(Official Washington Examiner editorial, June 9) The Southern Poverty Law Center, a radical, leftist, self-appointed watchdog against “hate,” has itself become a hate group.
Its annual report and “ hate map ” labeling and listing “hate groups” across the country once were semi-respectable and semi-valuable compendia on KKK, neo-Nazi, virulent Islamist, and extremist militia organizations. Years ago, though, the SPLC lists became utterly discreditable and disreputable. Rather than limiting its emotionally powerful “hate” designations to groups promoting violence, the SPLC began lumping mainstream conservative groups in with white supremacist associations that were depraved and dangerous.
Now the SPLC has reached a new low, perhaps a nadir. It maliciously identified hundreds of local chapters of three parental rights organizations as “hate groups.”
The perilous power of the “hate” label became clear in 2012 when a gunman motivated by the SPLC’s list opened fire on workers at the offices of the Family Research Council, a group promoting traditional values, and planned attacks on other conservative groups listed by the SPLC. Against well-deserved criticism, the SPLC has continued to attack right-leaning people such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali , the famed human rights activist and scholar, and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and organizations such as the Center for Immigration Studies, which provides research solid enough that its leader has been invited to testify to Congress more than 100 times.
The SPLC even bad-listed famed children’s neurosurgeon Ben Carson. Later, in semi-apology, it nevertheless continued to insist Carson was guilty of numerous “extrem[ist]” comments, such as opposing gay marriage. This was in 2013, just a year after President Barack Obama had abandoned the same view. Carson was also subjected to SPLC calumny because he said, “Citizens should be able to own weapons, [and] they should not have to report what weapons they own.”
Now the SPLC has outdone itself , amping up its own hatred for anyone who won’t kowtow to radical ideology. The parent groups it denounces are participating in serious civic action for the first time. They are not haters. They love their children sufficiently to want to bring them up well…. [The full editorial is at this link.]
