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women — have been charged with
issuing terroristic threats and participating in gang activity in connection with their driving their
flag-draped trucks to a birthday
party for a young black child in
Douglasville, Ga. Once there, they
allegedly brandished weapons,
shouted racial slurs and issued
threats before roaring off.
The Southern Poverty Law
Center, which publishes the
Intelligence Report, launched an
investigation and played an integral role in presenting Douglas
County District Attorney
Brian Fortner with evidence
and witnesses.
On Oct. 12, Fortner charged
the individuals, who are accused
of belonging to a loosely organized
group called Respect the Flag,
under Georgia’s Street Gang
Terrorism and Prevention Act.
The law, according to the Georgia
General Assembly’s statement of
intent, is meant to criminalize
association with “violent criminal street gangs whose members threaten, terrorize and
commit a multitude of crimes
against the peaceful citizens of
their neighborhoods.”
That description would certainly seem to characterize the
behavior of the Respect the Flag
convoy, which, on the morning
in question, happened upon the
Douglasville party and decided to
make some trouble.
After driving across part of
the private property where the
party was being held, several
Respect the Flag members allegedly parked their trucks and
leaped out, brandishing weapons. According to witnesses,
some yelled, “Fuck y’all niggers”
and “shoot ‘em.” When someone
from the party told them there
were children present, a member
of the convoy replied, “We’ll shoot
those bastards too.”
“This is what terror feels like,”
said Melissa Alford, who was
hosting the party. “These people
intimidated and threatened us just
for being who we are.”
[ A N T I- LG BT EX T R EMIS M ]
World Congress of
Families Event Draws
Gay-Bashing Lineup
A hate group with international
reach and a talent for couching its
anti-LGBT agenda in respectfulsounding terms convened in Salt
Lake City during the last week of
October, bringing together a raft
of right-wing heavy-hitters to talk
about “[t]he value of life in all its
stages and conditions.”
This was the first time that
the World Congress of Families
(WCF), a Rockford, Ill.-based
organization that’s been instrumental in promoting anti-LGBT
laws in Nigeria, Russia, Uganda
and elsewhere, has held its
annual gathering in the United
States. Typically, the group
meets abroad, in countries more
open to its aggressive antiLGBT agenda. (The 2014 conference, for instance, was set to
take place in Russia, the site of a
recent WCF victory in the form
of a law banning LGBT “propaganda.” But those plans were
suspended in the aftermath of
Russia’s annexation of Crimea
from neighboring Ukraine.)
Speakers at the Salt Lake City
event included Mark Regnerus,
author of a discredited but widely
Hate on parade: 15
people who allegedly
harassed black
residents from a
parade of Confederate
flag-bearing vehicles
face charges of making
terroristic threats.
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