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American Terrorists are Targeting You By Bill Berkowitz
Now, the Army of God is including gays and lesbians within its ever-widening orbit of hate. Christian Right groups have long targeted gays - merging their anti-abortion politics with homophobia. Anti-abortion terrorists have included gays and lesbians in their violent actions. Eric Robert Rudolph - on the run for more than five years since placing a bomb in Atlanta's Centennial Olympic Park during the 1996 Olympic Games - has also been accused of the double bombing at the Otherside Lounge (a gay and lesbian bar) in Atlanta on February 21, 1997. Rudolph's disappeared into the wilds of North Carolina and landed a prominent spot on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List. After the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Rudolph was joined by another anti-abortion terrorist, Clayton Lee Waagner - who while on the run from law enforcement claims to have sent hundreds of anthrax threats to health clinics across the country. In a mid-February story on Salon.com veteran journalist Fred Clarkson noted that it was strange that the Army of God would choose the post-September 11 period to express "new solidarity with Muslim extremists just as the right-wing extremists have come under new scrutiny by the U.S. government for their own links to terror." 11. The violence-prone Army of God," Clarkson writes, "drew intensified federal attention thanks to its praise ('great idea!') for the anthrax scare at 550 clinics and abortion rights organizations last fall, perpetrated by self-described antiabortion 'terrorist' Clayton Waagner….[who] signed his threats 'Army of God.'" Waagner, a personal favorite and poster boy for the Army of God, had escaped from prison while awaiting sentencing for a December 2000 conviction for unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon and possession of a stolen vehicle. He was arrested in early December after being on the run for nearly 10 months, during which time he was placed on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List. In addition to taking responsibility for the anthrax threats, Waagner also claimed to have created a hit list of 42 abortion workers that he intended to kill. On Friday, January 25, in an Urbana, Illinois courtroom, Clayton Lee Waagner was sentenced to 30 years and four months for weapons, theft and escape convictions. Spewing anti-gay sentiments is nothing new for the Army of God. According to a February 24, 1997 Reuters report, the Army of God "threatened total war against the federal government and promised to attack gays, lesbians, their organizations and supporters in the future." In a March 2001 article, Clarkson, commenting on HBO's documentary "Soldiers in the Army of God," writes: "At once shocking, compelling and beautifully made, the film is essentially the national television debut for the aboveground spokesmen and spokeswomen of the Army of God…. [It] follows the mentoring relationship of long haul trucker and Army of God recruiter Bob Lokey, of Opp, Alabama, and 19-year-old Jonathan O'Toole of Kansas City, Missouri., who says he is seeking the most 'radical' and 'terroristic' anti-abortion group he can find."
Clarkson reports that the Army of God's web master and spokesman, Reverend Donald Spitz, had added "two special sections" to the group's Web site. There are links to many news stories with headlines such as "Saudia Arabia chop the heads off three homos"; "Homosexual fag Elton John says he is lucky not to have AIDS"; "Presbyterians Wrestle Over Ban on Homo Clergy…"; "American Red Cross to give 9/11 funds to sodomites"; "Homo fag TV channel will soon be broadcasting their filthy crimes against humanity"; and "Massachusetts Governor picks sex perverted sodomite as running mate." Spitz is also discouraging supporters from donating money to the United Way, a group, he argues, that "gives money to family planning organizations and abortion providers like Planned Parenthood but 'refuses money to the Boy Scouts because the Boy Scouts will not let child molesting homosexual sex perverts become Scout Masters and take your children out to the woods to molest them.'" The Reverend Michael Bray, Army of God "chaplain," author of A Time to Kill and co-host of the anti-abortion terrorist supporting White Rose Banquet, appears downright buoyed by the Saudi Arabia executions. "While the Christians among us westerners would decline to emulate our Muslim friends in many ways," he points out, "we can appreciate the justice they advocate regarding sodomy. "Might these fellows also consider an embryonic jihad? Let us welcome these tools of purification. Open the borders! Bring in some agents of cleansing. In the meantime," he concludes, "let us pray for justice: that the heads of adulterers, sodomites, murderers, child murderers (abortionists), witches, traitors, and kidnappers roll." In early February, England's online Birmingham.co.uk reported that an organization calling itself the Army of God branded staff at George Green & Co "legitimate targets" in a letter sent to the Sunday Mercury. George Green & Co, based in the Black Country town of Cradley Heath, "have represented Birmingham's Calthorpe Clinic - one of the leading providers of abortions in the Midlands." According to the online news site, the Army of God letter said: "George Green Solicitors, Cradley Heath, are acting for baby killers. George Green staff are now legitimate targets." Enclosed in the letter was a newsletter citing the bombing of a Birmingham, Alabama, abortion clinic. The letter was "peppered with references to 'war." For more about the Army of God and related organizations, check out Fred Clarkson's book, Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy (Common Courage Press, 1997. To read the The Army of God Manual, with a Forward by the Rev. Spitz, see: http://www.armyofgod.com/AOGhistory.html |
Eric Robert Rudolph is one of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted 
© 1997-2002 BEI