The Texas Taliban

Down in the West Texas cowtown of Amarillo, there's a hate-group of right-minded "christian" citizens who have simply had enough with any of those new-fangled social(ist) beliefs and practices that are more modern than, say, the heyday of the Spanish Inquisition and are literally taking up arms to fight them.

They call themselves officially "Repent Amarillo" and they have an amateur-looking quasi-military-themed website at "triple-w dot repentamarillo dot com" (I don't want to give them the satisfaction of having a liberal blog link to them). On the front page they blatantly claim "this site is not designed for non-christians, It is designed as a recruitment tool to call certain Christians to spiritual warfare..."

Got that? "Spiritual" warfare.

They've got themselves a handy "warfare map" with virtual pushpins identifying Sexually-Oriented Businesses, Occult Witchcraft, Idol Worship and "Compromised Church's [sic]".

Okay, that alone would be not much more than an interesting boyscout aberration, but when it comes to warfare, these assholes practice what they preach.

Think Progress has the story:

An evangelical Christian hate group called “Repent Amarillo” is reportedly terrorizing the town of Amarillo, Texas. Repent fashions itself as a sort of militia and targets a wide range of community members they deem offensive to their theology: gays, liberal Christians, Muslims, environmentalists, breast cancer events that do not highlight abortion, Halloween, “spring break events,” and pornography shops.

. . .

Calling Repent an “American Taliban,” blogger Charles Johnson notes that the group’s moniker “Army of God” is a rough translation of “Hezbollah.” Led by a man named David Grisham, a security guard at a nuclear-bomb facility called Pantex, Repent first gained media attention in Texas following a campaign to boycott Houston for electing a gay mayor.

. . .

According to a new exposé by the Texas Observer, Repent set out earlier this year to destroy a discreet club of swingers they discovered in town. On New Years eve, the harassment began, with Repent members, almost exclusively young men, showing up in military fatigues and bullhorns, blaring Christian music at the swingers’ club building. The swingers, made up of “regulars” of middle aged, working class couples, were then stalked at every following visit to the club. Repent not only took video of each member, but obtained the swingers’ license plates and dug through their trash, informing neighbors and coworkers of what was once private.

You can read the full Texas Observer report to see everything that these paramilitary dickwads are up to.

Warfare usually includes guns and violence along with terror tactics. How long will it be before actually and literally heads will roll? And how long before this pernicious paramilitary group spreads to other locations? The Texas Taliban, indeed...

And how comforting is it, really, to learn that the HMFIC of this outfit is a security guard at a nuclear facility??!!