed with bipolar disorder and another owned to the court that she was undergoing psychiatric treatment…for PTSD. Maintaining lies you’ve told to everyone you know is apparently hard on the nerves.)
Excepting the forbidden territory surveyed above, you are free to say what you want to say. Court documents are public documents. They are payed for and owned by the taxpaying citizen. Your experiences in court, excepting those from rare “closed-session” proceedings (like settlement hearings), are your experiences to share with anyone, and it’s unlawful for a judge to say otherwise.
Future posts will continue the Cheezum commentary and relate strategies for attaining readership for those who may wish to embrace their rights and engage in public criticism.
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TALKING BACK to restraining orders 
October 16th, 2022 → 12:31 am
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