You may already know of TJ Leyden, the former white supremacist who now speaks out against intolerance. You certainly do if you went inside the Elks Lodge on Sunday evening, when he shared his story with around 75 people - including Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey - at a community forum organized by the Paradise Center for Tolerance and Nonviolence. The event was titled "Turning Away From Hate," which is exactly what Leyden did more than a decade ago.

Leyden (pronounced LYE-den) became a Skinhead during his teen years, around 30 years ago, after his parents divorced and he found his place within the Southern California punk-rock scene. Rampant violence brought him to the attention of the San Bernadino County Sheriff's Office; with the dragnet closing and specter of more jail time looming, Leyden enlisted in the Marine Corps, where he did double duty: serving Uncle Sam while serving up recruits for the Neo-Nazi movement that considered itself in a state of open war with the U.S. government.

Among his more chilling revelations Sunday was how the military gave tacit approval to his affiliation. This was not a precursor to "don't ask, don't tell" - there was no question Leyden was a racist, since he advertised his White Power stance on his neck, shoulders and arms. Yet, despite all the tattoos and subverting activities, his file carried no mention of his overt racism when he received his "other-than-honorable discharge" … for drunkenness.

Out of the Marines, Leyden continued to gather white supremacists, though he targeted much younger recruits: adolescents. He married, became a father and displayed a Nazi flag over the crib of his newborn son. It wasn't until he was a father for the second time that he had the moment of reckoning that changed his life forever.

New clarity came while watching TV with his 5-year-old, and his 3-year-old made a racial slur about the program. Thrilled at first, Leyden felt his pride flip upside-down when he envisioned his sons following in his violent, 16-arrest footsteps. "If I didn't want my kids to be me," he relayed, "what was wrong with me and my beliefs?"

He soon had another thought about the future he was shaping: "If the world's all white, who do we hate next?"

Eighteen months after that fateful day by the TV, he left white supremacy. His renunciation of hate became public when he began speaking on behalf of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a human-rights organization. Leyden lives under threat of the white supremacist version of a fatwa - the reason for the five imposing volunteers keeping an eye on things at the Elks Lodge - but so far the worst resistance he has faced have been taunts, leaflets and bricks through car windows at places where he has spoken.

Along with detailing the presence of racist recruitment in the military and law enforcement, Leyden shared other alarming bits of information:

• California is the No. 1 state for hate with 88 white supremacist groups - and now, for the first time, every state has at least one such gang.
• Separatists from white, black and Latino groups have coordinated efforts to reorder the U.S. "Separatism is the PC term for racism," he said.
• You may have heard of Resistance, the White Power record label that also produces a glossy magazine - how about Sick And Wrong, Aryan Wear and Hatecrime Streetwear? All are apparel labels targeting individuals such as those who turned the videogame "Ethnic Cleansing" into a $30 million seller.
• Speaking of videogames, mainstream titles like "Bully: Scholarship Edition" and "Manhunt" include racist subtexts.
• The Internet features thousands of white supremacist Web sites and countless more racist pages on social-network sites.

Fortunately, the Web also has StrHATE Talk.