Ohio pastor fights strip club, wins topless protests at church

(Image credit: WCMH/CNN)

last updated 8 January 2015

For almost nine years, a pastor in Warsaw, Ohio, has been spending his Friday nights at a local strip club, but not in that way. William Dunfee, the pastor of New Beginnings Ministries, and his supporters have passed their weekend nights outside the Foxhole, in nearby New Castle Township, harassing employees and customers, reading the Bible, and urging men to go home to their wives. "I have no intention of looking away from evil," Dunfee tells The New York Times.

Earlier this month, Foxhole dancers started returning the favor, showing up on Sunday mornings to protest, topless, outside Dunfee's church. "It has been outright harassment going on nine years," Foxhole owner Tommy George tells The Times. "I decided to show them, you don't want it behind closed doors? We'll bring it right out in the open and see how you like it." The congregants don't like it, and some have been entering through a side door.

The county is trying to end the long, perfectly legal standoff, which George expects to lose. "I imagine he'll go on with it," he says of Dunfee. But as for his team's topless protests, "I'll go away at some point. It's going to get cold." To learn more, read the article in The New York Times and watch the video below, from WCMH. --Peter Weber

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.