Tag Archives: Southern Poverty Law Center

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Pro-gay-marriage atheist progressive Craig Hicks charged with murder of three Muslims

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First the facts, from the 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.

Last month, he posted a photo that said, “Praying is pointless, useless, narcissistic, arrogant, and lazy; just like the imaginary god you pray to.”

[…]His wife also pointed out his support for gay rights and the right to abortion.

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

Though no motive for the shooting has been confirmed, local media is reporting that social media sites  connected to Hicks might offer a clue. Hicks is a self-described “anti-theist” who lashed out against all religions. Apparently he is associated in some way with United Atheists of America and uses social media to lash out at both “radical Christians and radical Muslims.” He also describes himself as a fan of atheist author Richard Dawkins.

TV programmes liked by Hicks include The Atheist Experience, Criminal Minds and Friends, while he describes himself as a fan of Thomas Paine’s The Age of Reason and Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion.

Hicks’ pictures largely consist of images with text mocking religion and supporting atheism, but include images of himself and his wife at Disneyland, what he describes as his “loaded 38 revovler”, and himself separately on a quad bike and wearing a suit.

According to his Facebook “likes,” Hicks is a man of the left:

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.

More:

Hicks is a vehement atheist, according to his Facebook page, where he frequently posts anti-religion musings.

Hicks frequently posted quotes of prominent comedians and atheists, including the prominent British atheist, professor and author Richard Dawkins.

Richard Dawkins had previously expressed his goal of destroying Christianity. Since he turned down the opportunity to debate William Lane Craig multiple times, he must have some other meaning for “destroy Christianity” than “defeat Christianity utterly in a debate”.

I found it interesting that the Southern Poverty Law Center was one of his Facebook likes, since they were connected to a previous episode of domestic terrorism – the attack on the Family Research Council.

Remember?

From CBN News.

Excerpt:

Wednesday’s shooting at the headquarters of the Family Research Council, a group known for standing for conservative and Christian values, is raising debate about the rhetoric surrounding hot topic issues like gay marriage.

In 2010, the Southern Poverty Law Center labeled the Family Research Council a ‘hate group,’ alongside neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klan members, black separatists, and others.

The SPLC said it put the conservative group on the list not because the FRC believes homosexuality is wrong, but for “the propagation of known falsehoods in an effort to defame gay people.”

“I don’t expect everyone to agree with some of the things that we assert about the homosexual lifestyle, but we do present evidence in support of those assertions, and they are certainly not falsehoods or fabrications,” FRC Senior Fellow for Policy Studies Peter Sprigg said in defense.

The shooter, Corkins, was a big admirer of the well-known atheist philosopher Nietzche:

“His parents told the FBI that Corkins “has strong opinions with respect to those he believes do not treat homosexuals in a fair manner.”

Corkins definitely comes from the left side of the political spectrum.

According to the Washington Post: “Allan P. Chan, 28, a former George Mason student, said he met Corkins at a campus gym about six years ago. They worked out together, lifting weights, and began to socialize and watch television together. Chan described Corkins as secretive and somewhat odd. Corkins’s Facebook page included no photos, not even his own, and he displayed an intense interest in the 19th-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.”

Corkins was convicted of domestic terrorism for the attack.

So the common denominator for both of these shooters seems to be left-wing politics and atheism. Quite different from what the mainstream media would have you believe.

I have lots of strong opinions. But when I approach people who disagree with me, my goal isn’t to silence, coerce or overpower them. That’s what secular leftists want to do to their opponents, often using the power of government. In my case, I’m a Christian theist. My job is to imitate Jesus’ way of dealing with his opponents. That’s more like showing them evidence and trying to reason with them about it. Persuasion is standard operating procedure for Christians. Not so for atheists on the political left.

News

FBI removes Southern Poverty Law Center from hate crime resource list

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Breitbart reports.

Excerpt:

Christian groups are celebrating with the news that the Federal Bureau of Investigation appears to have scrubbed the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) from its hate crimes webpage, where the controversial group was listed as a resource and referred to as a partner in public outreach.

[…]In the fall of 2012, Floyd Lee Corkins, armed with a loaded semi-automatic pistol and 100 rounds of ammunition, entered FRC headquarters not far from FBI headquarters in downtown Washington, D.C. Corkins shot the front desk security guard and tried to gain entrance to the upper floors where he intended to kill FRC employees. Though wounded, the front desk security guard subdued Corkins, who became the first person ever convicted under the Washington, D.C., domestic terrorism law. Corkins said he got the idea of killing FRC employees from reading the SPLC hate list and made use of a map of the FRC office found on the SPLC website.

You’ll recall that Corkins was a gay activist who volunteered for gay causes.

More:

SPLC has come under severe criticism from the left and the right in recent years.

Writing in the left-wing website Counterpunch, Alexander Coburn called SPLC founder Morris Dees “king of the hate business.” Coburn wrote, “Ever since 1971, U.S. Postal Service mailbags have bulged with Dees’ fundraising letters, scaring dollars out of the pockets of trembling liberals aghast at his lurid depictions of hate-sodden America, in dire need of legal confrontation by the SPLC.” In fact, so prolific is Dees at direct mail that he is in the Direct Marketing Association Hall of Fame.

Writing at the Harper’s Magazine blog in 2007, Ken Silverstein said, “What [the SPLC] does best… is to raise obscene amounts of money by hyping fears about the power of [right-wing fringe] groups; hence the SPLC has become the nation’s richest ‘civil rights’ organization.”

A critical analysis published recently by Professor George Yancey of North Texas University concluded that SPLC targets only those groups its leaders disagree with politically while leaving liberal groups who use extreme language alone.

A 2013 article in Foreign Policy concluded that SPLC exaggerates the hate crimes threat, saying SPLC is not an “objective purveyor of data,” instead calling them “anti-hate activists” and suggesting that their reports need to be “weighed more carefully by news outlets that cover their pronouncements.”

I think that the Democrats are doing this because it is an election year, and they don’t want people to know that their government department (the FBI) was connected to the SPLC. Especially in light of the domestic terrorism conviction of Floyd Corkins. The U.S. Army is still partnering with SPLC, so there is still work for us to do in publicizing the issue.

It would be nice if we could get to the point where gay activists accept that others disagree with them on sexual morality and the nature of marriage, and stop calling it “hate” when it’s disagreement. It would also be nice if gay activists didn’t try to break into think tanks and shoot people. I think the word for refraining from doing that is “tolerance”.

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News

New study: methodology used by Southern Poverty Law Center to detect “hate groups” is flawed

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An article from the Christian Post reports on a new study published by Dr. George Yancey, a professor of sociology at the University of North Texas.

Excerpt:

The Southern Poverty Law Center’s “Hatewatch” fails to use objective criteria in determining which organizations should be labeled a “hate group,” George Yancey, professor of sociology at the University of North Texas, finds in a new study, “Watching the Watchers: The Neglect of Academic Analysis of Progressive Groups,” published in the January issue of the journal Academic Questions.

SPLC’s list dubiously lists Family Research Council as a hate group while ignoring anti-Christian groups that use similar rhetoric, which demonstrates that the list is more about mobilizing liberals than providing an objective source for hate groups, Yancey argues. SPLC has escaped critical analysis of its work in academia because of a liberal bias among academicians, the study additionally claims.

SPLC’s Hatewatch has become the definitive guide among some scholars, authors and media organizations to what is, or is not, a “hate group.” Conservatives have long criticized the list for labeling social conservative organizations, such as Family Research Council, as hate groups.

[…]According to SPLC, Yancey explains, FRC is a hate group because it intentionally makes hateful and untrue statements about the LGBT community, which can lead to violence even though FRC does not engage in violent actions. (Yancey noted the irony that while SPLC does not cite any examples of FRC-inspired violence, SPLC’s Hatewatch actually did incite violence in the case of Floyd Corkins.) To support this contention, SPLC notes that FRC reports on studies showing that the child molestation rate is higher among gays and same-sex parenting harms children, and quotes FRC President Tony Perkins saying that LGBT activists seek to “persuade kids that homosexuality is okay and actually to recruit them into that lifestyle.”

If this is the standard for labeling an organization a hate group, Yancey says, then the anti-Christian MRFF should also be on the list.

In a Huffington Post blog, Michael Weinstein, founder of MRFF, claimed that Christians will be responsible for ushering in “a blood-drenched, draconian era of persecutions, naturalistic militarism and superstitious theocracy.” And Weinstein has written books claiming that Christians are willing to use mass murder to bring about their goals.

“In these few comments Weinstein has violated some of the same norms SPLC used to designate FRC as a hate group. Weinstein is promoting a myth of Christian violence not substantiated by previous research and has attributed motives to conservative Christians that he cannot document,” Yancey contends.

Yancey does not argue that MRFF should be on Hatewatch, or that FRC should be off Hatewatch. Rather, he argues that if Hatewatch is to be an objective source for labeling hate groups, both groups should either be on the list or off the list.

One possible explanation for why SPLC does not include anti-Christian groups on Hatewatch, Yancey speculates, is that Hatewatch is a tool for mobilizing liberals, rather than an objective source of hate groups.

“As our society became more politically partisan, SPLC cemented its position as speaking for those with progressive political and social attitudes. Rather than developing into an objective clearinghouse for the identification of hatred – no matter where the source of that hatred may develop – SPLC has become a useful organization for progressives to legitimate their battle against conservatives. Since conservative Christians are categorized as opponents there is little, if any, incentive for SPLC to recognize hateful expressions against Christians, because doing so actually works against the social vested interest of the group,” he wrote.

Yancey’s analysis of SPLC, though, is in service of a larger point. There is not enough critical analysis of liberal groups in academia, he argues, because too many in academia share the viewpoint of liberal groups.

“This is a critique of the social biases within academia that preclude critical analysis of progressive social groups,” Yancey wrote. “Such neglect serves academics with progressive, secular perspectives by allowing progressive, secular social groups to make claims of truth and objectivity. Such claims enhance the social power of these progressives. But this neglect damages any real scientific attempt to assess social and political factors in our society. Scrutiny directed at conservative and religious groups – and they should be scrutinized – while progressive organizations are given a pass creates a distorted understanding of reality. In doing this, social science scholars replace an objective examination of our society with a biased approach serving progressive social and political interests.”

Keep in mind that the SPLC materials are being used by government agencies, including the FBI and the U.S. Army.

You might remember that I blogged before about George Yancey’s work on liberal bias in academia.

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