In an article entitled “King of Fearmongers,” Charlotte Allen at The Weekly Standard takes an in-depth and incisive look at the Southern Poverty Law Center and its founder, Morris Dees. Allen concludes:
[T]here may soon come a day when the SPLC’s donation-generating machine, powered by Dees’s mastery of the use of “hate” to coax dollars from the highly educated and the highly gullible, finally breaks down.
Read the entire piece for the evidence that spells out this likelihood.
Documents uncovered from a Freedom of Information Act request show the Obama administration's Department of Justice enjoys a close relationship with the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), an organization that brands principled opposition to homosexuality “hate.”
The SPLC has built an elaborate fundraising empire by branding mainstream Christian ministries – including the American Family Association, the Family Research Council, and Concerned Women for America – as “hate groups” for opposing homosexuality.
The legal watchdog Judicial Watch filed the request to see what effect SPLC's designation of “hate groups” had on the government. The two-dozen pages of e-mails it received reveal views of DOJ employees that border on adulation.
The department invited co-founder Morris Dees to appear as the featured speaker at a July 31, 2012, “Diversity Training Event.” The Assistant Attorney General's office “wants to take Morris out to lunch” before his simulcast remarks, entitled “With Justice for All,” one e-mail stated.
A “training blurb” stated that the event “qualifies for mandatory annual diversity training.”
“I will pick you [Morris Dees] up at the airport July 30,” DOJ employee Barry Kowalski wrote Dees in an e-mail. “Would you go out to dinner with my wife and me and our two teenage daughters that first night? The girls need some inspiration from a master of inspiration,” he gushed.
Top conservative writers and bloggers are all pointing out the double standard the media is applying to the FRC shooter and SPLC, compared to the outcry the media expressed in the wake of the Rep. Gabby Giffords shooting as they attempted to pin the violence on right-wing politics.
"...It's impossible not to notice that this is precisely what many on the left accused Sarah Palin of doing in January 2011 after Jared Loughner shot Rep. Giffords and several bystanders in a Tucson parking lot. At the time, the left claimed Palin's district map featuring crosshairs might have given Loughner ideas. No connection between the map and the shooting was ever found. Indeed, it turned out Loughner had been obsessed with Giffords before Palin's map even existed.
Now that anti-right, anti-hate SPLC is implicated in providing targets for a politically motivated mass shooter will the national media turn on the SPLC the way they did on Sarah Palin?"
Erick Erickson of RedState:
"...Floyd Lee Corkins, II, who shot a security guard at the Family Research Center as he attempted to shoot up the organization was directly inspired to take action by a list of supposed “hate groups” on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s website.
... I hope my friends in the media who spent much time talking about Sarah Palin’s political target map will now talk about the Southern Poverty Law Center’s routine and reckless use of the label “hate group” with which is smears conservatives.
By the way, Palin took down her target map after the controversy. The Southern Poverty Law Center? Crickets..."
"...Why yes, this is eerily similar to the left claiming after Gabby Giffords was shot that Palin’s “crosshairs” election map inspired Jared Loughner. With two differences. First, Loughner was not, in fact, inspired by Palin whereas this guy, per his own plea bargain, did consult the SPLC website in choosing people to kill. Second, you’ll see zero coverage of this inconvenient entry in the canon of political hate in wider media because it can’t be used as a blunt object with which to bludgeon the right.
... Funny thing, though: The SPLC itself was verrrrry quick to try to tie Jared Loughner to the “far right”, and kept at it long enough that they were posting speculative pieces about “political rhetoric” and its role in the Tucson shooting as late as 13 days after it occurred. Not only are they comfortable with a free-speech slippery slope when it’s right-wingers who are at risk, they’re willing and eager to add some grease."
Dear Marriage Supporter,
It could have been me or my staff. That crossed my mind when I learned the deeply disturbing breaking news:
The Family Research Council shooter told the FBI he used the Southern Poverty Law Center's "hate group" designation on their website to ID and target his victims for a would-be mass murder rampage.
According to the Associated Press, the shooter "also planned to target other organizations that oppose gay marriage if he wasn't stopped. [...] In his pants pocket, police found a handwritten list of groups that also oppose gay marriage."
The brave security guard, Leo Johnson, a real hero, jumped the gunman after being shot, and saved the lives of countless decent, loving law-abiding Americans... but to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Leo's a hater in a hate group.
The SPLC, once a respected civil rights organization that targeted racist skinhead hate groups bent on dehumanizing their fellow Americans, has decided that it can use the same tactics against mainstream Christian conservative organizations.
So far, according to the Associated Press, the SPLC has refused to comment on what it now knows about the damage its hate list caused.
An innocent man was shot because a killer openly and admittedly used the SPLC's list to pick out and target his victims — and SPLC has no comment?
No comment on the chilling revelation that this disturbed man, inspired by the SPLC's hate group list, walked into FRC with 50 rounds of ammo and Chick-fil-A sandwiches that he intended to smear on the mouth of each of his victims!
Now, you know that NOM has not (yet) been designated a "hate group" by the SPLC, despite vast reporting to the contrary. But let me tell you that today that doesn't matter: today, we are standing with Tony Perkins and the Family Research Council demanding justice from the media and accountability from the Southern Poverty Law Center for their reckless disregard of truth and decency.
I know the SPLC will say it does not support using its hate group list for political assassination. But that's not good enough. The reason this disturbed shooter could use this list in this way is that the groups SPLC is targeting are not quasi-violent extremists wandering around in the woods with guns — but mainstream Americans with known offices in convenient locations, working democratically to support their views.
Let me make something clear here: I do not blame gay people for this shooting. Most homosexual people are law-abiding fellow citizens, equally appalled by violence.
I do blame the Southern Poverty Law Center for taking organizations of other decent, law-abiding fellow-citizens, and lumping them in with neo-Nazis, labeling them "hate groups," as part of a deliberate strategy to marginalize, stigmatize, and repress the speech and democratic rights of conservative Christians.
And I blame the media — for refusing to admit that SPLC's reckless rhetoric damages the moral credibility of the SPLC, and for continuing to take the organization's "hate group" designation seriously. Where there should be editorials denouncing this illegitimate tactic, instead we get articles that blindly repeat the "hate group" mantra.
That's why, yesterday, I called on the media to act responsibly:
For far too long, media outlets and reporters have allowed activist groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center to label opponents of same-sex ‘marriage' as ‘hate groups' and regularly describe organizations that hold traditional Judeo-Christian views of sexual morality as ‘anti-gay.' But words have consequences, and we know that allowing such inflammatory terms to be used in media reports describing those who object to redefining marriage can lead to harassment and even violence against members of those organizations.
We know of people who have had their jobs threatened or their families reviled by anonymous bloggers simply for posting words in opposition to gay marriage. The attempt to turn good people who support marriage as the union of husband and wife into pariahs, the target of hatred and harassment must end today!
We will not stop standing up for marriage, or working tirelessly to protect your rights to participate freely in our democratic process. An America where people have to be afraid to say what Genesis teaches — that marriage is the union of a man and woman ordained by God and oriented towards the next generation¬ — is not recognizably the America we cherish and love.
We will not give up until we see justice done: not just in the court of law, but in the court of public opinion.
Tony Perkins deserves great credit for standing bravely against this onslaught. I will stand with him, for God's truth, against all the lies and the hatred and the intimidation that they can send our way.
Another piece of breaking news: The Board of the Boy Scouts of America has decided to delay its decision on whether to admit openly homosexual scoutmasters and scouts until May. Thanks to each of you who responded to our call to let the Board know that you do not want them to let money interests trump values.
The Human Rights Campaign's corporate network is now being deployed not to help gay people in the workplace, but to insist that this Judeo-Christian-based youth organization embrace homosexuality or else face financial punishment.
That's the world we live in: the world we must not take into our hearts, or respond to with hatred, but in which we must bravely, nobly, fiercely, and intelligently fight for what is right and true and good.
We may not win every battle, but we know Who wins in the end, don't we?
Let me end by giving you a glimpse of a next generation leader you ought to know and love: NOM's own Thomas Peters.
Here he is, the voice a new next generation of leaders who will not be silenced or intimidated, whose voice must and will be heard:
I'm so grateful to you for making NOM's work possible.
Stay strong, pray for Tony and all the staff at FRC — and pray that the hard hearts at SPLC and in the media will be melted.
Family Research Council President Tony Perkins:
"...This comes in the context of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) designating FRC a “certified hate group” because of our biblically-based beliefs regarding marriage and human sexuality. We encourage love and respect for all people including those seeking to redefine marriage, and we have made clear we abhor and reject all violence directed against anyone for their sexual behavior.Yet some associate “hate group” with advocating physical harm or other deplorable actions. As we work with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, we now know that the man who shot our employee was also targeting at least one other organization labeled a “hate group” by SPLC.
This war of words launched by the SPLC as cover for its allied organizations on the left has led to an open assault upon those with whom they disagree. This type of demonizing must stop.
... SPLC’s tactics are intended to intimidate and ultimately silence. Nothing could be more threatening to the future of our republic.
Combined, we three have over a hundred years of fighting for freedom on battlefields, in legislative halls, diplomatic circles, marketplaces, and the public square. We approach these matters from economic and security vantage points, not just social and legal. -- FOX News Opinion
Bill O'Reilly invited Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center to defend their choice to label the Family Research Council a "Hate Group" -- check it out:
The LGBT advocacy group Human Rights Campaign and the Southern Poverty Law Center are standing by their decision to label conservative group Family Research Council a "hate" group even as some in their camp back away. But they say it's not because FRC simply opposes same-sex marriage. FRC is "hateful" because it links gay people to pedophiles, they claim.
HRC and SPLC also argue that the "hate" label should stick – even in the wake of a shooting that took place at the FRC headquarters last week – because the conservative group wants to expel gays from the U.S.
But are those claims true?
FRC, which champions traditional marriage and religious freedom, released a document this week refuting the charges of "hate."
"FRC has never said, and does not believe, that most homosexuals are child molesters," the group says in its document.
The Investor's Business Daily with an editorial on the FRC shooter:
A gay activist opens fire in a conservative organization's offices, inspired by the steady drumbeat of leftist vitriol against those who value traditional marriage, and no one says a word.
You won't hear any call for civil discourse from President Obama's bully pulpit over the shooting and wounding of a security guard at the offices of the conservative Family Research Council (FRC) in Washington, D.C.
The alleged shooter was a volunteer at a community center for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people, and the FRC favors traditional marriage.
Those who blamed Sarah Palin for the shooting of Congresswoman Gabriel Giffords or Rush Limbaugh for the Oklahoma City bombing are strangely silent.
At least the likes of ABC's Brian Ross didn't reflexively blame the Tea Party, as he did after a gunman shot up an Aurora, Colo., movie theater.
On Tuesday, the Human Rights Campaign put on its blog a piece titled, "Paul Ryan Speaking at Hate Group's Annual Conference," referring to the FRC.
It said that the "FRC has been labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. It's a group that has advocated for the criminalization of homosexuality, called for LGBT people to be exported from the U.S., and has pushed dangerous lies trying to link being gay to pedophilia."
The FRC has done none of those things but that didn't stop the Daily Kos from vilifying the FRC for its support of Chick-fil-A: "Chick-fil-A's corporate 'charity' arm WinShape has donated millions of dollars to groups like Family Research Council. FRC doesn't just oppose marriage equality, they really do HATE gays."
Daniel Horowitz for Red State:
"...[Last week's] shooting at the Family Research Council brings to mind something that has bothered me about self-described civil rights organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center. For years, the SPLC has ingratiated themselves to the public by evincing an image of a politically neutral organization that serves as the one-stop resource for information on bigoted and violent organizations. But instead of focusing exclusively on true “hate organizations” like white supremacists and Islamic jihadists, the SPLC has pursued a political agenda in recent years to defame conservative organizations by lumping them in with neo-Nazis and skinheads.
... In 2010, SPLC labeled the Family Research Council as a hate group and listed them together with no-name neo-Nazi groups on their site. They did the same for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a group that simply advocates lower levels of immigration out of fiscal and national security concerns. When did we get to a point where groups that have a different political agenda from the SPLC are branded as hate groups?"
NOM's co-founder Maggie Gallagher in National Review Online:
SPLC’s research director Heidi Beirich told Talking Points Memo on November 24, 2010, that there was no difference between Family Research Council and the Ku Klux Klan:
I asked her if a Republican choosing to address the FRC [Values Voter Summit] convention next year would be making the same choice as one who addressed an Aryan Nation rally.
“Yeah,” she told me. “What we’re saying is these [anti-gay] groups perpetrate hate — just like those [racist] organizations do.”
The SPLC can see no difference between Family Research Council and a group that lynched black people in order to keep them from voting.
"... [Matt] Barber noted that the security guard was described by Washington, D.C., authorities as a hero.
“Heroes don’t work for hate groups,” he said. “Shame on the SPLC, the fruits of your propaganda are coming to fruition and you have blood on your hands.”
WND contacted the SPLC and asked specifically about the group’s labeling of Christian organizations as “hate groups.” A spokeswoman said she could not comment and no one was available to comment."
Bill Keller, the world's leading Internet Evangelist and the founder of LivePrayer.com, with over 2.4 million subscribers worldwide reading the Daily Devotional he has written every morning for 13 years on the issues of the day from a Biblcial worldview, is planning to file a $100 million defamation lawsuit against the Southern Poverty Law Center for labeling him and his ministry as a "hate group."
In an exclusive interview, Keller said, "The sad shooting the other day at the Family Research Council by a man who supports the radical homosexual agenda, was clearly fueled by the left wing group, the Southern Poverty Law Center.
... Keller said that if the Southern Poverty Law Center does not take his name and his ministry off of their 'hate map' in the next 72 hours, his attorneys will be filing a $100 million dollar defamation suit in Federal Court against the organization.
Prof. Robert George in First Things online:
"... I suppose it’s natural to have an exaggerated sense of the faults of one’s political opponents and a diminished sense of the faults of one’s allies.
We see a bit of this in a column by liberal writer Dana Milbank published by the Washington Post in the wake of the shooting of a Family Research Council employee by someone angry at the organization for its stand on marriage and sexual morality. But to his very great credit, Milbank pulls no punches in directly and sharply criticizing people and institutions on the liberal side for smearing as “bigots” and “haters” those who disagree with them.
In fact, Milbank goes so far as to say that “the National Organization for Marriage, which opposes gay marriage, is right to say that the attack is the clearest sign we’ve seen that labeling pro-marriage groups as ‘hateful’ must end.” The entire piece is worth reading. Milbank’s central claim is sound. But beyond that, his making it displays impressive integrity. He surely knows that it will earn him a hefty share of the abusive rhetoric he rightly deplores."
Liberal Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank writes this week that the Human Rights Campaign and the Southern Poverty Law Center are "reckless" in labeling the Family Research Council a "hate group":
"...this shooting should remind us all of an important truth: that while much of the political anger in America today lies on the right, there are unbalanced and potentially violent people of all political persuasions. The rest of us need to be careful about hurling accusations that can stir up the crazies.
... I disagree with the Family Research Council’s views on gays and lesbians. But it’s absurd to put the group, as the law center does, in the same category as Aryan Nations, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Stormfront and the Westboro Baptist Church. The center says the FRC “often makes false claims about the LGBT community based on discredited research and junk science.” Exhibit A in its dossier is a quote by an FRC official from 1999 (!) saying that “gaining access to children has been a long-term goal of the homosexual movement.”
Offensive, certainly. But in the same category as the KKK?
Since the shooting, conservatives have complained that the media have played down the story. This probably has less to do with bias than with the fact that nobody was killed. Still, there is something to the complaint.
... The National Organization for Marriage, which opposes gay marriage, is right to say that the attack “is the clearest sign we’ve seen that labeling pro-marriage groups as ‘hateful’ must end.”
25 LGBT groups have condemned the FRC shooting. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which has named FRC a "hate group" issued only the following general statement:
"We’ve seen news of the shooting of a security guard today at the Family Research Council office in Washington, D.C., and are getting media inquiries about it. There are unconfirmed reports that the shooting was ideologically motivated. We condemn all acts of violence and are following the story closely."
