James O'Keefe on G.K. Chesterton and "The Free Press"

NJO: Title, video and caption from James O'Keefe's YouTube channel VeritasVisuals.

Uploaded on Aug 12, 2010

"Video courtesy of American Chesterton Society and Doug Jackson." http://chesterton.org/

Blurb from theprojectveritas.com:

Speech at 29th Annual G.K. Chesterton Conference

Aug 13 2010

On August 6th, I was privileged to give a talk on the importance of undercover journalism vs. stenography – what the mainstream media usually does.

Transcript from freerepublic.com but originally from projectveritas.com:
Transcript of James O'Keefe speech to the G.K. Chesterton society at Mount St. Mary's in Maryland

Project Veritas ^ | Aug. 13 2010 | James O'Keefe

Karl Marx said that philosophers have explained the world; it is our job to change it. I say Chesterton has explained what's wrong with the wrong; it is our job to restore it.

A specter is haunting the powerful and the corrupt, and that is the specter of the independent, free, renegade video journalist. That journalist seeks to correct the wrongs of the society we live in. There is a lot wrong with the society we live in. Chesterton says, [paraphrasing] "The position we now have reached is this. Starting from the state, we try to remedy the failures of all the families, all the nurseries, all the workshops, all the secondary institutions that once had some authority of their own. Everything is ultimately brought into the courts." It seems like the world has become one giant divorce court.

Non-Gay Men with Girlfriends get Married to Each Other

NJO: Title, video and blurb from James O'Keefe's YouTube channel VeritasVisuals.

Uploaded on Nov 16, 2008

Two Heterosexual men obtain three marriage licenses in Auburn, Worcester and Southborough, MA. They tell the county clerks they're marrying for benefits sake, they have girlfriends, and they will soon get divorced.

In James' speech to the American Chesterton Society in 2010, he offers some insight into the thinking behind the video:

"When I visit these government bureaus in my investigative videos I find that nothing shocks people anymore. Nothing shocks a bureaucrat. There's a sense of soullessness in the way they conduct their affairs. In other video I got married. Now I am heterosexual, and I got married to a male friend of mine. I got a marriage license saying I want to get married and get divorced in a week; I just want the benefits. And they married me. They didn't blink an eye."

Also the Washington Examiner had a short article about the video in 2010 which has since been scrubbed. This from the archived page:

Say what? O'Keefe tried to marry a man in 2008

[...]

Like a scene out of "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry" O'Keefe and his friend Ben Wetmore attempted to legally marry in the commonwealth of Massachusetts for "insurance purposes." But unlike the 2007 film, the two made it clear to city workers and O'Keefe's hidden cameras that they were not gay, and had girlfriends. They said the marriage was merely for benefits and the two intended to divorce.

"I just want to make sure, is it OK that we're not gay?" O'Keefe asks in the video.
When Yeas & Nays asked O'Keefe for comment on the video, he said, "Ben and I were investigating the way soulless government bureaucrats treat the institution of marriage in Massachusetts. 'It's just a piece of paper, right?'"

Minions / fellow culture warriors involved:

Ben R. Wetmore

Ben Wetmore

Ben Wetmore and James O'Keefe are both former students and employees of The Leadership Institute in Arlington, Virginia. Wetmore was the Institute's Director of Student Publication Workshops 2004-2006, and O'Keefe was one of its Field Coordinators in 2007.