Proud heterosexuals — a small and nameless handful of them, anyway – are on the march. And they’re not being very nice about it.

Back in June 2012, the Facebook page “Heterosexual Awareness Month” (HAM) was created to “celebrate heterosexuality.” According to the page’s administrators, who are anonymous (though one goes by “Dr. HAM”), July is “Heterosexual Awareness Month.” The page’s mission is to “educate the world, commemorate our heritage, celebrate our culture, and liberate our people.” The site goes on to say that Heterosexual Awareness Month is meant to highlight straight people’s “growing struggle of the rights and related civil rights put in jeopardy.”

The page includes status updates, images and comment threads that range from mild to genuinely offensive. And though Dr. HAM told the Huffington Post in December that “I would like to say we are not about hate in any way,” the facts seem to pretty plainly belie him. HAM moderators have posted comments about “the gay agenda” and baselessly linked homosexuality to pedophilia. They have posted Photoshopped images like the one of a gay pride marcher whose sign has been altered to read, “My Butt Hurts.” One post compares the “fertile garden” of heterosexuality to the “toxic waste zone” of homosexuality. Another urges gay people to stop “acting like animals” and “evolve already.” HAM allows most anyone who agrees with it to post comments. But you will be banned, it says, if you post “accusations of racism” or if you call women derogatory names. Comments supportive of LGBT people do appear on the threads, but are typically followed by anti-gay responses. ( continue to full post… )

It began about two weeks ago, when a local television station in Memphis, Tenn., allowed a man with a hooded face, identifying himself only as “Edward” and speaking on what was apparently his own rear deck, to announce to the world that he would soon be bringing “thousands” of Klansmen to a protest with no date.

From there, the thin little tale morphed into something of a national story about what is being characterized as “one of the biggest KKK rallies of all time.” Articles have run in New York City newspapers and even abroad about the event, now planned for March 30 while officials weigh the Klan’s permit application, and national TV networks are considering covering it. Memphis Police Director Toney Armstrong is asking for help from local and federal law enforcement agencies. The NAACP has decried the event, and a local university art professor created a 600-member Facebook page called “Challenging the Klan’s Message.”

But is the rally — which is a protest of an earlier decision to rename three Memphis parks that honored the Confederacy, including one named after the first national leader of the Ku Klux Klan — really going to be that big? Not even remotely likely. It would be a surprise if the event drew 40 Klansmen, and it will likely be considerably fewer than that. ( continue to full post… )

John Guandolo, the former FBI agent who has made a living calling out high-ranking government officials as secret plants working for the Muslim Brotherhood, may have finally crossed the Rubicon into total outrageousness.

Oh sure, he’s already gone after college professors who weren’t sufficiently anti-Muslim. He’s identified mosques that he says are bases of operation for militant Islam. He’s asserted that Muslims have no First Amendment rights in America and aim only to “subjugate” the nation. But it was just last week that he made what may be his most remarkable claim yet, insisting that John Brennan, President Obama’s nominee to head the Central Intelligence Agency, is secretly a Muslim convert working to undermine the Constitution. ( continue to full post… )

Godwin’s Law, an Internet adage started by lawyer and writer Mike Godwin in 1990, states, “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.”

The law’s point, Godwin explained in a 1995 article for Wired magazine, was the Internet seems to lead to glib comparisons between various politicians’ behavior and Hitler and Nazis which “invariably … trivialized the horror of the Holocaust and the social pathology of the Nazis”.

Godwin’s Law proved true once again on Friday, when TeaParty.org, a particularly vicious faction of the nebulous right-wing movement, treated subscribers to an E-mail blast titled “Stop America’s Hitler,” featuring a picture of President Obama sporting a Hitler moustache. If that wasn’t enough, the E-mail also included a photograph of two Nazis executing a victim with a pistol. ( continue to full post… )

A reported member of the white nationalist Council of Conservative Citizens is running for a seat on a suburban Kansas City, Mo., school board on a platform that includes “removing materials that promote racial diversity” in a district that is becoming increasingly diverse.

The candidate, Edward Stephens, a 25-year-old electrical engineer, came in fifth – dead last – with 5% of the vote when he first ran for a seat on the seven-member Park Hill School board in Platte County in 2012. A candidate who dropped out of the race before the election even got more votes than Stephens. ( continue to full post… )

Religious-right extremists who have spent most of their energy in recent years vilifying LGBT people or fighting the nation’s culture wars on other fronts have found a new demon to slay: gun control.

It might seem odd that those who profess allegiance to the teachings of Jesus Christ would be so vociferous about making sure that Americans have continued, unfettered access to assault rifles. But in the wake of the massacre of schoolchildren in Connecticut, which ignited the most heated debate about gun control in this country in a decade, some of the religious right’s most rabid voices are joining the fight. ( continue to full post… )

Michael Kleen, the Republican candidate for mayor of Rockford, Ill., is running on an innocuous “safer streets” platform, pledging “appreciation for commonsense and moderation” on a campaign website that sparkles with sweet reason, offering a profile of a trustworthy, public-spirited candidate.

But Hatewatch has discovered that there’s more to Kleen than the sanitized information his campaign offers. The citizens of Rockford — the third largest city in Illinois, with a population that is 20% African-American and 16% Latino — may not realize that Kleen has published his very controversial views on immigration, secession and education on hate-oriented sites such as VDARE.com and WorldNetDaily.com. He also participated in several interviews on The Voice of Reason Radio Network, a mouthpiece for the white nationalist movement that went offline last August. ( continue to full post… )

Editor’s Update: The Tennessee Department of Public Safety and Homeland Security Friday suspended the handgun carry permit of James Yeager, who earlier threatened to “start killing people” if gun control advanced, according to WTVF-TV in Nashville. Commissioner Bill Gibbons said Yeager’s comments were “irresponsible, dangerous and deserved our immediate attention.” Department officials said that they had not certified Yeager or his Tactical Response school as instructors.

The Department of Homeland Security is reportedly investigating threats made this week by a Tennessee businessman — the same private security contractor who was at the center of a controversial shootout while working as a mercenary during the Iraq War.

James Yeager, who owns Tactical Response and Tactical Response Gear Inc., based in Camden, Tenn., said on a YouTube video posted Wednesday that if President Obama uses executive orders to ban assault rifles, “I’m going to start killing people.” Yeager’s firm provides training and equipment to police and military units, as well as the private sector, according to his website. ( continue to full post… )

When Tennessee weapons instructor James Yeager threatened Wednesday to “start killing people” if President Obama moved ahead on gun control, his infuriated rant went national, with dozens of media outlets and blogs expressing amazement.

In thousands of comments about Yeager’s YouTube video and another video the unrepentant Tactical Response CEO posted yesterday, Americans wondered if Yeager was breaking the law, or mentally ill, or a perfect example of the need for gun control. “Amazing, really,” wrote a commenter on the Hatewatch blog. “Simply amazing. These people are certifiably insane.” Said another, “These are the words of a real terrorist.” And a third wondered, “Can’t he be arrested for this?”

But the truth is that the death threats from Yeager — a man who is a former police chief, protective services contractor in Iraq, and owner of two companies that provide tactical weapons and training to police and military units — are not unique. Although Yeager said it more clearly than most, and with more profanity, the far right in America generally is reacting to the prospect of gun control with hysteria. ( continue to full post… )

James Yeager, the furious tactical weapons trainer who yesterday threatened to “start killing people” if gun control advances, today put up a second video in which he said he had “probably allowed my mouth to overrun my logic” — but then immediately added that he did not retract any of his statements.

Yeager, who is CEO of Tactical Response and Tactical Response Gear Inc., said in his second video that he had been “overwhelmed” with sympathetic responses from alumni of his training programs and others. But he wasn’t too nice to them, either.

“People are saying stuff like, ‘Well, it needed to be said but you shouldn’t have said it.’ Well, look around. Who else is going to say it? Who else is going to say it?” Yeager demanded in another enraged rant. “And all you fucking fair-weather Second Amendment people that are telling me I’m doing a fucking disservice by saying that I’m not going to stand for the tyranny, fuck you. Our country wasn’t founded by a bunch of fair-weather pussies. Either you’re in or you’re out, and if you’re out, don’t call yourself a fucking Second Amendment advocate.” ( continue to full post… )