The Recruitment Myth

July 1, 2009

Recently, a handful of human extremists have drawn attention to themselves by grandstanding against an imagined “menace” — a supposed wave of humans voluntarily turning themselves vampire.

A recent speech by “Reverend” Stephen Newlin (see the video above) alleged that thousands of Americans — mostly misdirected adolescents, liberals and socially unstable adults, he says — have been duped into becoming vampires. Talk radio host and former bible college professor Alan Lipton, in a piece called “They’re Coming for Our Children,” suggests that an army of new vampires is being raised — and will outnumber humans in the U.S. by 2035.

We certainly hope Mr. Lipton wasn’t a math professor!

In reality, vampires have been and always will be, a microscopic minority on earth. When one imagines the billions of humans, reproducing exponentially, it is almost comical to think of a roomful of non-reproducing vampires as a threat. Quite the contrary, it is vampires who are continually on the brink of extinction!

The leadership of the AVL would like for everyone to understand the code that vampires have lived under for hundreds of years when it comes to adding to our numbers:

1. No self-respecting vampire would perform this complicated and emotional procedure lightly, for money or on a misguided person’s whim. Most vampires have never done it.

2. Vampires have never recruited new members into their race, and indeed have spent centuries rejecting, often forcefully, humans seeking the change.

3. In the entire span of human history, only a tiny, tiny fraction of humans have become vampires, and losses due to attrition have kept numbers fairly consistent throughout the millennia.

Opponents to change have always used the most base of fears to demonize those they hate. At varying times in history, Catholics, Jews, African Americans and gays were called threats to our children. We urge our new friends in the human community to reject Newlin, Lipton and other agents of hate, so that we may all get on with the business of building a better future together, without prejudice and without fear.

Signed,
The Board of Directors