Story at a glance
- The Asatru Folk Assembly is a white supremacist group that practices a pre-Christian, Euro-centric form of religion.
- The group applied for a permit to use an abandoned Lutheran church in Murdock City, Minn.
- The council granted the permit despite opposition from several local groups.
In an anonymous vote Wednesday, a Minnesota city council granted a permit for the use of an abandoned Lutheran church to a white supremacist group.
“We as the leaders of the City of Murdock want it to be known that the City of Murdock condemns racism in all of its forms: conscious, unconscious, any place, any time, now and in the future. We are committed to building a community that promotes equal justice and opportunity to every single person regardless of their race,” said Murdock City Mayor Craig Kavanagh.
In a post on Facebook, Kavanagh said the city council was “highly advised by multiple legal sources” not to deny the permit considering the potential legal challenge under the First Amendment right to freedom of assembly and religion.
“There are certain constitutional protections that apply to religions,” Don Wilcox, the city attorney, told the Star Tribune. “I haven’t seen any evidence sufficient to overcome the presumption that they are a religion, whether you agree with it or not.”
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He added: “There’s not a compelling interest in keeping that building from being used for meetings. Just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean they can’t do it.”
The Asatru Folk Assembly, formed by Stephen McNallen in 1995, is characterized by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a neo-Volkisch (or Folkish) group organized around “ethnocentricity and archaic notions of gender.” Their purpose, as stated on their website is to return to a pre-Christian spirituality, or “ancestral religion,” through the preservation of ethnic European “folk.”
“Let us be clear: by Ethnic European Folk we mean white people,” reads the declaration of purpose. Their statement of ethics includes white supremacist notions of ancestry and family, stating, “Healthy families are the cornerstone of folk society and its strength and prosperity is derived from them. We in Asatru support strong, healthy white family relationships. We want our children to grow up to be mothers and fathers to white children of their own. We believe that those activities and behaviors supportive of the white family should be encouraged while those activities and behaviors destructive of the white family are to be discouraged.”
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The group has met heavy opposition, including from the Murdock Area Alliance Against Hate, which organized against the Assembly and protested outside City Hall on Wednesday. The city’s population of less than 300 people is nearly entirely white, according to the 2019 American Community Survey, with less than one percent of the population identifying as Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander.
“Yesterday was a devastating and difficult day for Murdock. Residents no longer feel safe with the presence of the Asatru Folk Assembly in their community,” said the group in a statement on Facebook.
Several leaders of heathen groups, which also practice a form of pre-Christian religion based in Nordic or Germanic Beliefs, issued statements denouncing the AFA as a fringe group.
“The AFA represents an extremist faction within Heathenry,” said heathen leaders from the Twin Cities in a statement to the Star Tribune. “As longtime heathen leaders in the Twin Cities, we stand in solidarity with and share the concerns of the residents of Murdock. Our beliefs and practices are inclusive and do not support a racialized version of heathen beliefs.”
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Correction: This story was updated at 12:40 pm ET on Dec. 14, 2020 to clarify that the AFA follows pre-Christian traditions.
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