The Southern Poverty Law Center and “Hate Groups”

Touchstone is having some fun with the Southern Poverty Law Center listing the Family Research Council and the Illinois Family Institute as hate groups. I notice SPLC also lists the American Family Association as a hate group for being “anti-gay”. I am very familiar with the AFA, and, although they are not my cup of tea, calling them, the FRC, and God knows who else a “hate group” is absurd and outrageous. Apparently, opposing gay marriage makes you a hate group along with the KKK and Neo-Nazis.

I also note on their Hate Map that advocating immigration law enforcement or “radical traditional Catholicism” can land one on their hate group list.

Now I am not acquainted with every “anti-immigrant”, “radical” Catholic, or “anti-gay” group so listed on the Hate Map. So some of them may be haters for all I know. But count me as a skeptic.

Before we laugh off the SPLC as another collection of Leftists who brand opponents as haters and bigots, I wish to point out two reasons for concern.

1. The Southern Poverty Law Center as long been used by the “mainstream” news media as a credible source. I remember back in the 80’s frequently seeing local North Carolina news stories citing them as a source. The gullibility and bias of the news media combined with effective PR enables SPLC to get their extreme views portrayed as respectable and mainstream.

2. Totalitarians of both Left and Right have a long history of vilifying those they later repress. To think the SPLC and like-minded Leftists have no intent of taking freedoms from those of us who oppose gay marriage or unrestricted immigration and may be a bit “radical” and traditional in our Christian views would be naïve indeed – dangerously so.