Army of God Website Adds Racist Materials

The Rev. Donald Spitz has never been a pleasant man. Considered a wild-eyed extremist even among his colleagues on the radical anti-abortion scene, the head of Pro-Life Virginia and long-time principal of the Army of God Web site (armyofgod.com) applauds the murderers of physicians, clinic workers and secretaries.

He rails against "filthy f------" and "lesbos." Islam is "Satanic," Arabs are "R---H----," and Muslims "should not be allowed to live in the United States." New York City is a "sex perverted cesspool" that richly deserved Sept. 11.

But there is one type of vicious group hatred Don Spitz has always denied — the "false accusations of racism" against blacks "put out by desperate babykilling abortionists." If a black man accepts Christ, "then that man is my brother."

Well, maybe. And maybe not.

This summer, on the Web site long run by Spitz, a remarkable series of headlines began to appear under "Current News Stories for Christians." To almost anyone but Spitz, these racy one-liners reflect the crudest kind of racism.

"African-American on bike randomly shoots people," screams one link to a legitimate news story. "83 Year old White Woman beaten to death by three African-Americans," says another. "African-American Killed her," a third reads under photos of the principals, "because she was White and her parents 'didn't allow her to have sex with a black man.'" And the list goes on:

• "NAACP calls for the murder of Police Officers."

• "Black robbers mug chancellor's [white] wife."

• "White woman carjacked, raped and executed by African-Americans."

And a longer headline accompanied by a photograph of an attractive white woman: "White Rebekah Hanson marries African-American Kashard Brown, then White Rebekah Hanson murdered by her African-American husband Kashard Brown."

A little further down the list, another headline is limited to a single quote: "Let's rape these White Girls, kill them and throw 'em off the bridge!"

These eye-catching headlines are published on the Army of God Web site that Spitz has run for years. The Army of God is a loosely connected collection of people who have carried out violent attacks on abortion clinics, doctors and other clinic workers.

Although there is no evidence to suggest a formally structured group, scores of violent criminals, saying they were called to their work directly by God, have described themselves as "members" of this self-appointed army.

Spitz, who does not have a record of criminal violence, claimed that he had not personally written the headlines — but he saw little problem with the person who supposedly did.

"Those two guys in Texas," he told the Intelligence Report in a reference to the truck-dragging murder of James Byrd Jr., "no one had a problem making race the issue there. So I don't know why this would be considered a racial issue."

The news stories "have a racial component" and the headlines merely reflect that, he said. They are "not making a dialogue or a commentary," Spitz added.

Spitz, 56, said he had recently turned over day-to-day control of the site, temporarily, to a man he refused to name — a man who goes by the pseudonym of Ehud Gera. (Ehud, son of Gera, is a left-handed character in the Bible's Book of Judges who uses stealth and a dagger to murder Eglon, king of Moab, and then goes on to lead the Israelites to victory over the 10,000-man army of Moab.)

Spitz may not direct the site. But the Web site directs correspondents to write "Gera" at a Chesapeake, Va., postal box held for years by Spitz and his wife. Spitz, who has lived in Chesapeake for many years, described "Gera" only as an ally.

Spitz has courted controversy for years. He was kicked out of Operation Rescue after the first murder of an abortion doctor in 1993. A Pentecostal minister without a congregation, he has cheered such murders as "righteous," posted "war criminal" posters of doctors, and been arrested at clinics.

According to Wrath of Angels, a book on the abortion wars by James Risen and Judy Thomas, authorities found his name and unlisted phone number in the possession of John Salvi after Salvi murdered two clinic workers and wounded five others in 1994.

Salvi was caught after he carried out the murders in the Boston area and then traveled more than 500 miles to fire a barrage of shots at the Hillcrest Clinic in Norfolk, Va. — a clinic that was routinely picketed by Donald Spitz. Spitz later held a "prayer vigil" outside Salvi's jail cell, shouting, "We love you, John Salvi!"

Last year, Spitz was contacted by Clayton Waagner, who was then a fugitive who boasted of mailing some fake anthrax threats to abortion clinics. Many of Waagner's threats were signed "Army of God, Virginia Dare chapter." Dare was the first white child born in America, and is often romanticized by white supremacists.

For his part, Spitz insisted that he harbors no racial animosity — indeed, he said, "I know more black people than I know white people." The headlines on the Web site, the reverend explained, merely reflect "black-on-white racism."