Return to the Land ApplicationLet’s talk about Return to the Land (RTTL), that white segregationist Christian-only gated community in the Ozarks. And let’s look at the application form that you have to fill out to join their community.
I was so taken aback by learning of Return to the Land this week, and the extensive application form that people have to fill out to make sure they are white enough, Christian enough, and *anti-just-about-everything* enough, to join their precious gated community, that I knew that I had to share it with you.
You see, they think they are oh-so-clever by putting their 11-page application online, where, *after first supplying a 32-character code* (emailed to you), you have to completely fill out one page of the application before you can get to the next. Because this way people who aren’t serious about applying to their exclusive racist, holier-than-thou community can’t actually see the questions that they ask on their application. Or so they apparently think.
But they didn’t count on an Internet law and policy attorney with gumption and know-how (that’d be me) figuring out how to grab the full application and stashing it in a pdf (full application form included below)!
Now, I’m calling it a “gated community” because that is a term that people understand. *They* refer to themselves as, and I quote here, “a private membership association (PMA) for individuals and families with traditional views and common continental ancestry. We hold events and conferences, and we help groups of our members form European heritage communities.”
Got that? “Continental ancestry” and “European heritage communities”.
In case that wasn’t clear enough for you, they mean a white separatist enclave.
And in case *that* isn’t clear enough for you, let’s check out some of their application.
Page 1 gives a hint, because in addition to the normal application things, like name and age, it asks for your sexual orientation.
Page 2 just asks for contact information, and page 3 asks “Where are you from, where did you grow up, and where do you live now?”
It’s page 4 that really starts to reveal the true nature of this place:
“Please describe your ancestry, and that of your spouse and children if different (the geographical/ethnic origins of your family).”
Pages 5-7 seem innocuous enough, but pages 8 and 9 are the lead-ins to the nitty-gritty: “Please briefly describe your political and social views,” (8) and “Please briefly describe your religious and philosophical views” (9).
Then, before you get to the true heart of the matter, page 10 weirdly asks “Are you currently employed by, or otherwise receive funds to perform work for, the United States federal government, or a contractor / affiliate / partner of the United States federal government?”
Now, I have yet to figure out whether they *want* people who work for the Feds there, or they want to exclude them. Or maybe it’s so they can report back to Trump that one of his own is applying and can he give them a reference?
Ready for the pièce de résistance? That’d be page 12, the last page, where there are a series of eight “I support” statements, each with check boxes (actually check circles) for you to indicate “yes” or “no”, such as “I support procreation” (correct answer: “yes”), “I support transgenderism” (correct answer: “no”) and… wait for it.. yes really… “I support segregation” (guess what the correct answer to *that* is).
There is also one “I support” statement for you to check either “I prefer a community with a variety of different ancestral origins” or “I prefer a community where everyone shares common continental ancestry”.
And then, the very last question, at which I almost did a spit-take, and then upon realizing they were serious I almost did a spit-take again, is:
“How often do you think about the Roman empire?”
The answer options are:
Every day, at least once
A few times a week, probably
Very rarely
Never
I’m really not sure which are the acceptable answers there.
“Surely,” I can hear you saying, “this can’t be legal??” Of course, this piqued my interest not only because of the horror of the thing, but because of the legality of the thing. RTTL claims its perfectly legal because they cast themselves as a “private club”. Legal experts are crying “foul”, the Arkansas Attorney General is looking into it, and legal challenges to this are already in the works. (Fun fact: I was shocked that as soon as I heard about this, a case called Warth v. Seldin popped into my mind (and I’ll bet it did for my law colleagues as well). Shocked because I learned about Warth v. Seldin in undergrad, *34 years ago* (way to go, brain!) Thank you, Prof. Halpern for being such a fabulous and animated professor that I still remember law cases from my undergrad class in conlaw!)
Read the full Return to the Land application form
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