You can blame it on the times, I suppose. Gay marriage, the immigration problem, that thing with the Islamists, globalization, any number of reasons but the outcome is the same – there’s a resurgence being staged by the Ku Klux Klan.

According to the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center, Klan membership is up – somewhere between 5,000 and 8.000 in some 180 chapters. Worse than that, however, is that the Klan is getting much more active and is spreading into new territory with new chapters in Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Iowa, Nebraska, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.

The Christian Science Monitor reports that, “…it is the increase in activity, including rallies, recruitment drives, and distribution of racist literature, and the partnering with skinheads, neo-Nazis, and other kinds of hate groups, that civil rights groups find troubling.
“As it did from its founding, the KKK views itself has having a religious dimension. Members see “lighting” a cross as a symbol of faith. Today, Christian Evangelicals are much more likely than mainstream Protestants or Roman Catholics to believe that “newcomers threaten traditional American customs and values,” according to the Pew Research Center.
“It is this trend in attitudes that the Klan hopes to use in recruiting new supporters among those opposed to US immigration policies and practices, according to Klan leaders and expert observers.

“‘While we generally think of it as a white supremacist organization, the Klan at its peak was virulently anti-immigrant, particularly with regard to Catholic immigrants, Irish, and southern European,’ says Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino.

“But, he adds, ‘The whole nature of hate group membership has changed with the advent of the Internet. You can take bits and pieces from whatever group you like without necessarily becoming a card- carrying member.'”