The founder of the neo-Nazi group Aryan Nations is losing his home and some of his followers after being bankrupted by a civil rights lawsuit. No lawyer will represent him. Someone threw a rock through the stained-glass swastikas of his abandoned chapel. Butler couldn't even rent a motel room to hold services of his white supremacist religion.
The evangelist of hate now finds himself in the position of complaining about discrimination.
``If Muslims or Black Panthers or a Jew rabbi rented the room, they would have allowed accommodations,'' he said on his Web site after being denied space at the Silver Lake Motel.
Supporters of Aryan Nations once regarded northern Idaho as a minority-free homeland supposedly filled with kindred spirits. Now they dismiss the state as ``Idawhore,'' its residents as ``cracker spuds,'' and its human rights activists as ``hue-man rights task forces.''
But instead of moving away, as many Idaho civic leaders had hoped, the 82-year-old Butler is digging in.
He has announced an unprecedented series of public events this year, including marches in Coeur d'Alene, Sandpoint and Rathdrum. His annual Aryan World Congress, which used to draw more than 100 skinheads and the like to Butler's compound, will be held instead at a park nearby.
``Pastor Butler has been here for 30 years,'' said Shaun Winkler, staff director for Butler. ``The Aryan Nations is not going to leave now.''
The prospect of blue-shirted neo-Nazis marching through the streets of these tourist-dependent towns is not what human rights groups expected after Butler was bankrupted last year.
``They aren't getting it,'' said Gretchen Albrecht-Heller, a leader of the Bonner County Human Rights Task Force in Sandpoint.
After losing his compound, Butler tried to hold services of his Church of Jesus Christ Christian in a conference room in December at the Silver Lake Motel. The room was rented under the name of Vincent Bertollini, a financial supporter of Butler's, but the motel canceled the reservation and returned the deposit when it discovered the purpose of the gatherings.
Jennifer Edwards, the motel's vice president, said at the time she feared a loss of business.
Bertollini filed a complaint with the Idaho Human Rights Commission, which investigated and recommended the two sides seek mediation.
Butler has also complained that since losing the lawsuit he is no longer welcome at the Rustler's Roost, a restaurant he frequented. The restaurant manager hung up when called for comment this week.
Butler also complained over the Internet that no lawyer would handle his case when he pursued his appeal of the verdict.
Bertollini bought a home for Butler in nearby Hayden after the lawsuit. Not all of Butler's friends have been so loyal.
Some former Aryan Nations members have joined The Church of True Israel in Noxon, Mont. That group shares the white supremacist views of Aryan Nations but not the hunger for publicity. The Noxon group said it wants nothing to do with skinheads, parades or swastikas.
``The loss of home, church, personal possessions and automobiles didn't hurt so much as the loss of those who claimed to be friends and comrades in the struggle to awake our people,'' Butler wrote on his Web site.
He complained that his former followers ``fled like capon chickens when the enemy attacked.''