"The National Organization for Marriage, which has actively campaigned against same-sex marriage efforts, also condemned what it termed an attack on the Family Research Council."
"Elizabeth Ray, a spokeswoman for the National Organization for Marriage, said the group increased security at its Washington, D.C., offices after the shooting, as did similar groups at the state level."
Though authorities did not publicly reveal a motive, advocacy groups across the ideological spectrum condemned the violence, with some casting it as a hate crime.
"Today's attack is the clearest sign we've seen that labeling pro-marriage groups as `hateful' must end," Brian Brown, the president of the National Organization for Marriage, said in a statement.
The FRC’s strong stance against gay marriage and abortion have led some to question the motive for the crime. The National Organization for Marriage quickly condemned the attack and suggested the shooting may have come in response to characterizations of the FRC as “hateful.”
“Today’s attack is the clearest sign we’ve seen that labeling pro-marriage groups as ‘hateful’ must end,” NOM president Brian Brown said in a statement. “The Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled the Family Research Council a ‘hate group’ for its pro-marriage views, and less than a day ago the Human Rights Campaign issued a statement calling FRC a ‘hate group’ — they even specified that FRC hosts events in Washington, DC, where today’s attack took place.”
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.
Tony Perkins, President of the Family Research Council, held a brief press conference yesterday outside the FRC lobby where Wednesday's shooting took place:
"... [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."
David C. Friedman, ADL's Washington, DC Regional Director, issued the following statement:
FRC shooter Floyd Corkins
The use of violence against an individual or organization because of a disagreement with their beliefs, values, or policy positions is unacceptable and indefensible. Free speech – no matter who the speaker is, no matter how offensive or objectionable the speech, is one of the foundation principles of our nation.
We are confident that the Metropolitan Police Department will fully investigate this crime. If the facts reveal that the perpetrator was motivated by unlawful bias, law enforcement authorities should consider prosecution under the D.C. Bias Crime Statute
Bias or hate crime statutes have been adopted by 45 states and the District of Columbia. Many of those laws are based on a model statue crafted by the ADL, which has long been in the forefront of national and state efforts to deter and counter act hate-motivated criminal activity.
The Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913, is the world's leading organization fighting anti-Semitism through programs and services that counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry.
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.
"... 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.”
Now that the New York Senators have received their pay-off for their vote to redefine marriage, most gay marriage millionaires have moved on to other priorities.
Flip-flopper Roy McDonald, meanwhile, is facing a tough challenger who is beginning to both out-raise and outspend him:
Saratoga County Clerk Kathy Marchione has outraised and outspent incumbent Sen. Roy McDonald over the last month, a campaign finance disclosure shows.
The two are facing off in a Republican primary for the state Senate district encompassing parts of Saratoga, Rensselaer, Washington and Columbia counties. Marchione spent $84,536 in the past three weeks, compared to $55,120.76 from McDonald. Marchione raked in $42,324 compared to McDonald’s $28,460. -- Capital Confidential
Some gay activists continue to claim -- including in our comment boxes and Facebook wall -- that FRC supported legislation in Uganda that could have threatened gays with deaths. This claim is false as Dave Weigel reports in the Washington Post:
Family Research Council spokesman J.P. Duffy has issued a statement on the "inaccurate internet reports" -- mine was here -- on the conservative group's stance on a resolution condemning an anti-gay bill in Uganda. FRC, said Duffy, does not support Uganda's bill -- although I don't know who said it did. Instead:
FRC's efforts, at the request of Congressional offices, were limited to seeking changes in the language of proposed drafts of the resolution, in order to make it more factually accurate regarding the content of the Uganda bill, and to remove sweeping and inaccurate assertions that homosexual conduct is internationally recognized as a fundamental human right.
As I noted, the Democrat-authored resolution made several blanket statements about the universal rights of sexual preference. The FRC lobbied to take those out, something completely in line with what its membership would expect.
Even after the shooting of a security guard at the Family Research Council, the Huffington Post can’t stop slamming the pro-family organization as a “hate group.” The Huffington Post waited less than three hours before publishing an article which complained about “the Family Research Council, which the Southern Poverty Law Center deems a hate group.”
Contributor Waymon Hudson, in an August 15 article titled “Paul Ryan: Poster Boy of Today’s Extreme GOP,” posted an attack on Republican Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan which slammed the Family Research Council on 1:36 PM – less than three hours after the shooting, which took place around 10:45 AM. Attacking Ryan as an extremist, Hudson complained that Ryan “has agreed to address the Family Research Council, which the Southern Poverty Law Center deems a hate group, at the organizations annual Voters Value Summit in September.”
The Huffington Post’s job is to spin the news for all kinds of left-wing causes – attacks on the Family Research Council are normal for them. But couldn’t they at least have waited a day before repeating the charge of the left-wing hacks at the Southern Poverty Law Center and attacking a group whose members were targeted by a gunman less than three hours earlier?
Corkins has been charged with assault with intent to kill. According to an FBI affidavit, Corkins allegedly said words to the effect of “I don’t like your politics” when he encountered Johnson.
“The FBI said Corkins had 15 Chick-fil-A sandwiches, a Sig Sauer 9mm pistol, two additional magazines loaded with ammunition and an additional box of 50 rounds of ammunition when he came into the building,” according to a report on the FBI intel. “His parents told the FBI that Corkins “has strong opinions with respect to those he believes do not treat homosexuals in a fair manner.”
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."
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."
