Hooded, noose-carrying snowman spreads holiday hate

Residents in Hayden, Idaho were surprised and appalled to discover a massive noose-carrying, KKK hood-wearing snowman erected on the front lawn of a neighborhood home.

Several parents noticed the nearly 10-foot-tall snowman while driving their children to school on Wednesday, KXLY4 reported.

The snowman has a pointed KKK-style hood and an outstretched right hand with a noose in it. In addition to the snowman, the home also has an Aryan nations flag on display.

This is not the first time the homeowner, a self-described white separatist, has been the subject of a media report because of his actions. In October, KXLY4 reported that the homeowner passed out bullets on Halloween.

The homeowner later removed the noose from his snowman, after being visited by county sheriff's deputies and informed that he could face criminal charges for hanging a noose. The pointed hat of the snowman has also reportedly been knocked off.

Other incidents involving the Ku Klux Klan have occurred around the nation over the past few months.

Members of the Ku Klux Klan and the Supreme White Alliance rallied at Augusta State University after a student there was told her beliefs about homosexuality were "unethical and incompatible with the prevailing views of the counseling profession."

Based on her religious beliefs, Jennifer Keeton, who has no known affiliation with the Ku Klux Klan or any other hate group, considers intimacy between adults of the same gender to be sinful.

Keeton filed suit after the university threatened to expel her if she did not undergo a "re-education plan," claiming her First Amendment rights were being violated.

"We're trying to protest the constitutional rights that they are trying to take away from her," said a grand dragon with the KKK, Bobby Spurlock. "She has not contacted us, but we were contacted by someone that is aware of her."

At their rally, the dozens of protesters were confronted by nearly 300 counter-protesters from homosexual and civil rights organizations, The Augusta Chronicle reported.

"We had 200 people rallying against them, and they had eight people," said one counter protester. "They looked like idiots."

Hours after ending their protest, the Klan members held an initiation ceremony at a house in Warrenville, South Carolina. Later, the Klan members ceremonially burned a cross.

The protest at Augusta State University was not the only appearance the Klan made in Georgia this year.

Last month, members of Klan rallied on the steps of the Gilmer County courthouse in Ellijay and, earlier this year, another Klan rally took place in the town of Nahunta.

"Certainly in Nahunta and Ellijay, although there were 40 robed Klansmen -- and that's a significant number when you think about it today -- there were probably 300 to 500 spectators," Bill Nigut, Southeast director of the Anti-Defamation League, told WXIA. "And in Nahunta and Ellijay both, there were many people nodding in agreement, supportive."

"They continue to be anti-Semitic and they continue to be racists," continues Nigut. "In an attempt to find a way to communicate with the mainstream communities, they take on issues they think the communities share in common with them."

On October 26th, the University of Wisconsin at Waukesha campus was vandalized with swastikas and the initials "KKK."

On October 20th, KAIT8 reported that a man in southeast Missouri decorated his yard by placing a Ku Klux Klan figure next to a black man hanging from a noose. The man, who said the display speaks for itself, later removed the "decorations" at the request of the county sheriff.

On October 8th, residents of a neighborhood in Indiana complained about finding Ku Klux Klan fliers in front of their homes.

"Martinsville, over the years, has kind of gotten rid of that reputation that we used to have down here," one resident told 6News. "You get tired of all the junk mail, and I would consider that true junk mail."