DISORDER IN THE COURT
The retired Green Bay Packer now runs a fringe ministry. Two of his followers spouted “sovereign citizen” buzzwords in a bizarre court appearance.
...
Gbaja-Biamila is the leader of Straitway Praiseland, a Wisconsin offshoot of Tennessee’s fringe Straitway Truth Ministry. The church calls itself “Hebrew Israelite” and claims to preach a literal reading of the Bible. Centered in a Tennessee compound where some members live, farm, and train with firearms, Straitway Truth Ministry has endorsed conspiracy theories like Flat Earth in its official pamphlets, as well as male members’ right to have multiple wives.
...
Salmi and Desmith’s handwritten court filings show further traces of sovereign ideology, according to Joanna Mendelson, a senior investigative researcher at the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism.
Many sovereign citizens believe that their legal name is actually a “straw man,” a separate entity from their “flesh-and-blood” selves, she explained. Sovereign citizens often reference their “straw man” in all-caps, while using phony or just plain weird jargon to refer to what they see as their true selves.
Salmi and Desmith both tried a version of the tactic in handwritten documents they filed this week.
“There are a few elements throughout the document where they identify themselves in capital letters and then in the next line they talk about themselves in lower case letters and mention ‘beneficiary,’” Mendelson told The Daily Beast.
She also suggested that they deliberately referred to themselves as human or “i:man,” perhaps to differentiate from the Sovereign concept of “straw man.”
