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The center, which has kept track of such groups for 30 years, recorded 1,018 hate groups operating last year.The number of groups whose ideology is organized against specific racial, religious, sexual or other characteristics has risen steadily since 2000, when 602 were identified, the center said. Antigay groups, for example, have risen to 27 from 17 in 2010.The report also described a “stunning” rise in the number of groups it identifies as part of the so-called patriot and militia movements, whose ideologies include deep distrust of the federal government.In 2011, the center tracked 1,274 of those groups, up from 824 the year before.“They represent both a kind of right-wing populist rage and a left-wing populist rage that has gotten all mixed up in anger toward the government,” said Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center and the author of the report.
About a dozen African-American pastors joined anti-gay extremists on Tuesday in condemning the SPLC for using its “hate group” label to describe faith-based organizations that are against the LGBT lifestyle. At a press conference staged outside of the SPLC offices in Montgomery, Alabama, the pastors spoke and stood in solidarity with organizations, including Americans for the Truth about Homosexuality (AFTAH), an organization the SPLC lists as an anti-gay hate group.Please, these groups are ludicrous! They spend countless hours spreading lies and mess about the LGBT community. Instead of strengthen economy or education, they rather cruise Folsom or M.A.L. with donors' money. They wish they were doing God's work. And these Black pastors are so messed up for supporting them.
“The SPLC has moved from monitoring actual hate groups like the KKK and neo-Nazis to slandering mainstream Christian organizations with that very same hate group label,” said Matt Barber of the Liberty Counsel. “By extension, the SPLC is smearing billions of Christians and Jews worldwide as haters simply because they embrace the traditional Judeo-Christian ethics.”
In response to the accusations that the SPLC is wrongly labeling organizations as “anti-gay hate groups,” Mark Potok, editor of the SPLC ’s Intelligence Report, says they’re labeled as such because that’s what they are.
“Our listing of anti-gay hate groups is completely unrelated to religion, Christianity or the Bible,” Potok said. “These groups are listed because they repeatedly lie in an effort to defame LGBT people, an exercise they’ve been extraordinarily successful at. The idea that we are criticizing these groups because they represent Judeo-Christian morality is simply ludicrous.”
The first step for Christian conservatives to win the war against the gay movement is to rebrand the terms, said a few panelists at this weekend’s The Awakening conference at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va.We are anti-Christian? Please, what do they think they are, Saints?
“‘Gay’ is a left-wing socio-political construct designed to create grounds for fundamental rights [based on] whimsical capricious desires,” said Ryan Sorba, chairman of the Young Conservatives of California. “Gay identity does not exist.”
Sorba proposed alternatives to the word “gay,” which received approval by a unanimous show of hands by the 40-some audience members:
* “Same-sex attraction”
* “Same-sex intercourse”
* “Sodomy”
* “Unnatural vice”
Later in the discussion, it was suggested that gays should also be referred to as “anti-Christian.”
The one self-described ex-gay on the panel, Greg Quinlan — who founded the Pro Family Network in 1996 and is now the president of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays (PFOX) but spent his gay years lobbying for the LGBT-rights group Human Rights Campaign – explained that his foray into homosexuality was caused by abuse from his father and looking at Playboy magazine as a young boy.
“Feelings change, and they don’t define you,” Quinlan said, noting that through counseling he was able to re-orient his sexual attraction, which led to a heterosexual marriage (he’s now divorced).
“If you had all the facts, you wouldn’t choose to be gay,” Quinlan, 52, said. “When you live a lie, you tell a lie. Truth is not a philosophy. Truth is a person, and his name is Jesus Christ. Tell the truth in love, but it isn’t love until you tell the truth.”
As a board member of PFOX, he proposed a resolution to PepsiCo Inc. shareholders (PDF) in 2010, asking the corporation to rescind their funding to the Parents and Families, Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG), because he claimed they promote intolerance to the ex-gay community and protest against religious conferences featuring ex-gay speakers. He has also spoken before the Disney Board of Directors, pushing a resolution to include ex-gays in the company’s mandatory sexual orientation diversity training for employees.
The lobbying group, with offices in Florida, Virginia, and Washington, D.C., sent out an action alert Monday. After thanking its members for sending 6.1 million "message units" to politicians demanding that DADT stand, Liberty chairman Mathew Staver (pictured) writes, "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have totally disgraced their respective offices throughout the 111th Congress, and their handling of this vital issue is just the most recent example of their betrayal of the public trust.Mathew, are you living under a rock? Most Americans wanted DADT repealed. Who in the hell are you talking about when you say the "American People"? Be real and just say the bigots didn't want DADT repealed and that includes you.
"Reflecting on this battle, I can assure you there will be many more opportunities to confront pro-homosexual activists in the legal and legislative arenas. I feel certain these radical groups have already picked their next target in their ongoing efforts to force their perverse will on America. The war is far from over. Here's our message to our armed forces: 'Take heart, because the American people will not allow this travesty to stand.'"
Washington, D.C. - Family Research Council President Tony Perkins released the following statement in response to slanderous attacks made by the Southern Poverty Law Center:
"Family Research Council has, for nearly 30 years, advanced faith, family, and freedom in public discourse. We do so with civility and compassion. We hold to the indisputable fact that the family - a Dad, a Mom, and children - is the best building block of a good society, which is why we oppose efforts to transform it based on personal sexual preference."The Southern Poverty Law Center is a massively funded liberal organization that operates under a veneer of public justice when, in fact, they seem more interested in fundraising ploys than fighting wrongdoing."This is a deliberately timed smear campaign by the SPLC. The Left is losing the debate over ideas and the direction of public policy so all that is left for them is character assassination. It's a sad day in America when we can not, with integrity, have a legitimate discussion over policy issues that are being considered by Congress, legislatures, and the courts without resorting to juvenile tactics of name calling."The Left's smear campaigns of conservatives is also being driven by the clear evidence that the American public is losing patience with their radical policy agenda as seen in the recent election and in the fact that every state, currently more than thirty, that has had the opportunity to defend the natural definition of marriage has done so. Earlier this month, voters in Iowa sent a powerful message when they removed three Supreme Court justices who imposed same-sex marriage on the state. Would the SPLC also smear the good people of Iowa?
"Family Research Council will continue to champion marriage and family as the foundation of our society and will not acquiesce to those seeking to silence the Judeo-Christian views held by millions of Americans. We call on the Southern Poverty Law Center to apologize for this slanderous attack and attempted character assassination."
"This is about protecting marriage. This isn't about being anti-anyone. The whole idea that somehow those folks who stand up for traditional marriage, like the Family Research Council, are hateful is wrong. [The law center is] trying to marginalize and intimidate folks for standing up for marriage and also trying to equate them somehow to the KKK."Oh Brian's upset because NOM is now noted as a Hate Group. Lick it up, Brian! The truth hurts.
