Christian Taliban

‘Christian’ Taliban targets Amarillo

The Amarillo Independent’s management and staff have historically taken a live-and let- live approach to people’s religious beliefs. But a group in Amarillo has reared its head, and an ugly head it is.

RepentAmarillo, a group that on New Year’s Eve stood outside an alleged swingers club and claimed it was “witnessing” not “protesting,” can only be described as a true example of “Christian” Taliban. They refer to themselves as the Marines of spiritual warfare.

So far, the “witnessing” in front of the swingers club hasn’t resulted in much mayhem.

But a look at RepentAmarillo’s Web site (www.repentamarillo. com) is chilling for its aggression, for what it deems worthy of its attention and for its range of targets that include mainstream Christian churches and organizations in this city that do great good.

Their mission is to target Earth Day events as Earth worship or breast cancer events like Race for the Cure “to illuminate the link between abortion and breast cancer.” Organizations targeted as sites for “occult witchcraft” include the Masonic Lodge and Khiva Shrine. They condemn Wildcat Bluff, First Church of Christ Scientist and Metropolitan Community Church as places of idol worship. And they call Polk Street United Methodist and St. Andrew’s Episcopal churches “compromised” because these mainline Christian places of worship are “gay friendly.” All these are plotted on an interactive Google map.

If all this makes this bunch sound so much like Ayatollah Khomeini with a slightly different rhetoric, you’re right.

Amarillo prides itself on its friendliness and tolerance and being a great place for business.

But if sophisticated businesspeople get wind of this group’s insanity, economic growth will stall and we will be perceived as being in the Middle Ages.

That’s where RepentAmarillo belongs.