Bad Free Press reporting on the Hutaree story

The Detroit Free Press has an article about the arrests of members of the Hutaree Christian militia that contains several inaccuracies. First, the article seems to imply that the Hutaree were motivated by racism by generalizing about all “extremist” groups and the increase in such groups after the election of Barack Obama as president:

The actions of the Christian militia group raided in Michigan are part of a growing trend of militant activity across the US because of the weak economy and an African-American president, experts and a civil rights group say.

There certainly is little doubt that some militia groups have seen membership grow as a result of racist sentiment after the election of President Obama. There has been a boost in both membership in existing groups and an increase in the number of such groups over the past 15 months.

But there is no evidence at all that the Hutaree group has any racist ideology at all. There is, in fact, evidence against it. On their message board, when another right wing extremist showed up offering standard far right rhetoric about Jews, for example — something that is almost universal among the racist militias — at least two of the men arrested as leaders of Hutaree rejected him and argued strongly against him, saying they wanted nothing to do that kind of ideology.

Yes, there are racist militias, and there are probably some racists among the rank and file of most militias, but the Hutaree appear to have been a religious militia, motivated by their own end times ideology, not a racist one.

Second, the article claims that Hutaree is in the mainstream of the militia movement and they cite Heidi Beirich from the Southern Poverty Law Center:

Ms Beirich said that Hutaree was not isolated from other militias, noting that it had more than 363 friends on MySpace, including militias in Ohio, Kentucky and Michigan.

”They were part of the broader militia movement,” she said.

But a militia leader in Michigan said Hutaree was not connected to them in any way, describing Hutaree as a fringe cult.

”They more closely fit the definition of a cult,” said Michael Lackomar, with the Southeastern Michigan Volunteer Militia and michiganmilitia.com.

Lackomar’s claim here is not merely the convenient distancing of his group from Hutaree; in fact, the other militias in the state of Michigan had long ago distanced themselves from Hutaree and rejected them as reckless. I spoke with Amy Cooter, a University of Michigan grad student who is doing her PhD thesis on the militia movement and has spent countless hours with the various Michigan militias over the past year or so.

She told me that she had intentionally not spent any time with Hutaree because members of the other militias that she had established contact with had warned her that they were too extreme and too reckless and it would not be safe to be with them. That was at the beginning of her research, so the rejection of Hutaree is not a position that was created by the other militias after that group got in legal trouble in order to distance themselves.

Hutaree was clearly out of the mainstream of the militia movement in this state and around the country, regardless of how many friends they may have on Facebook.