Neo-Nazi "skinheads" have moved to this southern Utah community and say they want to turn nearby Zion National Park into a whites-only haven.
"We're here to preserve our culture and prepare an ancestral homeland for the kingdom of Yahweh," said Johnny Bangerter, a second cousin to Utah Gov. Norman Bangerter. "We want to kick the money-changers out of Zion and reclaim it for the true people of Israel."Activities of the clan were unveiled in a copyright story in Sunday's The Salt Lake Tribune.
The paramilitary-style group moved from Las Vegas recently and calls itself the Army of Israel. Members draw their beliefs from the racist Christian Identity movement that counts among its subscribers the Ku Klux Klan and the Hayden Lake, Idaho, Church of Jesus Christ Christian-Aryan Nations.
Its "soldiers" are young blond women and athletic men who shave their heads so enemies cannot pull their hair while fighting.
The skinheads say they wear black because they are in mourning for the "spilt blood of our people."
Counted among the martyrs are the wife and son of white separatist Randy Weaver, awaiting trial on federal murder charges following an 11-day standoff last month at his bunker-like cabin in northern Idaho.
His wife and son, Vicki and Samuel, were killed by federal agents during the siege that began when Marshal William Degan of Boston was killed while trying to arrest Weaver on federal firearms charges.
Bangerter said he is a friend of the Weaver family and says he has written a note delivered to Weaver by Populist presidential candidate Bo Gritz, helping to end the standoff. He worries about federal retaliation for his role.
"I was in Idaho openly arguing against the feds and said if I had to shoot them, I would," said Bangerter, 23.
The enclave claims many enemies: white federal government agents considered "race traitors," Jewish people who control the "international banking system," homosexuals who "must be killed as the Bible says," and ethnic groups who "mate against their race."
Human-rights activists say groups like the Bangerter clan practice a religion of hatred. "These people have very narrow, misguided beliefs," says Beverly Eisen of the Jewish Federation League of Las Vegas.
But the Hurricane skinheads deny they are a hate group.
"This movement is about love, not hate," said Mary Lynn Seimans, Bangerter's 20-year-old sister. "Racism is pride in your culture and trying to survive in an environment where your race is being stomped out."
Las Vegas Metro Police officials say 10 to 20 skinheads traveled the 200 miles to Hurricane about three months ago.
A staff member of Gov. Bangerter's office said the governor was familiar with his cousin's activities. The governor was otherwise unavailable for comment.
The Rev. Richard Butler, who heads the Aryan Nations compound in Hayden Lake, said Bangerter and his clan are frequent visitors.
"If they can establish a homeland there, we would be very happy," he said. "The white race is an endangered species and we are all for preservation of it. If that means the elimination of all other races, so be it."
Zion's chief ranger Larry Van Slyke said the Washington County Law Enforcement Association has been alerted to the skinheads' arrival.
"If they are coming into the park, they are doing it in an orderly fashion," Van Slyke said.