Sue just posted a piece about a new group called The Oath Keepers - the militant and armed side of the The Tea Party Movement.
Wing-nuts, in their infinite denial, like to proclaim that these groups do not exist. But they do and they are no better than such gangs as the Bloods and the Crips. In short, they are ignorant thugs who harass, intimidate and threaten their fellow citizens in the name of Christianity and love for our country.
Repent Amarillo is an evangelical hate group which has been "terrorizing the town of Amarillo." Their mission is to "work:"
1. Gay pride events.
2. Earth worship events such as “Earth Day”
3. Pro-abortion events or places such as Planned Parenthood.
4. Breast cancer events such as “Race for the Cure” to illuminate the link between abortion and breast cancer.
5. Opening day of public schools to reach out to students.
6. Spring break events.
7. Demonically based concerts.
8. Halloween events.
9. Other events that may arise that the ministry feels called to confront.
According to The Texas Observer, one of "Repent's" targets has been a swinger's club, Route 66.
Their leader, David Grisham, a security guard at nuclear-bomb facility Pantex who moonlights as a pastor, explained the action. “We’re here to shine the light on this darkness,” Grisham told the Amarillo Globe-News. “I don’t think Amarillo knew about this place. This is adultery. This is wrong. There’s no telling how many venereal diseases get spread, how many abortions.” The goal, Grisham says, was not just to save the swingers’ souls, but to shut the club down.
Because of complaints to the fire marshal and the city's code enforcement division, the club was shut down for five months for minor violations,"like the lack of separate-sex bathrooms." Membership is supposed to be private, but somehow the Repenters obtain the names and addresses and show up at parties at private homes. These good Christians trespass on private property and try to block cars from entering the driveway.
Meanwhile, Repent has put the Meads (the owners) on the brink of bankruptcy.
Since the protests started last year, the Route 66 building has been rented just three times, forcing the couple to put it up for sale. For Repent, God had delivered a victory. The group snatched up a Web site the Meads had let lapse, Route66SwingersClub.com, and turned it into a call for “adulterers” to “Repent or Perish!”
Ironically, but not surprisingly, Grisham was a "sexual sinner" before he got saved.
What’s next for Repent? They’ve posted a “Warfare Map” on the group’s Web site. The map includes establishments like gay bars, strip clubs and porn shops, but also the Wildcat Bluff Nature Center. Repent believes the 600-acre prairie park’s Walmart-funded “Earth Circle,” used for lectures, is a Mecca for witches and pagans. Also on the list are The 806 coffeehouse (a hangout for artists and counterculture types), the Islamic Center of Amarillo (“Allah is a false god”), and “compromised churches” like Polk Street Methodist (gay-friendly).
Blood and Crypts might be more apt but as a native Angeleno let me correct you. It's CRIPS.
ReplyDeleteI like Crypts better though.
It seems the last two rounds of anti-government violence came from folks with a more Libertarian bent. Which is unsurprising since their entire raison d'etre is hatred of the government.
I keep waiting for someone on the right to disavow the hate speech we hear these days. Lord knows the Democrats left Michael Moore twisting in the breeze when Fahrenheit 9/11 came out.
The stuff spouted by the nutball right, meanwhile, is parroted by Republican leaders. Forget the loony rightwing entertainers like Limbaugh and Beck. I'm talking about office-holding Republicans in Congress: Michele Bachmann spreading fear about FEMA re-education camps and the U.S. Census being a liberal plot; Tim Pawlenty telling CPAC that Americans need to be like Elin Wood and "take a 9 iron" to the government. Or how about Jim DeMint framing the current climate as a "battle" between "ordinary Americans" and the government/liberals.
We keep saying one of these days someone is going to get hurt but the problem is, people have ALREADY been hurt. And no one has stepped up and held them to account. No one on the left OR the right. I can see why other Republicans might want to pretend they didn't hear that stuff, but why on earth aren't Democrats saying hey, cut it out?
I don't get it.
I guess it really is just so much Kabuki Theater to Beltway folks. They don't take it seriously and they don't care if people are getting hurt.
Thanks - my dyslexic brain at work. I simply copied it from a right-wingers comment. I knew I should have checked it. Anyway, Ive corrected it.
ReplyDelete"Their leader, David Grisham, a security guard at nuclear-bomb facility Pantex who moonlights as a pastor"
ReplyDeleteWait, what? Like that's not going to end badly? Sure, sure, it's fine to employ violent religious nutbags with repressed sexual issues to guard the NUCLEAR BOMBS.
Southern Beale is totally right, the violence is upon us. And, confusingly enough, it seems that violent white men who hate America aren't officially "terrorists", they just have "issues" -- by not calling these acts terrorism, we're actually redefining the word. Almost as if we were shifting into an age of violent revolution, where the fallout from the violent rhetoric becomes a regular fixture in our nightly infotainment broadcasts.
I blogged about this a couple of weeks ago, about the outbreak of "Fundamental Illness" that's bringing more and more of these armed psychos out like roaches when the lights go off.
Sigh. I need to go look at some funny cat pictures or something.
Violent religious morality, just like the Taliban.
ReplyDeleteI suppose we will hear about another abortion doctor murdered, or another gay person beaten to death.
It's a cancer on a free society, that should be irradiated.
tnlib - “ Wing-nuts, in their infinite denial, like to proclaim that these groups do not exist.”
ReplyDeleteI’ve read about The Oath Keepers before and was absolutely stupefied by the degree of free-floating paranoia that has no justification in the real world, but I was unaware of the Repent Amarillo crazies. These folks raise vigilantism to a disturbing level.
Harassment, blackmail, invasion of privacy, trespassing, and disturbing the peace are illegal. There needs to be some prosecutions and lawsuits to put these assholes out of business (employing the same strategy that bankrupted the KKK).
Perhaps a few high profile legal cases will prove that these groups really do exist … and that this kind of vigilantism is unacceptable.
It's news to me, but no surprise, of course. These are the kind of people the SPLC and the ACLU keep tabs on and I'd be surprised if these crusaders were unknown to them.
ReplyDeleteI don't know why real Christians, if there are any, don't make more of a point of asserting that Jesus never told you to go out and persecute "sinners" or to regulate the private sex lives of other people, but sadly, most churchmen are sympathetic for reasons of their own rather than for reasons of religion.
I'll tell you what scares me- not this group in particular, but that if you start looking, you are going to find things like this under rocks all over the country.
ReplyDeleteThis one is getting plenty of attention, but I suspect there are dozens if not hundreds more like them.
Actually this group's targets are pretty mild but things like this fester and grow until something disasterous happens. There are hundreds and hundreds like them and most are much more violent.
ReplyDelete