Campus speaker reinforces YAF's 'hate group' status

Last year, MSU’s chapter of Young Americans for Freedom was identified as a hate group — a charge it denied. Now the group’s members are proving their detractors correct by bringing a known Holocaust denier to speak on campus.

On Friday, MSU YAF will be hosting Nick Griffin, chairman of the anti-immigration British National Party. Griffin will be giving a speech on how Islam is “taking over” Europe, which is par for YAF’s course. But are they also aware of his active denial of the Holocaust — the “Holohoax,” as he calls it — and anti-Semitic statements?

In 1997, Griffin wrote “Who Are the Mindbenders,” which claimed that Britain’s media was controlled by Jews. A year later he said, “I am well aware that the orthodox opinion is that 6 million Jews were gassed and cremated and turned into lampshades. Orthodox opinion also once held that the Earth was flat. I have reached the conclusion that the extermination tale is a mixture of Allied wartime propaganda, extremely profitable lie and latter witch-hysteria.”

These days, Mr. Griffin is more likely to speak ill of Muslims and immigrants than Jews. However, he’s never recanted his previous statements or made any apologies for them.

To give YAF the benefit of the doubt, maybe they had no idea of all Mr. Griffin’s positions. But now that they know, I have to ask: MSU YAF — do you stand by your speaker?

J. Edward Tremlett

Lansing resident