Mitch Kahle is the atheist activist responsible for getting a hydraulic cross taken down in Grand Haven (Michigan), having a sign with an Old Testament verse on it removed from a public park, and getting Hawaiian churches to pay up for their illegally-cheap rental prices at public schools.

The Detroit News has a profile of Kahle and his activism that you can read here:

“I’ve been called every name in the book,” said Kahle. He has received hate mail and death threats, and been cursed at by Christians. From pulpits to social media, he has been compared to a terrorist, Hitler, vampire, demon and even the dark prince himself, Satan. “How is it that a dirtbag can come into a community and cause so much controversy and destruction?” asked Rick Phillips, 59, a Spring Lake real estate broker who organized a rally to support the cross last year. “These carpetbaggers need to be driven from our community.”

Those are some harsh words to use against someone whose biggest “crime” is trying to get Christians to play by the same rules as everyone else.

Kahle doesn’t come off completely innocent either:

“Show me an evangelical Christian organization and I’ll show you a fraud,” he wrote on a science education group website in 2010. “They are all in it for the money, and power over helpless and desperate people.”

That’s where we part ways. I could name any number of sincere Christian organizations. Their beliefs may be childish, but their intentions are genuine.

The best passage in the piece, though, has to be this nugget from a Christian who spoke in defense of the Old Testament sign in a Michigan public park:

“Everybody knows this is a Christian place, not a Muslim place, not a Hindu place,” Matt Kooienga, associate pastor of Harvest Baptist Church in Hudsonville, said during the Jan. 13 work session. “We don’t have to lock our doors. The reason for that is we’re Christians.”

That’s a pleasant way of saying brown people aren’t welcome in these here parts.

Don’t bother reading the comments on that article. They’re no less ignorant than those from the Christians quoted in the piece.

(Thanks to Wendy for the link)



