"You know I was sitting in the restaurant across from their place the other day," he continues, "and I saw Moon pull up there in a brand new 1979 Cadillac. Boy, you should have seen them bow and scrape. You know they don't hang around bars or anything...they keep a pretty low profile. Basically, they bow and scrape..."
Sullivan is quick to point out that Alper has a personal stake in all of this--a friend of the mayor's sister left his family for the Unification Church. Reportedly, Alper's sister felt bereaved.
"I don't like them," Alper says. "I'm not a bigot, I just don't like their system--what they do to children, brainwashing...I don't want them here."
And Alper is now the man at the helm in Gloucester, the man of cast-iron holding fast to the wheel during a gale stirred by politics, business, and basic American principles. He's in an impossible position--as are all the critics of Moon and his associated business enterprises--because at every complaint about International Seafood's corporate advantages and "evil" connections, Barry may utter: "We have as much a right, as a tax-exempt institution, to invest in businesses. Why should we forfeit out Constitutional rights? Because we are 'Moonies?' Why did they call blacks 'niggers?' It's the 1979 version of 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers.'"
And Runyan may say: "The only reason they're making a big deal about the Unification Church is because it's the Unification Church. They don't mind any other religions investing money, and making fortunes. But they're scared of us. We've been through civil rights, and the blacks--and now they find new groups. Religious persecution has been going on since the beginning of the country...before...and many times in Gloucester. Strangely enough, people come here to escape it."
And Moon said in 1974: "The world is really our stage. We are going to be the ones who restore and bring hope to every corner of the world. The money is there, and I will earn the money. I will reap the harvest. And you will become soldiers, trained soldiers."