Southern Poverty Law Ctr SPLC

=much lost?see SPLC2 818capt<div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">popehat</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.popehat.com/2017/06/29/how-the-southern-poverty-law-center-enraged-nominal-conservatives-into-betraying-free-speech-values/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">https://www.popehat.com/2017/06/29/how-the-southern-poverty-law-center-enraged-nominal-conservatives-into-betraying-free-speech-values/</a></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><header class="entry-header" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><time class="entry-time" itemprop="datePublished" datetime="2017-06-29T09:14:52+00:00" style="box-sizing: border-box;">JUNE 29, 2017</time> BY <a href="https://www.popehat.com/author/ken/" class="entry-author-link" itemprop="url" rel="author" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">KEN WHITE</a></header><div class="entry-content" itemprop="text" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Last week I argued that the <a href="https://www.popehat.com/2017/06/21/free-speech-triumphant-or-free-speech-in-retreat/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">legal outlook for free speech in America remains bright: the Supreme Court's defense of speech is consistent and robust.</a> But the cultural outlook remains grim. Free speech, as a value, is under cultural assault — and feckless, politicized, and unlikely-to-be-effective legal assault — from across the ideological spectrum. Case in point: conservatives suing over mean, unfair, or unprincipled characterizations of their positions.The latest culprit is <a href="https://www.lc.org/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">Liberty Counsel,</a> a group that litigates in pursuit of what it identifies as Christian values. Liberty Counsel has sued <a href="https://www.guidestar.org/Home.aspx?ads_cmpid=53230123&ads_adid=3903805483&ads_matchtype=e&ads_network=g&ads_creative=138283222544&utm_term=guidestar&ads_targetid=kwd-334327887&utm_campaign=&utm_source=adwords&utm_medium=ppc&ttv=2&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIhuGPo6Xj1AIVUGV-Ch2jQASXEAAYASAAEgJRl_D_BwE" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">GuideStar,</a> a database of charities, over <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/06/26/after-conservative-backlash-charity-tracker-guidestar-removes-hate-group-labels/?utm_term=.cb03240eddef" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">GuideStar's controversial adoption of the Southern Poverty Law Center's "hate group" designation of entities including Liberty Counsel, which GuideStar later retracted</a>. Liberty Counsel's <a href="https://www.popehat.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Liberty-Counsel-Complaint.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">complaint — which you can read here —</a> is simply vexatious and unethical. It is — to abandon my pretense of decorum for a moment — a thoroughly contemptible and un-American piece of shit, and the lawyers who filed it deserve scorn. Liberty Counsel has filed a frivolous, censorious lawsuit against Guidestar in a cynical and craven attempt to avoid the more well-funded and ready-to-litigate PLC.The complaint, filed in federal court in Virginia, accuses Guidestar of a violation of the Lanham Act — that is, it accuses Guidestar of false advertising based on Guidestar offering its opinion that Liberty Counsel is a hate group. It also accuses Guidestar of defamation and of interfering with its prospective economic advantage. These frivolous theories boil down to one idea: you're not allowed to repeat the SPLC's negative opinion of us.There are many reasons to criticize the modern SPLC,<a href="https://www.popehat.com/2017/06/29/how-the-southern-poverty-law-center-enraged-nominal-conservatives-into-betraying-free-speech-values/#wsa-endnote-1" name="wsa-inline-1" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">1</a> which has sadly fallen from a group that once fought Klansmen and Nazis to protect rights down to the level of a shrill, doctrinaire, orthodox-leftist flailing denouncer of miscellaneous petty thoughtcrime. It is no longer to be trusted or taken seriously. If you want your money to support people protecting the powerless from violent bigotry rather than funding the sophomoric assembly of tendentious enemies lists, you should donate elsewhere.But the SPLC's conduct is core, classic political speech. Ranting political generalizations about other people and groups and parties is exactly what the First Amendment protects. The SPLC's classification of a dizzying array of entities as "hate groups" may be unfair, unprincipled, immature, and even immoral. But it's also opinion absolutely protected by the First Amendment. Only provable statements of fact can be defamatory. It's certainly possible that the SPLC could make a false and defamatory statement of fact about a group in the course of classifying it as a "hate group" — for instance, by falsely attributing a statement to the group, or falsely claiming the group participated in some specific act. But that's not what's at issue in Liberty Counsel's cowardly-indirect attack on the SPLC. Their complaint says the defamation is the "hate group" classification. "Hate" and "hate group" are not provable statements of fact. They're opinion. You may think the opinion is stupid and without basis, but that doesn't magically turn it into a fact. You may think that having such an opinion expressed about you is very harmful, but that doesn't turn it into a fact either. "Hate group" occupies a place in the American lexicon with "SJW" and "cuck" and "fake news" and "far left" and "extremist" and "death party" and "party of death" and "libtard" and "wingnut" and anything else you'll see people shout at each other on Twitter. "Hate" and "hate group" aren't factually provable, because they're based on opinion. The opinion that being against gay marriage or affirmative action or generous immigration makes you a "hate group" may be stupid, but it's inescapably an opinion.Were this not true, American political discourse would be cramped, chilled, and constantly hazardous. Want to start a <a href="http://www.professorwatchlist.org/index.php" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">list of professors you think are too liberal?</a> Better get a lawyer first if your opinion classifying them can be defamation. Want to give <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/12/19/us/politics/nra.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">letter grades to politicians based on their voting records?</a> Better have deep pockets if your argumentative interpretation of their actions is subject to litigation. Want to <a href="http://freebeacon.com/politics/meet-the-ten-most-liberal-senators/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">make lists of politicians as "liberal" or "conservative"</a>? You may think that's safe — but if opinion-based classifications are fair game for litigation, then it's not. Want to engage in political hyperbole and elbow-throwing rhetoric? See you in court.Liberty Counsel knows this. These are not stupid lawyers. These are unethical lawyers, abandoning core American civic virtues to indulge in politics by other means. Liberty Counsel is part of the "do it to them because they did it to us" movement — the belief that, because some liberals someplace supported restrictions on free speech, it's acceptable to abuse the system to go after the free speech rights of these liberals here.They aren't alone. Take Maajid Nawaz. <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/10/maajid-nawaz-splc-anti-muslim-extremist/505685/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">SPLC was roundly criticized — reasonably </a>— for calling Nawaz, a Muslim, an "anti-Muslim extremist." Nawaz has now announced — to the fawning approval of the loathsome Bill Maher — that <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/449004/quilliam-radical-muslim-group-hate-group-southern-poverty-law-center" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">he's crowdfunding a lawsuit against SPLC for that characterization.</a> His <a href="http://maajidnawaz.com/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">site reveals just how broadly he wants to police political speech he doesn't like through litigation:</a><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 40px 40px 24px;">Legal action will, ideally, create a precedent, and provide a warning to those who think they can throw around damning labels like "Islamaphobe" "racist" and "Nazi" without any evidence and simply get away with it.</blockquote>If nothing else, perhaps Nawaz's broad policy of censorship of hurtful opinions will win him support amongst Islamic extremists. He should target cartoons next. But someone needs to tell Nawaz that if he sues in speech-unfriendly United Kingdom courts, any judgment he secures will be worthless against the America-based SPLC. Under the <a href="https://www.popehat.com/2010/08/27/speech-act-a-bulwark-against-buffoonish-brits/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">SPEECH Act, foreign defamation judgments are not enforceable in America unless they are secured using America's speech-protective laws.</a>If the SPLC told factual lies about Nawaz — for instance, by claiming he said things he didn't — then that's potentially defamatory. But calling him an "anti-Muslim extremist" simply means "he's a guy who, in our narrow ideology-addled opinion, holds views that are unacceptable." That may be stupid, but it's not defamatory. The remedy for it is more speech, calling out the SPLC as hacks — and indeed, condemnation of the SPLC about its comments on Nawaz have been widespread and bipartisan. It's the same with Liberty Counsel. Guidestar dropped the SPLC "hate group" classifications <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/06/26/after-conservative-backlash-charity-tracker-guidestar-removes-hate-group-labels/?utm_term=.9626d0c93dba" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">in response to criticism.</a> In its press release about the lawsuit, <a href="http://www.lifenews.com/2017/06/28/pro-life-legal-group-sues-guidestar-for-calling-it-a-hate-grous/?utm_content=buffer2d74b&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">Liberty Counsel said that GuideStar</a> "has lost all credibility." That's a very odd admission by a party seeking to prove that Guidestar's words hurt it, but it's also a spark of honesty in an otherwise dishonest campaign of political litigation: Guidestar offered an opinion, critics responded, and Guidestar suffered reputational consequences for its actions. That's how free speech is supposed to work.I express no opinion in this post about whether Liberty Counsel's policy positions make it a "hate group" — though the SPLC saying it certainly is not a reason to believe it, and Guidestar showed questionable judgment in adopting the SPLC's term. But I do believe that Liberty Counsel's conduct in filing this case demonstrates that it is a foe of core American values and ought to be shunned on that basis.However secure the First Amendment is under current Supreme Court precedent, there's a cultural war over free expression in America. People who pick the side of censorship and seek to undermine free speech rights are not worthy of your support or respect.<div class="wsa-footnotes" style="box-sizing: border-box; border-top: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 5px 15px; padding-top: 5px;"><ol style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px 40px; padding: 0px;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style-type: decimal;"><a name="wsa-endnote-1" style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;" /><a name="wsa-endnote-1" style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">Please join me in sympathy for the </a><a href="http://www.splc.org/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">wonderful and principled Student Press Law Center</a>, which is <a href="https://twitter.com/SPLC/status/880063335839825922" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">now the target of a lot of the Southern Poverty Law Center's bad press.</a>  <a href="https://www.popehat.com/2017/06/29/how-the-southern-poverty-law-center-enraged-nominal-conservatives-into-betraying-free-speech-values/#wsa-inline-1" class="wsa-up" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">▲</a></li></ol></div><h3 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 16px;">Last 5 posts by Ken White</h3></div></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div><a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2018/8/23/white_nationalism_in_the_white_house">https://www.democracynow.org/2018/8/23/white_nationalism_in_the_white_house</a>Multiple people close to Donald Trump have direct ties to white supremacists. Trump’s top economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, has admitted he recently hosted white nationalist publisher, Peter Brimelow, at a birthday celebration at his home. Brimelow founded the anti-immigrant website <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">VDARE.com. Meanwhile, Trump’s speechwriter Darren Beattie was fired last Friday as revelations surfaced that he had spoken at a conference alongside prominent white nationalists, including Brimelow, in 2016. Beattie was a panelist at the H.L. Mencken Club conference, an event the Southern Poverty Law Center calls a gathering of “white nationalists and pseudo-academic and academic racists.” We speak with Richard Cohen, president of the Southern Poverty Law Center.

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<a href="https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/civil-rights-group-reaches-agreement-mississippi-reinstate-over-100000-drivers">https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/civil-rights-group-reaches-agreement-mississippi-reinstate-over-100000-drivers</a>

also related to voter suppression?

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<a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/right-wing-ramps-up-campaign-against-southern-poverty-law-center" style=" text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/right-wing-ramps-up-campaign-against-southern-poverty-law-center</a>

<p style=" margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; line-height: 1.5;">Religious Right groups and right-wing media outlets are waging an intensified campaign against the Southern Poverty Law Center, an Alabama-based organization that monitors and challenges extremist groups and hateful rhetoric. The <a href="https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/culture/katie-yoder/2017/09/06/conservatives-urge-media-cut-ties-splc-over-dangerous-hate-map" style=" text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">latest salvo</a> comes in the form of <a href="http://downloads.frc.org/EF/EF17I05.pdf" style=" text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">an open letter</a> to the media written by the Family Research Council and Media Research Center and signed by 47 right-wing leaders and organizations. The letter characterizes the SPLC as “an attack dog of the political left” and urges media outlets to stop using SPLC data, lists and maps.

Religious Right groups have been <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/dozens-of-gop-leaders-declare-solidarity-with-those-who-want-to-see-homosexuality-outlawed/" style=" text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">furious</a> at the SPLC since the organization decided several years ago to begin listing some of them as anti-LGBTQ hate groups. Religious Right groups <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/dozens-of-gop-leaders-declare-solidarity-with-those-who-want-to-see-homosexuality-outlawed/" style=" text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">rallied around the Family Research Council</a> when the SPLC <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/family-research-council" style=" text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">labeled it a hate group</a> in 2010. Religious Right leaders complain that they are designated as hate groups simply for upholding “traditional” Christian teaching about marriage and sexuality, which the SPLC has repeatedly explained is not true.

“Viewing homosexuality as unbiblical does not qualify organizations for listing as hate groups,” the SPLC has <a href="http://www.startribune.com/printarticle/?id=165871936" style=" text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">explained</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120919155856/http:/www.splcenter.org/get-informed/news/splc-s-anti-gay-hate-list-compiled-with-diligence-and-clear-standards" style=" text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">saying</a> groups receive the designation for spreading “demonstrably false information” and “disparaging, emotion-provoking stereotypes.” SPLC <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/ideology/anti-lgbt" style=" text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">notes</a> that many Religious Right leaders “have disseminated disparaging ‘facts’ about gay that are simply untrue—assertions that are remarkably reminiscent of the way white intellectuals and scientists once wrote about the ‘bestial’ black man and his supposedly threatening sexuality.”

Two years ago, for example, SPLC’s Mark Potok <a href="https://thinkprogress.org/anti-lgbt-groups-absolutely-deserve-their-hate-group-designations-d17aa0a0aa97/" style=" text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">told a reporter</a> <a href="https://apnews.com/21afaa02e8ec4effae8baac4aba23a63/law-firm-labeled-hate-group-leading-kim-davis-crusade" style=" text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">profiling Liberty Counsel</a>, “A group that regularly portrays gay people as perverse diseased pedophiles putting Western civilization at risk are way, way over the line.”

The most recent concerted campaign against the SPLC seems to have been triggered when GuideStar, an online resource that compiles financial and other information about nonprofit organizations, began flagging organizations categorized by the SPLC as hate groups. More than 40 right-wing leaders, including representatives of anti-LGBTQ, anti-immigration and anti-Muslim groups, <a href="http://lc.org/PDFs/062217LTR_Coalition%20to%20Guidestar-Harold%20Jacobs.pdf" style=" text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">complained</a> and asked GuideStar to stop using SPLC information. GuideStar <a href="http://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/charity-website-cites-threats-in-removing-hate-group-labels/" style=" text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">reported</a> that its staff members had received death threats over the designations. After a torrent of right-wing complaints, GuideStar removed the banners, but in June Liberty Counsel <a href="https://www.lc.org/newsroom/details/062817-liberty-counsel-sues-guidestar-over-false-hate-group-label" style=" text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">sued</a> them anyway.

Then in July, right-wing groups, led by the Family Research Council, <a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/exclusive-conservatives-launch-war-on-southern-poverty-law-center-promotes-terrorism/article/2628801" style=" text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">launched</a> a renewed coordinated campaign targeting the SPLC, which has been amplified by the right-wing media. Even white nationalists have gotten in on the act, withVDARE <a href="https://www.advocate.com/politics/2017/7/19/white-nationalist-site-joins-anti-lgbt-groups-campaign-against-southern-poverty-law-center" style=" text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">calling</a> it the “Southern Poverty Lie Center.”

As part of the new campaign, D. James Kennedy Ministries produced an anti-SPLC video called “<a href="https://www.djameskennedy.org/video-detail/1729-profits-of-hate-the-southern-poverty-law-center-special-1" style=" text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">Profit$ of Hate.”</a> Among the Religious Right figures featured in the nearly 30-minute video are FRC’s Tony Perkins, Jerry Boykin, Peter Sprigg and Ken Blackwell and Liberty Counsel’s Mat Staver. A spokesperson for the group <a href="http://www.christianpost.com/news/d-james-kennedy-ministries-president-documentary-splc-hope-to-see-reformation-liberal-group-193587/" style=" text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">told the Christian Post</a> they made the film because the SPLC poses “significant existential threats to religious freedom and to Christian ministries like ours.”

Then in August, D. James Kennedy Ministries <a href="https://www.djameskennedy.org/Uploads/PDF/SPLCLawsuitPressRelease_8-23-17.pdf" style=" text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">filed</a> its own lawsuit against the SPLC, GuideStar and Amazon, which has not included the ministry in its Amazon Smile fundraising program. The lawsuit <a href="http://www.wnd.com/2017/08/left-wing-groups-sued-for-violating-christians-civil-rights/" style=" text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">charges</a> defamation, trafficking in false or misleading information, and religious discrimination. Here’s how the complaint explains the religious discrimination charge:

<p style=" margin: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; line-height: 1.5;">Because the ministry’s position on ‘LGBTQ’ issues is inextricably intertwined and connected to the ministry’s religious theology, and because SPLC and GuideStar have declared the ministry to be a hate group due to the ministry’s stand on LGBTQ issues, what occurred here is that SPLC and GuideStar have discriminated against the ministry because of its theology and its religious beliefs.

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<p style=" margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; line-height: 1.5;">Lawsuits over the SPLC’s “hate group” designation have been accompanied by a media and messaging barrage, enlisting participation from evangelist <a href="https://www.facebook.com/FranklinGraham/posts/1627922307263944" style=" text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">Franklin Graham</a>, Fox News Radio personality <a href="https://www.toddstarnes.com/column/cnn-publishes-fake-hate-list-targeting-well-known-christian-groups?rq=SPLC" style=" text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">Todd Starnes</a>, Breitbart, <a href="https://pjmedia.com/faith/2017/08/23/d-james-kennedy-ministries-sues-splc-guidestar-and-amazon-for-defamation/" style=" text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">PJ Media</a>, the Drudge Report, Alex Jones, and Western Journalism, which published a piece <a href="https://s2.westernjournalism.com/political-correctness-fangs-southern-poverty-law-center/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=familyresearchcouncil&utm_content=2017-08-30&utm_campaign=can" style=" text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">calling</a> the SPLC a hate group that “burns crosses in its own way.”....

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<a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/03/09/Southern-Poverty-Law-Center-Ingores-Liberal-Hate">http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/03/09/Southern-Poverty-Law-Center-Ingores-Liberal-Hate</a>

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There are 892 Hate Groups currently operating in the US according to a new study by the Southern Poverty Law Center released earlier this week - over 100 more than in 2014. The hate groups were divided into 14 groups, all which believe that equality should be denied based on race, religion, sexual identity and/or naturalization

<a href="http://www.alternet.org/belief/america-really-getting-more-tolerant-100-new-hate-groups-appeared-last-year">http://www.alternet.org/belief/america-really-getting-more-tolerant-100-new-hate-groups-appeared-last-year</a>

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