Excerpt:

Weekend Edition Saturday, March 24, 2007 ·

To the members of a women's group in Fairmont, Minn., it seemed like a simple idea: The United States has a Department of State, which promotes America's interests overseas. And it also has a Department of Defense, which fights for them. So why not create a Department of Peace, to promote creative ways to avoid conflicts?

A national coalition of human rights groups has been campaigning for the idea, which has been around in some form since the days of America's founding fathers. There's currently a bill before Congress that would create such an agency. When the Fairmont Peace Club learned of the campaign last year, they decided to help. Instead, they triggered fears in their community about the very survival of America.

Fairmont, surrounded by farm fields and red barns, is the government seat of Martin County, population 10,000; it's among the top 10 pork-producing counties in America. The area is 97 percent white, and a large majority of residents usually vote Republican.

Fairmont has also been home, since the early 1960s, to the Peace Club.

Last November, the club persuaded the five members of Fairmont's city council that the Department of Peace was a good idea; the council unanimously passed a resolution endorsing it, without any debate.

"I didn't think it was controversial," said club member Ruth Draut. "I thought everybody wanted peace."

The backlash started the next morning. When Vietnam veteran Jerome Kortuem read about the resolution in the newspaper, he was dumbfounded.