A California-based church group has been given approval to open their doors in a small-town in Minnesota -- exclusively to white parishioners.
The Asatru Folk Assembly church was given permission by a vote of the Murdock, Minnesota city council to practice its pre-Christian religion, originating in northern Europe. But residents of the town are outraged.
Having garnered 50,000 signatures in an online petition, Murdock residents are trying to prevent the church (based in Brownsville, California), from dropping roots in their farming town of 280.
"I think they thought they could fly under the radar in a small town like this, but we'd like to keep the pressure on them," Peter Kennedy, a longtime Murdock resident told NBC News. "Racism is not welcome here."
Residents, call the church group white supremacists, according to NBC, and say they embrace the growing Latino population who've recently relocated to their town more than they do the church members. Latinos make up about 20 percent of Murdock's small population. Many are day laborers from Mexico and Central America, city officials said.
The Southern Poverty Law Center describes Asatru Folk Assembly as a "neo-Volkisch hate group" that is able to hide "their bigotry in baseless claims of bloodlines grounding the superiority of one's white identity."
The Asatru Folk Assembly denies that they're racist. They say they simply respect their cultural heritage. "We honor the Gods under the names given to them by our Germanic/Norse ancestors," the group wrote on its website about their beliefs.
