Morning Star: Lawsuits

Clipping of text from a lawsuit filing. — Lawsuit filing that claims property damage caused by improper control of the weather by God, recorded in a grant deed by Lou Gottlieb as Morning Star’s legal owner, 1969. View in our Digital Collection.

The narcotics busts started in 1967, the surprise visits by deputies looking for runaway minors the same year. Finally, at the behest of horrified neighbors who were now meeting regularly to compare notes, Superior Court Judge Lincoln Mahan issued a court order enjoining Morning Star residents from ‘deposition of human excrement and sexual intercourse in view of the public road.’

— LeBaron, Gaye. “Morning Star Memories: Gottlieb's Hippie Heaven." Santa Rosa Press Democrat, June 29, 1986.

The court was impressed but unconvinced by Dr. Gottlieb’s courtroom histrionics — which he began by pointing out that his name translates to ‘God’s Love’ and ended with a 15-page documentation of his right to deed his land to his Maker, charging the court with ‘idolatry’ for setting itself ‘higher than God.’
...
Gottlieb retreated to San Francisco, and his followers trickled back into the mainstream …. As for Dr. Gottlieb, he is looking more Establishment with every published photograph of the again-successful Limeliters.

— LeBaron, Gaye. “Morning Star Memories: Gottlieb's Hippie Heaven.” Santa Rosa Press Democrat, June 29, 1986.

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