Tag Archives: Hate

News

What is the Southern Poverty Law Center?

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The Southern Poverty Law Center was connected to a 2012 domestic terrorism attack
The Southern Poverty Law Center was connected to a 2012 domestic terrorism attack

We hear a lot in the news about an organization called the “Southern Poverty Law Center”, or SPLC. Big technology companies and news media corporations rely on the SPLC to tell them about “hate groups”. But did you know that the SPLC was once directly linked to anti-Christian, anti-conservative domestic terrorism? The attack happened way back in August 2012.

Here is a recent USA Today editorial by Jessica Prol Smith, in which she recalls the act domestic terrorism that nearly claimed her life.

She writes:

I’ll never forget the moment I learned we were on lockdown. It was Aug.15, 2012. My frustration mingled with fear. Trapped on the sixth floor, we knew someone had been shot. We knew we couldn’t leave yet. We knew little else.

While I was missing lunch, a crime scene played out in the office lobby below me. My coworker and friend Leo wasn’t armed, but he had played the quick-thinking and inadvertent hero, disarming a young man on a mission to kill me and as many of my colleagues as possible. The gunman had packed his backpack with ammo and 15 Chick-fil-A sandwiches — later admitting that he had planned to smear them on our lifeless faces as a political statement. Leo took a bullet in the arm but managed to hold the attacker until law enforcement arrived.

[…]The assailant acknowledged later in FBI testimony that he had selected our office precisely because the SPLC had labeled my employer a “hate group.”

She was working for the Family Research Council, a Washington D.C. think tank that specializes in abortion policy, marriage policy, and religious liberty issues. Just to be clear, they have a bunch of people with doctorates who write research papers that lawmakers then use to make policy. This is a prestigious organization, but that didn’t save them from a gay activist with a gun.

She continues:

For years, the left-wing interest group has used its “hate group” list to promote the fiction that violent neo-Nazis and Christian nonprofits peacefully promoting orthodox beliefs about marriage and sex are indistinguishable. Sometimes, it has apologized to public figures it has smeared, and it recently paid out millions to settle a threatened defamation lawsuit.

These shameful secrets are no longer hidden in shadows. The New York Times, Politico, NPR and a host of other mainstream publications are reporting on the corruption and widening credibility gap. The SPLC dismissed its co-founder in March, and its president has resigned amidst numerous claims of sexual harassment, gender discrimination and racism within the organization — a parade of disgraces that vividly force the conclusion: The SPLC is hollow, rotten and failing at the very virtues it pretends to celebrate.

[…]Jobs and years have passed, and I work now for Alliance Defending Freedom. ADF ranks among “the top performing firm(s)” litigating First Amendment cases, according to the Empirical SCOTUS blog, and is the “Christian legal powerhouse that keeps winning at the Supreme Court,” according to The Washington Post.

And yes, my new employer has also attracted one of the SPLC’s spurious hate labels.

I actually do not accept that there are ANY hate groups on the political right. If you understand right-wing as meaning what it meant at the founding: free markets, individual liberties, constitutional government, federalism, rule of law, etc., then there is nothing hateful about being a conservative. There is nothing about race differences in right-wing ideology. On the other hand, it’s left-wing groups like the Black Panthers, KKK, La Raza and the Democrat party who are constantly trying to divide people into groups by race.

Recently, we saw a mass shooting in Dayton committed by a socialist who supports Elizabeth Warren, and two mass shootings by eco-terrorists in Christchurch, New Zealand and El Paso, Texas. And there was also a recent domestic terrorism attack committed by Antifa in Tacoma Washington, which could have killed hundreds of people:

A burning vehicle sending flames shooting high above a perimeter fence can be seen in new surveillance video obtained by Fox News that shows an attack by an armed Antifa supporter last month at a local Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Washington state. The assault was ultimately foiled, but a former acting director of the agency said it could have killed “hundreds.”

“Thank God for the Tacoma P.D.,” ICE former Acting Director Tom Homan said on “Fox & Friends” on Thursday. “Their professionalism and quick response prevented the loss of hundreds and hundreds of lives, so hats off to them and their quick response.”

I could be mistaken, but Antifa appears to be the fascist shock troops of the anti-Semitic socialist Democrat party, similar to the Brown Shirts who helped Adolf Hitler’s anti-Semitic socialist party to seize power in 1930s Germany.

Does the SPLC label any left-wing groups as “hate groups”? Not that I’m aware of.

I think it’s important for people to understand that groups like SPLC might just be trying to deflect criticism from far-left hate groups by labeling mainstream groups they disagree with as “hate groups”. And sometimes, that false labeling results in real violence against mainstream Christians and conservatives.

News

Watch: Democrat legislator harasses elderly woman praying outside abortion clinic

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Pro-abortion Democrat, and misogynist
Pro-abortion Democrat, and misogynist

I follow Senator Ted Cruz on Twitter, and he tweeted out a video posted by the legislator in question. The legislator, from Philadelphia, is a Democrat. And he thought it would be a great idea to go to the local Planned Parenthood clinic, and film himself in an interaction with an elderly woman who was praying outside.

Here’s the video: (Must-see!)

(Another link, another link, another link – in case that video is taken down)

And Life News has the story:

A pro-abortion Democrat lawmaker posted a video of himself harassing a peaceful pro-life protester while invoking his office last week in Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania state Rep. B**** S*** repeatedly bullied the pro-life woman in an unhinged rant as she stood alone outside a Planned Parenthood in his district in southeastern Pennsylvania.

S*** called the woman a “racist” and her sidewalk counseling “grotesque.” He followed her around, hurtling insults at her; and at one point, he got in her face with his camera and ignored her requests to leave her alone.

He wanted to get the woman’s address for some reason, maybe for vandalism, or something more violent. He’s famous for being an openly gay college football player, so he’s definitely strong enough to be a physical danger to her. People like to talk about toxic masculinity and bullying, and I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a better example of toxic masculinity than from this bully. He clearly has no idea how his greater height, physical strength, etc. would be perceived and experienced by an elderly woman. Or maybe he does, and he just doesn’t care.

I think a lot of Democrats like to think that they are representing women, but they are only nice to women who agree with them. If a woman is pro-life, or has actual Christian convictions, then this is how they get treated. This interview of the Democrat reports him saying that he’s an atheist. I thought it was interesting how a self-confessed atheist started lecturing a religious person on how to be religious. Not sure why so many godless people think that they should be trusted as an authority on religion. His biography says that he was raised Catholic and stopped attending church at 16. Whatever was going on in his head at the time, you can be sure that it wasn’t evidence that convinced him to do that.

Now a man is designed to have an inclination to protect children, animals, anything weak, from strong aggressors. But abortion changes all that. When a man decides that inconvenient children can be killed for the benefit of the selfish adults who made her, then all bets on morality are really off. He’s willing to kill an innocent unborn child that gets in his way. So anything is possible. She should really be afraid of him, even there in broad daylight.

I think the lady did the right thing, by calling the police.

Town Hall reports that he may have broken a state law:

Pennsylvania Democratic State Rep. B**** S*** thought it his duty to videotape and harass a pro-life woman protesting against abortion outside a Planned Parenthood clinic in his district, repeatedly telling the unnamed woman he had the same constitutional right to film as she did to protest. While Americans have the right to record protesters in Pennsylvania, the state also has a strict a two-party consent state, meaning even in public both parties involved in a conversation must give consent to be audio or video recorded. At various points in the video, Rep. S*** indicates he wants to have a conversation, to each time the women says no and does not give permission to record.

But this is Philadelphia, the city of Kermit Gosnell, so they have a habit of overlooking violence against women if abortion rights are at stake.

Life News says that this isn’t the first time that he’s tried to use coercion to bully those who disagree with him:

LifeNews recently learned of a second video that S*** posted several weeks ago where he made a similar request. He offered his viewers $100 to identify four pro-life women who were peacefully praying outside the same Planned Parenthood.

His requests suggest that the state representative may be trying to intimidate pro-life advocates through doxxing, an online practice where a person’s name and contact information are posted publicly online usually to encourage harassment.

The women, who he called “pseudo-Christians”, were just praying outside the clinic. I guess he thinks that if they were really Christians, then they’d endorse homosexuality, abortion, and the entire secular leftist platform – something which would be at odds with the Bible, and Christianity down through the centuries. But I guess his need to not feel “shamed” is more important than their freedom of religion, and freedom of speech. His feelings matter more than your rights, so he’s justified in silencing you.

I have spent a lot of my life studying scientific, philosophical and historical evidence for theism in general, and Christianity in particular, but there is another argument for Christianity that is personally convincing to me… although I would never use it in a debate. And that argument is how the Bible describes sin. I read how the Bible describes sexual sin in Romans 1, and then I see how sexual sin sometimes causes people to hate others and to use force to coerce, silence or destroy them. This is why the Bible calls some behaviors “sinful”, because people who do them know it’s wrong, but they think they can make the guilt from rebellion go away by coercing those around them to celebrate the sin. By the way, I include abortion, divorce, adultery, premarital sex and even drug or gambling addictions as sins.

He seems to be unable to control his temper when faced with people who haven’t turned their backs on the God of the Bible, and who are actually doing hard things in order to promote the moral values of the God of the Bible. There is something about Christians taking God seriously that offends him, and his response to their authentic self-sacrificial service to God is hatred and violence. It’s probably a good idea for us who take the Bible seriously to be seen acting self–sacrificially on our convictions. It bothers atheists, and that’s a good thing.

News

City Journal publishes comprehensive profile of Southern Poverty Law Center

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First, recall from this article posted at The Federalist that the Southern Poverty Law Center was the source of the “hate map” which was used by convicted domestic terrorist Floyd Lee Corkins in his attempt to shoot and kill everyone at the Family Research Council. He was stopped by a security guard, and the video above is the footage of the attempted mass murder.

Excerpt:

Corkins would later admit that he had located Family Research Council’s office on a “hate map” produced by the Southern Poverty Law Center, and he planned to shoot people in the building and smear the Chick-fil-A sandwiches on them.

[…]Much of the ensuing media coverage ignored or downplayed Corkins’ motives, which the Washington Post referred to as “a detail sure to reignite the culture wars.” A year later, Southern Poverty Law Center founder Morris Dees was still publicly defending the inclusion of Family Research Council on the organization’s “hate map.”

Just to be clear, this gay activist was convicted of domestic terrorism, and received 25 years in prison.

Let’s find out more about SPLC, courtesy of this article from the centrist City Journal, a very respected source.

Here is the article from City Journal.

Excerpt:

Ironically, the SPLC not only overlooks most of the real hate groups in operation today, along with overtly race-based organizations, such as the pro-Latino National Council of La Raza and MEChA, but also labels moderates with whom it disagrees “extremists” if they deviate from its rigid political agenda, which embraces open borders, LGBT rights, and other left-wing totems. The SPLC has branded Somali-born reformer Ayaan Hirsi Ali an “anti-Muslin extremist” for her opposition to female genital mutilation and other oppressive Islamic practices, and designated the respected Family Research Council as a “hate group” for its opposition to same-sex marriage. Likewise, the organization deems mainstream immigration-reform advocates such as the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) and Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) as hate groups. British Muslim activist Maajid Nawaz—regarded by most observers as a human rights leader—is suing the SPLC for listing him as an extremist.

Not just the Family Research Council, but the Alliance Defending Freedom and Liberty Counsel, too. Defending religious liberty at the Supreme Court and winning your case apparently makes you a “hate group”.

More:

Critics of the SPLC accuse the lavishly funded organization of peddling fear and smearing political opponents—mostly conservatives—as bigots. Its “Hatewatch” list is avowedly ideological, acknowledging that it “monitors and exposes the activities of the American radical right.” Few left-wing organizations—and no Islamist groups—are branded in this way by the SPLC. Nevertheless, the SPLC, founded in 1971, has burrowed itself into the civil rights movement, the organized bar, the cloistered culture of large law firms, the education system, and even law enforcement as a champion for “the exploited, the powerless and the forgotten.” Its executives are richly compensated, some in excess of $400,000 annually. Operating from palatial six-story quarters in Montgomery, Alabama (sometimes called the “Poverty Palace”), it enjoys a $300 million endowment, including more than $23 million in cash.

The non-profit rating group “Charity Watch” gives the SPLC an “F” rating. This is the lowest grade possible.

More:

The SPLC frequently rails against public figures as “enablers” not technically designated as hate groups or extremists, such as Texas governor Greg Abbott, former congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul, radio talk show host Glenn Beck, Fox News commentator Judge Andrew Napolitano, and Kentucky senator Rand Paul. Rush Limbaugh, the Breitbart News Network, the Boy Scouts of America, and Focus on the Family (founded by psychologist, broadcaster, and best-selling author James Dobson) have also earned the SPLC’s wrath.

And finally:

What many of the individuals and groups condemned by the SPLC have in common is a conservative orientation. Favoring traditional marriage becomes the moral equivalent of cross-burning; opposing illegal immigration or amnesty for illegal immigrants equates to advocating genocide; resisting the spread of radical Islam invokes Timothy McVeigh; and anti-tax Tea Party groups are now indistinguishable from armed militias or Holocaust deniers. Thus, dissent is de-legitimatized, and political foes are demonized.

[…]SPLC senior fellow Mark Potok, a 20-year veteran of the organization and editor of its “hate list”—a quarterly publication—has admitted that “our aim in life is to destroy these groups, to completely destroy them.”

How far would the SPLC go to “destroy” their enemies? Well, the SPLC-inspired attack on the Family Research Council is not the only time that the SPLC has been linked to violent left-wing extremism.

Consider this story from the radically leftist New York Times.

They write:

It was a little after 5 p.m., a quiet time in a quiet neighborhood, before many people had returned home from work on Tuesday, when two women called 911 to report multiple gunshots and screams echoing through a condominium complex here near the University of North Carolina.

By the time the police arrived, three people were dead — a newlywed couple and the woman’s sister. They were young university students, Muslims of Arab descent, and high achievers who regularly volunteered in the area. A neighbor, a middle-age white man, was missing — then under arrest and charged with three counts of murder.

[…]Mr. Hicks, appeared to have a deep dislike of all religion. On his Facebook page, nearly all of his posts expressed support for atheism, criticism of Christian conservatives or both.

Let’s take a look at what’s on his Facebook page:

His Facebook Likes included the Huffington Post, Rachel Maddow, the Southern Poverty Law Center, Freedom from Religion Foundation, Bill Nye “The Science Guy,” Neil deGrasse Tyson, Gay Marriage groups and similar progressive pages.

Previously, I blogged about a peer-reviewed study published in the journal Academic Questions, found that the SPLC “…fails to use objective criteria in determining which organizations should be labeled a “hate group”…”. Something to keep in mind when you hear the left-wing media invoking the SPLC as an authority.