Neo-Nazis say they're coming to Danbury
By Elizabeth Putnam THE NEWS-TIMES
A rally calling for an end to the separation of church and state is expected to draw hundreds to downtown Danbury on Tuesday, including members of a neo-Nazi group who plan to wear swastikas on their black jackets.

Minutemen United, an Ohio-based Christian organization, is holding the rally Tuesday afternoon, because "the wall between the separation of church and state must be torn down," the group's leader and founder Dave Daubenmire said Wednesday.


Minutemen United expects up to 300 people at the event on the Danbury Green, but that number could increase as word of the rally spreads. Members of other organizations that advocate unity between religion and government say they plan to attend.


The Grey Wolves, a Northeast-based white supremacist group loosely affiliated with the Christian Identity Movement, will bring three busloads of people to the rally, Rick Renage, Grey Wolves spokesman, said Wednesday.


Renage read about the rally at NewsTimesLive.com, The News-Times' Web site, which posted information Wednesday afternoon about the event.


"We just want to show our solidarity with the churches who are sponsoring this activity," Renage said.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights organization known for its battles with white supremacists and its tracking of extremist groups across the country, could not confirm whether the Grey Wolves is a hate group.

Still, Frank Caporale, a non-denominational Christian from Danbury who is helping to organize the rally, told Renage not to attend.


"This is not a demonstration. This is a solemn assembly," Caporale said. "This is religious, not political. I want people from all walks of life to feel comfortable attending."


Renage said his group will not cause any trouble.


"I, personally, am not looking for any confrontations, but if we are provoked, we will react very strongly," he said in an e-mail to The News-Times.


Danbury Police Detective Lt. Tom Michael said he would have more information today about how the police department will handle the rally.


The Rev. Bob Cutting, pastor of Mountain Church of God in Brookfield and member of Minutemen United, said he was not aware of the Grey Wolves' participation, but he said all are welcome as long as they do not bring signs.


"It's open to the public. We just don't want any disruption," Cutting said. "This is about the separation of church and state."


Dozens of church-state issues test the bounds of the First Amendment every year. There is raging debate over whether government vouchers should be used to pay for parochial school tuition and whether students can pray or study Biblical theories of man's creation in public schools.


President Bush has sparked controversy over whether the government should provide funding for faith-based social service organizations. Some Christian public officials have butted heads with the courts over the posting of the Ten Commandments in government buildings.


Daubenmire said he wanted to spotlight these issues and decided to hold a rally in Danbury because of the city's historical significance.


After the Revolutionary War, local government still had Congregationalist preachers on the payroll. In protest, the Danbury Baptist Association wrote a letter in 1801 to then-President Thomas Jefferson asking him to help, said Bob Young, a researcher at the Danbury Historical Society who helped Daubenmire study the city's history.


In response, Jefferson wrote a letter that included the phrase "wall of separation between church and state."


"Jefferson's intent was never to keep God out of government," said Daubenmire, who picked Tuesday for the rally because it's the 231st anniversary of Paul Revere's famous midnight ride.


Jefferson's intentions and what the Founding Fathers saw for the new nation is the subject of much debate and the topic of many books.


Western Connecticut State University President James W. Schmotter, who has a doctorate in history from Northwestern University, said the Founding Fathers intended to keep government and religion separate.


"Jefferson and the Founding Fathers were really all about compromise and balance when creating the Constitution," Schmotter said.


To say the Founding Fathers wanted to keep church and state as one is a misinterpretation of history, he added.

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these people are congregating not 5 walking minutes from my front door. i can't sit in my house and know they're there and not do anyhting, it's not ok. it's just not. what would you do?

Neo Nazis are extremly scary, I watched a recent documentary on them on A&E and its insane the way they can brainwash lost youth. I dont think many understand the history behind the nazi party and like it because it seems "dangerous". I have taken some courses on the Holocaust and I have to say that everyone should become fully educated about genocide. I would definatly protest against a neo-nazi rally, but in a non- violent way.

Yeah, I would. I did, sort of - they weren't having a rally at that same time, but I went to a rally in Staten Island that had been organized in response to some kind of neo-nazi activity (I forget exactly what, it was a long time ago).

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i would not counter protest. its freedom of speech, that includes stuff I wouldn't do. as long as its not violent they can protest.

That isn't necessarily what it means though, although I don't know exactly what the thread-maker thinks, and I didn't get into it in my previous post. You can protest their message without protesting the fact that they are assembling in public to publicize said message.

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does this change your perspective at all? i'm jewish. my grandmother has a bullet scar, to this day, from where REAL nazis, not dress-up nazis shot her. all of her family but 2 sisters-gone. all of my grandfathers TEN siblings and his parents, gone. does this make more sense now? that i don't want to sit at home reading a magazine while these vermin congregate 5 min from my house?

isn't the article about separation of church and state? its just those bastards are joining to end the separation of church and state.

yes, they're coming to join a rally that has nothing to do with them, and doesn't even want them there. i'm not protesting the rally. although, i think they're insane, and i want the chruch involved in my life like a hole in the head. if it were only that rally, i couldn't give a hot fuck less.

totally understandable, these neo-nazis do not understand the implications of premoting such a fucked up way of thinking, all human life is valuable, its this bullshit biological view, racist perspective that seems never be put to rest. I think people who need to feel superior to another race or creed, are nothing but sick, and they need to be educated, they need to understand what the past is about. We are so lucky non of us were put into those trains, over packed with no food or water, watched out family walk to gas chambers, worked to a skeleton and marched to their death. I would like to see their faces if they had all their possesions, their house, there loved ones and friends all taken away by hatred and ignornace. I think its right , very right to protest this type of hatred, it goes beyond freedom of speech at this point when you spread the msg of hate and the Nazi propoganda.

The Gray Wolves? They sound more like a senior citizens group.

We should go down there, get some guys together, y'know, get some bricks and baseball bats and really explain things to them.

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i think i wouldcos
id have a pretty sign
with the DEFINITION OF RACISM on it
co i bet half or moreof them are actually ignorant of the actual meaning of racism"
the belief that race/ancestory accounts for difference in character or ability
i agree ability is atotal possiblilty physiologically and stuff
but nothing to discriminate over

and if there onlyreasons are stufflike look at blacksschoolgrades and shit
can you say social conditioning?
and i think THEMAN if youwill is inherently sexist and racist and capitalist
in essence in a socialdarwiny way
haha
so whatever theyre just voluntarily ignorant

I probably would counterprotest. Though i'd bring mace. Neo-nazis scare me :s

the counter-protestors are more fascist than the neo-nazi's half the time.

at least nazi idealogy is based on something other than out-right opposition of another persons idealogy.

voluntary ignorance?
hahathe majoity of neo nazis(if theyre nazis they should know something about the occultish background but i doubt they do
so well say racists
dont even know what theyre against
let alone the definition of racism
theyre just stupid
itd be almost moretolerable if they hadeven psuedoscience to back them up
haha

Counter-protestors are called 'the opposition' for a reason. If nazi ideology didn't go unchallenged then the consequences aren't worth thinking about.

noone even knows nazi ideology
it was about the evolution/elevation of man to a new super breed

Yes, Hitler based some of his 'teachings' on Nietzsche's ideology - but the 'superman' that Nietzsche described wasn't an aryan meglomaniac who gassed people that didn't measure up.

not nietzhzhe
lord byron
vril the power of the coming race
itwas all bout alienz and alien roots

Well, Hitler did consider himself to be a 'superman' and he did borrow heavily from Nietzsche.

"Alienz and alien roots"?? Hitler was a scientologist!!