Y2K Fair Organizer Tells Speaker Not To Show Up Two Groups Pull Out Of Event After Learning Of Chris Temple’S Ties To Racists

A man with ties to racism and anti-Semitism was removed Tuesday as a featured speaker at a Y2K preparedness fair scheduled this weekend at the Spokane Convention Center.

Chris Temple, who has spoken to the Aryan Nations, was told he won’t lecture at the Y2K event after two participants said they were withdrawing.

Temple, an investment counselor who says he isn’t a racist, had planned to talk about investment strategies for Y2K as well as other financial issues.

“I just told him we weren’t going to be using him as a speaker,” said businessman Blake Carlson, who is renting the Convention Center for the fair, called the Outdoor Sports and Survival Expo. “We did this because of what Chris Temple stands for.”

The three-day fair, aimed at helping families prepare for potential Y2K disruptions and natural disasters, will feature several speakers and dozens of exhibitors.

Avista Corp. and the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Minority Business Division said they didn’t want to share the stage with Temple.

“Avista Corp. will not be part of any event that promotes or condones racist beliefs,” Avista spokesman Steve Becker said.

Wayne Dobson of the Commerce Department’s Minority Business Division said he was “distressed to learn” about Temple’s past associations.

It wasn’t clear late Tuesday whether the federal agency would reconsider its participation with Temple off the schedule.

Mayor John Talbott said he didn’t hear about the controversy until Tuesday.

“My question is: `Why was he on the program in the first place?”’ the mayor asked. “It looks to me like somebody didn’t do their homework.”

Vince Lemus, the city’s human rights specialist, said he forwarded a news release about Temple’s appearance to the mayor and acting City Manager Pete Fortin on Sept. 22.

The news release, from the Coalition for Human Dignity based in Bellingham, Wash., identifies Temple as a “self-described national socialist” who also adheres to the racist, anti-Semitic theology of Christian Identity.

“I am very much a national socialist,” Temple told an audience in May 1997, the Coalition’s release says.

National socialists are more commonly called neo-Nazis.

But in a letter sent Tuesday to event organizers, Temple said his remarks were taken out of context in a speech he delivered to a class at the University of Montana.

“I pointed out how and why many Americans would, by definition, be considered `national socialists’ based on various economic tenets involved in that philosophy,” Temple said. “And, indeed, I put myself in that category.”

His Montana talk was “highly critical” of the Christian Identity movement, Aryan Nations and various militia groups, Temple said in the letter.

He said remarks about him were “intellectually dishonest and slanderous,” and an attempt to “try to disrupt a peaceful meeting of law-abiding Christian people.”

Temple said his critics “are groups which have a long history of attacking the integrity, reputations and constitutional rights of those with whom they politically disagree, generally anyone who is a conservative and Christian.”

Others said Temple’s track record is clear.

Khalil Islam, vice chairman of the Spokane Human Rights Commission, said Temple “has a well-documented history of involvement with hate organizations.”

Temple was a speaker at the Aryan Nations World Congress in 1996 and is a contributor to the Jubilee, an anti-Semitic, anti-government newspaper published in California.

He also was co-founder of United Citizens for Justice, an anti-government citizens group formed after the 1992 siege at Ruby Ridge.

The group’s first speaker was Aryan Nations “ambassador” Louis Beam, a former Texas Ku Klux Klan leader.

Temple, formerly of Noxon, Mont., now operates an investment counseling business in Spooner, Wis.

He spoke about the gold market, Y2K investment strategies and the “post Y2K world” at a similar Y2K fair last month in Portland.

Temple said his critics couldn’t find “one word” that he delivered in Portland that could be “construed as hate or promoting any such unsavory views.”

Carlson’s business, Year 2000 Expos, sponsored that event and similar ones in Seattle and San Jose, Calif.

“He seems like a warm individual,” Carlson said of Temple. “He was referred to us as a speaker on financial issues by a good Mormon and a good Jew.

“But our show is about sharing reliable information about Y2K, and not about controversy,” Carlson said.

Human rights activist Skip Kuck, who lives in Hayden, Idaho, said she was prepared to picket Temple’s appearance in Spokane.

Bill Wassmuth, director of the Northwest Coalition Against Malicious Harassment, said he supported the plan to protest Temple’s appearance.