A small group of anti-gay hate groups appeared today to protest what they falsely claim is a false label of “hate group,” given them appropriately by their nemesis, the truth-telling Southern Poverty Law Center. The SPLC is an esteemed civil rights organization credited as being one of the main reasons the KKK is all but extinct. People like Matt Barber from the Liberty Counsel, Rachel Conner of Abiding Truth Ministries, and Peter LaBarbera (image, right,) of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH), banded together with other anti-gay activists whose attacks on the LGBT community and our families have yet to receive sufficient opprobrium from the SPLC to make the official anti-gay hate list.
LaBarbera, in his press release, writes:
Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans For Truth, which is sponsoring the press event, recently interviewed Pastor Wooden, who said that the SPLC’s gambit of labeling mainstream pro-family groups that oppose homosexual activism as “hate groups†is seriously damaging the SPLC’s credibility. Wooden also debunked the “civil rights†analogy used by “gay†activists, saying it is wrong to compare “my beautiful blackness†with homosexual perversion.
Pastor Wooden apparently has never heard Coretta Scott King, Bayard Rustin, or NJ state senator Nia Gill, among many others.
What’s critical to note here is that the SPLC does not just willy-nilly decide who’s on their anti-gay hate list. They have published criteria that must be met to warrant the designation “hate group.”
The Southern Poverty Law Center in 201o noted that “the SPLC’s listings of these groups is based on their propagation of known falsehoods — claims about LGBT people that have been thoroughly discredited by scientific authorities — and repeated, groundless name-calling. Viewing homosexuality as unbiblical does not qualify organizations for listing as hate groups.”
In other words, if you repeatedly lie about gay people, you can make the list. It’s not because you claim to be a “religious” organization that will get you on the list.
Yet, the anti-gay hate groups claim the reason they’re on the list is merely because they oppose homosexuality or are religious, or are “pro-family,” an Orwellian twist if there ever were one.
LaBarbera, who appears to be heading up the anti-truth hate fest, writes that his ragtag group includes leaders from the African-American and Jewish communities as well, in an apparent move to make the consortium more… palpable, perhaps?
Bottom line: If you make your living attacking the lives and families of gay and lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans, and spread lies about us, you don’t get off scot-free. There’s a price to pay for lying. In other countries, that price is jail. In America, that price is the totally-truthful label, “hate group.”
A small price for a big sin.
For more, read the SPLC’s list of anti-gay hate groups, and those whose work is quickly approaching the criteria: “18 Anti-Gay Groups and Their Propaganda.” (Only the ones with an asterisk in front of their names are actual anti-gay hate groups. The others are just trying to be.)
Frankly, with all due respect to the SPLC, there are now plenty of others whose work clearly should nail them to this list.
Peter LaBarbera’s press release. (Caution: website not suitable for anyone with a soul.)
The SPLC today ahead of the “protest” issued a statement and explanation on what they saw as the actions of “a group of the nastiest gay-bashers in America.”
Here’s an excerpt. I encourage you to read the entire piece on their website:
Today at noon, a group of the nastiest gay-bashers in America plans to hold a press conference in front of the Montgomery, Ala., offices of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which publishes this blog. Claiming that the SPLC is engaged in a “campaign to demonize adherents of traditional Judeo-Christian morality,†the white organizers of the press conference are bringing along a set of black pastors in a presumed bid to embarrass the SPLC, a 40-year-old anti-racist civil rights organization.
The irony is that SPLC has named five of the participating organizations as hate groups precisely because they demonize LGBT people, using a series of well-worn lies to paint gays and lesbians as perverts, pedophiles and worse. Despite the claims of the groups, the SPLC is not attacking anyone’s morality. Instead, our hate group listings reflect the fact that they regularly propagate known falsehoods.
Take the press conference’s chief organizer, Americans for Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH), and its leader, Peter LaBarbera. In 2007, LaBarbera claimed that there was “a disproportionate incidence of pedophilia†among gay men — a devastating accusation, but one that is entirely false, according to all the relevant scientific organizations. LaBarbera has compared the alleged dangers of homosexuality to those of “smoking, alcohol and drug abuse†and the AFTAH website describes it as a “lethal behavior addiction.†AFTAH has also claimed that an anti-bullying bill in California promoted cross-dressing and sex-change operations, among other things, to kindergartners and other children.
Evan Hurst makes some good points at the end of this piece, as to why the LGBT community, not the anti-gay hate groups, are the real victims here.
And lastly, Joe.My.God. has a photo of the “protest.” 13 people hanging out, with two holding a sign that reads, “SPLC, stop lying. Christianity is not hate.” Of course it’s not. It’s how they’re practicing it that makes it both hate and not Christianity.