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When the church doors open, only white people will be allowed inside.
That’s the message the Asatru Folk Assembly in Murdock, Minnesota, is sending after being granted a conditional use permit to open a church there and practice its pre-Christian religion that originated in northern Europe.
Murdock council members said they do not support the church but were legally obligated to approve the permit, which they did in a 3-1 decision.
“We were highly advised by our attorney to pass this permit for legal reasons to protect the First Amendment rights," Mayor Craig Kavanagh said. "We knew that if this was going to be denied, we were going to have a legal battle on our hands that could be pretty expensive.”
City Attorney Don Wilcox said it came down to free speech and freedom of religion.
“I think there’s a great deal of sentiment in the town that they don’t want that group there," he said. "You can’t just bar people from practicing whatever religion they want or saying anything they want as long as it doesn’t incite violence.”
After permit approved for whites-only church, small Minnesota town insists it isn't racist
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 26 2020, @05:03AM
In wars there have always been two enemies: the enemy, and traitors. And traitors have invariably been seen as the worst, by far, of the two. This is why treason is almost universally treated with the death penalty, whereas enemies when captured tend (at least in ideal circumstances - emotion is a hell of drug) to be treated fairly, and frequently end up being released once the war is over. Their only real crime is being on the losing side of a war of which they may not have even agreed with. The man who gave testimony in this case may have been doing so because he felt it was the ethical thing to do, but it's generally much more likely that he agreed to say whatever the state asked him to say in exchange for immunity.
When you look at what actually happened in this case it's not so black and white:
1) The guards work to clear the road in preparation for an embassy convoy coming through.
2) One car starts driving towards the secured section even after policy initially tried to stop it and the guards fired warning shots at the vehicle.
3) From the perspective of the guards it appeared that a policeman was helping to move the car towards them. They found it a credible threat of a car bomb.
4) The people within the vehicle are shot and killed, as well as the policeman that was behind the vehicle moving towards them.
5) Other police within the area begin firing on the guards.
6) Guards return fire and begin launching flashbangs and other non-lethal munitions to clear the area.
7) One guard begins indiscriminately firing, even after multiple calls to cease fire, likely due to a psychological episode.
8) Above guard only stops firing once another guard points his weapon at the guard and threatens to shoot him as well.
The trials in general were also complete shit shows. In the trial the ballistic as well as radio evidence supported the claims of the guards. They reported in exactly as events were happening. And while many bullets were found at the scene, ballistics did not match them to the guard's weapons. Ultimately the conviction largely hinged on one of the guards who turned state witness and said whatever was requested of him in exchange for complete immunity. This actually led to the initial convictions against them being overturned. And after the state retried the case, it led to a hung jury. And this process repeated for several iterations (with the next trial again yielding convictions) until the present where Trump finally pardoned all of them.
I'm in no way defending the actions of the men. What I am stating is that the event is not the black and white scenario the media has portrayed it as, as well as the various legal issues surrounding the case.