Posted on 04/15/2006 11:28:54 AM PDT by EternalVigilance
DANBURY – There are no Grey Wolves. The man who claimed to be the Wolves' spokesman is, by his own admission, "an idiot."
"I'm a fool," the man said Friday. "I apologize to the people of Danbury."
The man, who refused to give his name to The News-Times, had disrupted plans by Christian groups to hold a rally on Danbury Green by claiming that the neo-Nazi Grey Wolves would join in to support the rally's aim – to dissolve the barriers between church and state in the United States.
In fact, the man admitted, he made up the name of the group as a prank.
"There are no Grey Wolves," the man said ruefully on Friday. "I feel terrible about this."
With the threat of neo-Nazi violence removed, Danbury police said Friday they would issue the Christian groups a permit to hold the rally on Tuesday. However, the groups said they would move the rally to the Amber Room in Danbury.
"We do not anticipate any problems with this event," Danbury police said in a statement Friday. "But we will have appropriate resources on hand to deal with any crowd control concerns."
Danbury police said Friday night that the man is in his 40s and from the Danbury area, but declined to reveal anything more about the man.
The brouhaha began Wednesday when The News-Times posted a brief article on its Web site announcing that Minutemen United, an Ohio-based Christian organization, planned a rally on the Danbury Green. The group believes the walls between church and state must be removed.
Shortly thereafter, the man – who identified himself as Rick Renage on the phone and Rick Regado in e-mails – contacted The News-Times to say three busloads of Grey Wolves would show up to support Minutemen United. He described the group as having about 200 members who dressed in "black pants, black boots, red sox with black jackets and the swastika branded on the back."
"I personally am not looking for any confrontations, but if we are provoked, we will react very strongly," Renage/Regado wrote.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups in the United States, said Wednesday it had no knowledge of the Grey Wolves. "We follow these things very closely," Mark Potok, director of the Center's Intelligence Project said Friday. "We never heard of this guy."
This is understandable, since the group does not exist except, briefly, in the mind of a man who says he lives in southern Fairfield County.
When the Danbury Police Department tracked him down Friday, he said he came to the police department immediately to apologize profusely. After going public with his story, he was not charged with any crime.
Through the police, the man then called The News-Times to apologize both to reporter Elizabeth Putnam, whom he lied to, and to the entire newspaper. "I read it all the time," he said. "It's a great paper."
The man described himself as "a liberal, a Democrat and a Christian. It's hard to be all three nowadays."
After reading about the rally, he said, he became incensed.
"I'm sick of people mixing politics with Christianity and Christianity with politics," he said. "I have very strong convictions about the separation of church and state. These people want to create a theocracy."
As a prank, he said, he e-mailed the paper about the Grey Wolves. "I'm an idiot," he said. "Sometimes I do things that just don't make sense."
"It's a prank?" Potok said disdainfully "What's it supposed to accomplish? What did he think? That when he contacted the newspaper and said the Nazis were going to rally, they wouldn't report it?"
Potok said the Southern Poverty Law Center has tracked many hate groups that claim to have thousands of members "but end up being one guy, his computer and his dog." He said the center also has dealt with "people who claim to be Nazis, but are Jewish or gays – the type of people the Nazis would have killed.
"But I have to say, in 10 years of doing this work, this is a first for me," Potok said.
When he read the first account of the Grey Wolves in the News-Times on Thursday, Renage/Regado said, "I hoped it would end today." By Friday, when he learned the city was planning to withdraw the rally permit, he said, "I felt terrible."
The man apologized not only to the city, but to the ministers planning the rally. "I've been through hell and I deserve what I got," he said.
Contact Robert Miller
at bmiller@newstimes.com
or at (203) 731-3345.
This is a bit misleading. They are probably protesting the constitutionalization of the concept "separation of church and state", which was on a letter from Jefferson to the Baptists in Danbury. Presumably the Minutemen United group do not object to the First Amendment prohibition on religious establishment or restrictions on the free exercise of religion.
I'd guess that that would be the case, though I don't really know, not being familiar with the organization in question.
Of course the Slate and Chisel reports on the group w/o finding out if the group exists. Reports what they believe about Christians not what is.
Pray for W and Our Freedom Fighters
Heh...indeed it is...
With liberals, it's a way of life...
The Idiot says: "I'm sick of people mixing politics with Christianity and Christianity with politics," he said. "I have very strong convictions about the separation of church and state. These people want to create a theocracy."
In other words, his words align perfectly with those of the newspaper.
However, the website for MinutemenUnited, easily accessed because I found it in just under a minute with a simple google search, says:
Our Mission
To unite and mobilize God-fearing Americans as an effective, recognized force dedicated to restoring and upholding our Judeo-Christian values as the bedrock of this distinctly-American culture. America is at the crossroads. The enemies of God are relentless in their attack. Paul warns us that "Faith without works is dead." (Rom. 3:28) For too long Christians have been reactionary, sticking our thumbs in the dike when the enemy attacks. The Minutemen are a proactive network of believers ready at a moment's notice to do battle for the cause of Christ.
For more information on getting involved with our efforts, please contact us.
To learn more about supporting the Minutemen financially, go to our support page.
The minutemen site can be found here: http://minutemenunited.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=14
Incidentally, I am not now nor have I ever been a member of the Minutemen group.
Very nice.
How many other such fake groups or "wackos" exist only to cause problems for conservatives.
Good question.
"God hates fags"
Ring a bell?
LOL, I'm getting pretty close to qualifying too.
I'm wondering why the reporter for the newspaper didn't check out the story before it was put up on the website.
For the same reason reporters don't leave the greenzone in Baghdad.
Hmmmm...!
The SPLC steps in to unmask a nasty, leftist agent-provacateur...?! A masterstroke! This has the effect of casting the ultra-left, America-hating SPLC as sage moderates!
It's an orchestration WITHIN another orchestration...!
The SPLC arranged for him to clumsily orchestrate this crap specifically so that the BAD, BAD LEFTY could be "unmasked" in such grand, moderate style..!
1. "I'm an idiot," he said.
2. "Sometimes I do things that just don't make sense."
3. "I've been through hell and I deserved what I got"
Contrition? Hahahahah...! It's like the end of Scooby-Doo, where Skeletor grimaces and snaps, "I'd have gotten away with it IF IT HADN"T HAVE BEEN FOR YOU MEDDLING KIDS...!"
Don't you get it? It's not just golden material, no. It's a freeper's WET DREAM.
You know that wet dreams AREN'T REAL, RIGHT?
Why do you think the cops won't NAME him? Cuz the story was made up to make the SPLC look good.
The SPLC has a long, prominent checkered history of latching onto any leftist gobbledigook under the sun, and that keeps middle-of-the-roaders from sending their checks in.
So they cook up this kind of BS.
Heh...maybe the guy is actually Morris Dees...
Looks like CBS has a candidate to replace K. Couric should the latter fail!! He'll fit right in!!
And in the mind of Mark Potok.
Evidently.
In the grand tradition of Walter and Dan!
damn, and I thought *I* was cynical and suspicious!
sad thing is, you could easily be dead-bang on the money with your hypothesis.
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