Screenshot of anti-Tiller webpage that provides the name, address and phone number of Dr. Tiller’s church

Two attacks in churches by right-wing Christianist terrorists in the last 10 months may not yet qualify as a trend, but there is an undeniable resonance between these attacks and the practice of right-wing Islamic terrorists to attack in mosques. The attacks also raise questions about the need for security at churches — or at least liberal churches — during Sunday morning services.

According to news reports yesterday, Scott Roeder, the suspected right-wing terrorist who killed Dr. George Tiller, one of only three providers of late-term abortions remaining in the United States, in Tiller’s church in Wichita, Kan., on Sunday, was obsessed with hatred for the U.S. government as he was opposed to abortion.

In the mid-1990s, Roeder went to prison for violating parole after he was convicted of possessing explosives, which were found after police stopped him for having an illegal license plate on his car that said, “sovereign private property.” Later, his wife left him and took full custody of their son because of his manias:

“The anti-tax stuff came first, and then it grew and grew. He became very antiabortion,” [Lindsey Roeder] told the Associated Press. “That’s all he cared about is antiabortion. ‘The church is this. God is this. Yadda yadda.’ “

CNN is reporting this morning that Roeder belonged to the Freeman militia movement.

Last July, right-wing terrorist Jim Adkisson opened fire during a children’s musical performance in a Unitarian Church in Knoxville, Tenn., killing two and injuring seven adults. An investigator’s report noted that Adkisson targeted the church “because of its liberal teachings and his belief that all liberals should be killed because they were ruining the country, and that he felt that the Democrats had tied his country’s hands in the war on terror and they had ruined every institution in America with the aid of media outlets.”

Churches in the United States have long been considered sacrosanct, in the most literal interpretation of the word. But just as millions of airline passengers now must remove their shoes for inspection because of the attempted shoe-bombing of a plane by right-wing terrorist Richard Reid, the day may be on the horizon when churches will be required to install security equipment at their doors.

It was easy for Roeder to find Dr. Tiller’s church. Chillingly, the name and address of the church were prominently featured on an anti-Tiller website, with a photo of the church and details about the church of activities of Dr. Tiller and his wife Jeanne:

George and Jeanne Tiller are longtime members of Reformation Lutheran Church. They attend regularly.

Jeanne Tiller is active in a women’s group called “Dorcas Circle” and has hosted their Christmas luncheon. Jeanne acted in their 2000 Christmas play. During Lent 2003 and again during Lent 2004, Jeanne wrote a devotional for the church newsletter.

The anti-Tiller site also describes an invasion of the church by religious extremists during services in 2007:

THE UNINVITED SPEAKER

On 15 July 2007, Reverend Henry “Bud” Shaver from Arizona visited Tiller’s church. During communion, he found an open microphone at Tiller’s church and read a stern message to the congregation. The message was based on Isaiah Chapter 1 in the Bible.

As Shaver attempted to read, several men in the congregation tried to shut off the microphone and tried take away the scrap of paper from which he read.

At the same time, Shaver’s friend Joey Cox refused communion from Pastor Thomas Hallstrom saying this communion didn’t represent Jesus’ body but instead represented the bodies of the babies killed by Tiller.

Shaver and Cox were forced to leave the church. Later, they were arrested at a gas station and charged with “rude and indecent behavior in a place of worship.” Pastor Thomas Hallstrom signed the arrest warrant.

In April, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was roundly criticized by Republicans in Congress and the conservative media after the leaking of a report prepared by the Bush administration that warned about the rise is right-wing terror activities.

The killing of Dr. Tiller by a one-time militia member and the attack on the Tennessee church underscore the fact that the Bush administration got it right, for once. They also reinforce the need for government vigilance against these groups, which may be the only way to prevent the need to install magnometers at the doors of American churches.

Americans — especially conservatives — tend to think of fundamentalist terrorism as a tactic deployed by foreigners, most often against their own countrymen, but occasionally, as on 9/11, against Americans. But these attacks are irrefutable proof that the destructive force of fundamentalism is alive and well in the United States, harbored within the radical base of the conservative movement.