Court lets inmate fight for racist literature
Hayes filed a federal lawsuit in Knoxville in 2006 when officials at Brushy Mountain Correctional Complex barred him from having the materials. He wanted prison officials to recognize his membership in the religious group Christian Israel Identity. He also wanted to receive mailings from the New Christian Crusade Church of Metairie, La., court documents say.
Based on his requested religious affiliation and materials, Hayes is aligning himself with the racist Christian Identity movement, said Mark Potok, head of the department that monitors hate groups for the Southern Poverty Law Center.
“This is fundamentally a neo-Nazi reading of the Bible,” Potok said. “Christian identity says the Bible is the reading of the white race.”
He says the movement has caused violence.
The religious material that warden rejected contained messages of white supremacy, claiming the Bible is for the white race only and that “Jews are mongrelized descendants of Satan through Cain,” court documents say.