Schools across America are “weaponizing whiteness,” according to the scandal-plagued Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). To combat this alleged problem, teachers must let children run classrooms while indoctrinating them into hating the very foundations of the United States and viewing everything through the lens of “race,”  explained the far-left hate group.

Infamous for its grotesque bigotry against people of faith and even for inspiring a Christian-hating terrorist to attempt mass murder, the SPLC offers a range of materials to “educators” through its “Teaching Tolerance” program — a program that praised communist terrorist Bill Ayers as a role model for educators. Its latest initiative to further weaponize government schools by promoting “Critical Race Theory” is now drawing nationwide scrutiny.

It begins with a lie. “Weaponizing whiteness happens in schools every day,” reads a report about the supposed problem in the latest issue of the SPLC’s “Teaching Tolerance” magazine, which also works to promote homosexuality, transgenderism, hatred against Christians, and other controversial ideas in government schools. It is a bold claim from the SPLC. However, it is supported by zero credible evidence, as the piece itself shows.

The first actual example provided of this alleged “weaponization” of “whiteness” supposedly happening in schools is offered by “humanities” teacher Charles McGeehan, a guilt-ridden white man who founded an outfit (that seems to be mostly a Facebook page with 678 likes) called “Building Anti-Racist White Educators” (BARWE). Yes, seriously.

His oh-so-horrifying example of this alleged scourge is that “minor issues — like a student coming to class late or cutting class—end up spiraling into more serious disciplinary issues that can have dire consequences for students.” Yes, seriously: Consequences for tardiness or cutting class is the very first example of this ubiquitous plague said to be afflicting children all across America.

Simply being a teacher and doing what teachers are hired to do — exercise authority in the classroom while teaching children — makes McGeehan feel guilty over his racism. “I have to actively resist the urge to maintain power or control in my classroom, and especially to resist the anger that can bubble up in me when that control is called into question,” he told the SPLC.

The second example of this alleged “weaponization” of “whiteness,” even more ludicrous than the first, comes from a 2016 “study” using “eye-tracking technology.” According to the “study,” teachers — especially black teachers — were supposedly 8 percent more likely to look at black boys than white boys when looking for indications of “challenging behavior” in the classroom. Ironically, the same study found teachers were also more likely to look at white girls than black girls.

And yet, despite the almost comical nature of the easily discredited “findings” and conclusions, the fake media and the SPLC trumpeted this “study” as proof that teachers are somehow systemically racist against black children. Apparently, black educators supposedly being harsher on black children is also evidence of white supremacy and weaponizing whiteness.

Of course, there is a far simpler explanation than systemic racism and “implicit bias” for the findings. The number of black boys coming from single-parent homes is significantly higher than the number of white children, and every study that has looked at the issue shows children without fathers at home are far more likely to get in trouble. The same argument applies to the SPLC’s claim that black children are more likely to be referred to law-enforcement.

Incredibly, disciplining children without regard to race and even exasperated teachers crying in the classroom are offered as additional examples of the supposed weaponization of whiteness. Yes, seriously. Indeed, when a female teacher requests support from law-enforcement to deal with an out-of-control child, this is tantamount to “recreating the dynamics that were used as excuses for racial terror,” SPLC propagandist Coshandra Dillard claims in the fall 2020 issue of Teaching Tolerance.

Even teachers denying their racism and “weaponization of whiteness,” or insisting that they did not mean any harm, is inflicting “further damage” on children, according to the SPLC. Yes, seriously: If teachers refuse to confess their alleged guilt and collective sin stemming from their lack of sufficient melanin in their skin, they are somehow hurting children. Welcome to the absurd world of the SPLC and its allies in government “education.”

Ironically, studies show the sort of “diversity” indoctrination being advocated by the SPLC and other race-mongers actually makes people more racist. As the Harvard Business Review put it, “a number of studies suggest that it can activate bias or spark a backlash.” Of course, the SPLC and the race-mongers know this. But since they thrive on fomenting racism and hate to bring in money, it is no surprise to see them peddle quackery that encourages racism and hate.

The SPLC has a long and almost unbelievable history of absurdity. For instance, it was forced to pay millions of dollars after libeling a practicing Muslim as one of the world’s top “anti-Muslim extremists.” The group also smeared a top black law professor for supposedly enabling “white supremacy” by supporting border security. The SPLC even claimed a Cherokee Indian married to a direct descendant of Sacajawea as the “matriarch” of the “anti-Indian movement.”

Perhaps more alarming, the SPLC’s vicious hate-mongering even inspired homosexual terrorist Floyd Corkins to try to massacre employees of the Family Research Council for speaking against the LGBT agenda. Using the SPLC “hate map” as a guide, Corkins admitted to the FBI he was inspired by the SPLC and planned to rub Chik-Fil-A sandwiches in the faces of his victims after slaughtering them.

To normal people, the SPLC’s unhinged whining about the supposed “weaponization of whiteness” by school teachers probably sounds more like the rantings of a madman than a legitimate concern about a legitimate issue. However, despite the outlandishness of it all, the implications are deadly serious. The far-left group claims to reach over half a million educators, many of whom have also been conditioned by propaganda and substandard “education” into believing the absurdities of the Marxist ideology known as “Critical Race Theory.”

In addition to its widespread influence, the lies being peddled by the SPLC would lead to the collapse of the United States as a constitutional Republic guaranteeing God-given rights for all. For instance, in the SPLC rant on the “Weaponization of Whiteness in Schools,” the writer peddles the false notion that “anti-Blackness and white supremacy are baked into our country’s foundation.”

In reality, America’s Founders made a revolutionary claim that remains at the foundation of America: That all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. The argued that this was a self-evident truth. But if the false narrative pushed by the SPLC about the nation’s biblical foundations in liberty were to become widely accepted, it would literally lead to the crumbling of the America that sits on those foundations.

More importantly, the racist arguments made by the SPLC are preposterous from a Christian perspective — and the overwhelming majority of Americans (whose taxes pay for public schools) continue to describe themselves as Christian. While the Bible speaks of tribes, nations, and tongues, the God of the Bible never divides people by “race.” In fact, the Scriptures never even mention “race” in the same sense as modern-day race-mongers such as the SPLC.

We are committed to upholding truth while resisting and opposing the rising wave of delusional thinking and tyrannical laws/mandates that have afflicted our state and nation. IFI will continue to provide our supporters with timely alerts, video reports, podcasts, pastors’ breakfasts, special forums, worldview conferences, and thought-provoking commentaries—content that is increasingly hard to find.

We encourage you to join us in our efforts. Your support will help us to continue our vital work in 2021. A vigorous defense of biblical truth is needed more than ever in Illinois. #GivingTuesday

Illinois is morally, fiscally, and intellectually bankrupt, and you know what some lawmakers in swampy Springfield are doing with their time and taxpayers’ money? They’ve crafted a stunning resolution titled “Illinois Family Action-Hate Speech” (HJR 55) condemning Illinois Family Action (IFA) and Illinois Family Institute (IFI), falsely accusing us of bigotry and engaging in “hate speech” because in two articles we compared the abortion holocaust to the Nazi Holocaust.

The ten “progressive” sponsors of the resolution falsely accuse IFA of distributing “multiple anti-Semitic, homophobic, threatening, and hateful posts on their official social media page, callously belittling the most appalling tragedies of the Holocaust and recklessly comparing those who disagree with their extreme agenda to Nazis.”

Chicago attorney Joseph A. Morris, who is also a leader in B’nai B’rith and other Jewish and interfaith organizations, served from 1995 through 2001 as the President of B’nai B’rith in the Midwest, and was founder and first Chairman of the B’nai B’rith International Center for Public Policy, said this about the disputed analogy:

I’m Jewish, and not only am I not offended by the comparison between the German Nazi Party’s National Socialism and the U.S. Democratic Party’s Democratic Socialism but I think the comparison is accurate. Wise, principled, and humane Democrats should welcome having their attention arrested by the facts.

The bill’s sponsors filed this resolution just days after a crowd of 4,000 pro-life Illinoisans showed up in Springfield to urge their state senators and representatives to oppose the radical anti-life policies sponsored by these lawmakers and other “progressives”—an event singled out for criticism in the resolution.

Apparently, our anti-constitutionalists in Springfield have forgotten the First Amendment’s protection of speech, assembly, and the right to petition our government for redress of grievances, which is “the right to make a complaint to, or seek the assistance of, one’s government without fear of punishment or reprisals,”—you know, like hateful resolutions.

The resolution is a crock of unsubstantiated ad hominem attacks glued together with more unsubstantiated ad hominem attacks, innuendo, irrelevant red herrings, non sequiturs, and a risible reference to the ethically impoverished Southern Poverty Law Center—an actual hate group.

The central issue is not whether the Nazi Holocaust is an apt analogue for America’s feticidal holocaust. The central issue is whether humans in the womb are persons with intrinsic and infinite worth. If they are, the analogy does not belittle the extermination of Jews by Nazis. If humans in the womb are persons with intrinsic and infinite worth, calling their extermination “health care”—as the resolution’s sponsors do—is an appalling horror.

Since logic and evidence still matter to some Illinoisans—resolution-signatories excepted—let’s don our rhetorical hazmat suits and waders and trudge through the murky, fallacy-infested resolution.

Resolution’s false allegation of “anti-Semitism”

The posts to which they refer are presumably one by Teri Paulson titled “Why is Legalized Abortion Called a Holocaust” and one by this writer titled “Leftist Hysteria and Their Language Rules” in which there is not one sentence that is anti-Semitic or that “callously belittles” the appalling horrors of the Holocaust. None of the sponsors has explained how comparing the egregious horrors of the slaughter of 61,000,000 humans in the womb to the egregious slaughter of 6,000,000 Jews and others in the Nazi Holocaust constitutes a callous belittlement of the Holocaust.

Quite the contrary, comparing the feticidal holocaust to the Nazi Holocaust does the opposite. It amplifies and illuminates the horrors of both. No one who compares the feticidal holocaust to the Nazi Holocaust would make such a comparison if they did not view the extermination of Jews as an incomprehensible horror. Can the Springfield ten really not comprehend that?

When asked whether he finds the analogy offensive, Orthodox Jew David Blatt said,

No. How is it any different? It baffles me that my liberal co-religionists endorse abortion-on-demand given the legacy of the Shoah.

Will the gang of ten in Springfield condemn Mr. Blatt as an anti-Semite?

The analogy is not reckless, nor is it new. Those who object to it do so because they have concluded that the product of conception between two humans is not a human created in the image and likeness of God and endowed by his or her Creator with certain unalienable rights, chief among them the right not to be exterminated. IFA and IFI reject the ontological and moral assumptions of “progressives” on incipient human life.

We reject the worldview that asserts that women have a moral right to have their offspring killed. We reject the worldview that asserts that mentally or physically imperfect humans are less worthy of life than their mental or physical “superiors.” Perhaps those who are enraged at IFA/IFI can explain how the pro-feticide philosophy regarding “defective” humans in the womb differs from the Nazi principle of  “life unworthy of life”?

Perhaps the sponsors can explain exactly why the comparison of a society in which the government has granted to mothers the absolute legal right to have any or all of their children exterminated for any or no reason to a society in which the government exterminates citizens because of their race is so evil that making it—that is, the comparison—must not be permitted and anyone who does make it should be condemned by the government.

Resolution’s false allegations regarding hatred and “callous belittling”

If there is any callous belittling being done, it’s by “progressives” toward humans in the womb. If there are hateful words being expressed, it’s by “progressives” who shriek “hater” at anyone who dares to challenge their beliefs and actions with the same conviction, boldness, and tenacity that they demonstrate.

Resolution’s false allegation of “homophobia”

Once again for the obtuse and/or demagogic “progressives” among us: no matter how many times you charge conservatives with “homophobia,” criticism of volitional homosexual acts or relationships does not constitute fear or hatred (i.e., “homophobia) of those who identify as homosexual. IFA and IFI hold theologically orthodox views of marriage and homosexual acts and relationships—views that are shared by the Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church, and many Protestant denominations. We have a constitutional right to express those views without being harassed, intimidated, and bullied by Springfield “progressives.”

IFA and IFI even have a right to quote, recite, and post what St. Paul says about homosexuality:

Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

Resolution’s false allegation of IFA/IFI threats

There’s really nothing to say other than neither of the “posts” that inflamed the resolution’s sponsors or any other posts written for IFA/IFI include any threats. We unequivocally denounce the use of violence. If the resolution sponsors cannot provide evidence to support that pernicious claim, they owe IFA/IFI an apology (Weather reports say it’s still hot in hell, so…).

Resolution’s false allegation of bigotry

The term “bigot” refers to a person who is “obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices, especially one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance.”

Clearly, there is a distinction between bigotry and moral views. Bigotry cannot simply refer to holding moral views, for if it did, everyone but sociopaths would have to be considered bigots because everyone but sociopaths holds certain behaviors as moral and others as immoral.

The word “obstinacy” in the definition of “bigot” warrants some discussion. First, “obstinate,” according to the American Heritage Dictionary, connotes “unreasonable rigidity.” I would argue that conservative views on, for example, homosexuality are completely reasonable, and that conversely, liberal views are woefully unreasonable.

In order to determine whether a tenaciously held conviction reflects obstinacy requires an evaluation of the content of the belief and the justifications for that belief. For example, few would characterize the act of tenaciously holding the belief that female genital mutilation is wrong to be a manifestation of obstinacy or bigotry.

Moreover, “obstinate” cannot be severed from the other parts of the definition. Bigotry is the obstinate devotion to uninformed inclinations, especially ones that result in hatred of members of a particular group.

The key phrase for distinguishing between bigotry and moral conscience is that a bigot’s opinions are “uninformed,” and the bigot “regards or treats the members of a group… with hatred and intolerance.” Certainly, there are those in society who demonstrate this kind of behavior, but true Christ-followers do not treat anyone with hatred.

I neither treat people who self-identify as homosexual with hatred or intolerance, nor do I feel any hatred for them. My beliefs about homosexual conduct in no way diminish the love I feel for those who self-identify as homosexual, the respect I have for their admirable qualities, the pleasure I take in their company, or the recognition I have of their infinite worth.

I would argue that the views of “progressives” on homosexuality are uninformed, while those of IFA/IFI employees are fully informed.

Tolerating, respecting, or loving people does not require affirming all their feelings, beliefs, or actions. Neither does it require withholding criticism of their beliefs or those actions impelled by their feelings and beliefs.

Resolution’s smelly red herring (or is it a non sequitur?)

The sponsors of the resolution dangle a big, fat, smelly red herring in front of Illinois lawmakers, apparently assuming they’re too foolish to tell the difference between relevant evidence and a big, fat, smelly red herring plumbed from the depths of the swamp where the sponsors live and move and have their being.

The sponsors cite as part of the justification for their resolution the 2004 murder of an unarmed Capitol guard by a  schizophrenic young man who had stopped taking his meds and was hearing “voices and thought members of an underground society in Eastern Europe were controlling him” at the time of the murder as part of the justification for the resolution falsely accusing IFI and IFA of “hate speech and threats.”

Say whaaat?

Let’s see if we can make sense of this: Fourteen years ago, a schizophrenic man who was off his meds murdered an unarmed Capitol guard, so there should be a “formal investigation” into IFA’s/IFI’s non-existent “hate speech and threats,” and our lobbyists’ credentials should be revoked pending the outcome of the investigation.

Nope, can’t do it. Still doesn’t make sense.

Resolution’s risible reference to the Southern Poverty Law Center

Now we come to the resolution sponsors’ appeal to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as some sort of arbiter of moral authority. Yes, that SPLC—the infamous “hate-group” tracker/real hate group—the one embroiled in yet another ethics scandal, the one that makes beaucoup bucks off “progressives” by labelling as “hate groups” any organization that holds theologically orthodox views of sexuality.

In contrast to the aforementioned wholly irrelevant Capitol shooting, the SPLC’s fake hate-groups list has been the actual cause of a shooting. In 2012, Floyd Corkins showed up at the offices of the theologically orthodox Family Research Council, intent on killing the staff. He shot and wounded a security guard who was able to stop him. Corkins said he was inspired to commit acts of violence by the SPLC’s hate-groups list.

Just wondering, does hurling epithets at IFA/IFI employees, falsely accusing them of issuing threats and of being anti-Semitic, homophobic, hateful, and bigoted constitute hate speech? Might it result in violence against us?

Conclusion

It’s a routinely issued diktat that one must never compare the Holocaust or Nazism to, well, anything. I respectfully disagree. Not all analogies that include Nazism, the Holocaust, or Hitler constitute reductio ad Hitlerum fallacies. Some analogies are, as Joseph Morris asserts, accurate.

If we’re permitted to revisit ideas as settled by science and commonsense as women don’t have penises or men can’t become pregnant, surely, we can revisit the arguable claim that there are no points of correspondence between the slaughter of humans in the womb and the Holocaust. And if there are points of correspondence, then surely we can revisit the unwritten law of “progressives” that no one may point them out.

Maybe, just maybe, “progressives” want to censor the comparison of the feticidal holocaust to the Nazi Holocaust because they fear it’s true. What if God wants us to see the abortion holocaust as analogous to the Nazi Holocaust? What if it’s Satan who wants to blind our eyes to the similarities and silence our tongues from identifying them? What if those lawmakers and citizens who react in anger (or tactical faux-anger) are doing the bidding of the father of lies? And what if  conservatives who buckle when “progressives” hurl epithets at them are “now seeking the approval of man” rather than that of God?”

Joliet Diocese Bishop Daniel Conlon requested that all churches in the diocese play a recorded message from him in which he said in part,

The state of Illinois is currently facing a crisis far greater than anything economic. It is truly a matter of life and death. Legislation is being considered in the Illinois General Assembly that would permit abortion anytime during pregnancy; right up to the moment of natural birth all nine months…. I need your help in convincing our elected officials that this proposed legislation is just plain wrong…. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a courageous critic of Nazism wrote, “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak, is to speak.”

In the eyes of “progressives” in Springfield, is Bishop Conlon guilty of anti-Semitism and callous belittlement of the appalling tragedies of the Holocaust for his implied comparison of the abortion holocaust to the Holocaust? Will they add his name to the resolution condemning “hate speech”?

This unsubstantiated, malignant resolution constitutes a reprehensible abuse of power by morally corrupt lawmakers to silence speech. Every decent lawmaker, especially those who value the lives of the unborn and the First Amendment, should vote against it.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to contact your state senator and representative to ask them to reject this dangerous resolution. Ask them to vote down HJR 55 and the unprecedented and tyrannical action being taken by extreme partisans in the Illinois General Assembly.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/HJR55.mp3

A bold voice for pro-family values in Illinois! 

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Long before homosexual activist Floyd Corkins entered the D.C.-based Family Research Council (FRC) with the intent to commit mass murder, I warned from the rooftops that the hard-left Southern Poverty Law Center’s anti-Christian “hate group” propaganda might spur such bloodshed. With a column headlined, “Liberal violence rising,” I wrote, “The SPLC’s dangerous and irresponsible (‘hate group’) disinformation campaign can embolden and give license to like-minded, though less stable, left-wing extremists, creating a climate of true hate. Such a climate is ripe for violence.”

Tragically, my deepest fears were realized.

Then, in August, days after Corkins was heroically disarmed by FRC employ Leo Johnson, whom Corkins shot in the arm, I penned another column titled “Fanning the flames of left-wing violence.” I plead with the SPLC to end its “dishonest and reprehensible” strategy of “juxtaposing FRC and other Christian organizations with violent extremist groups” in a transparent effort to marginalize them.

“I appeal to your sense of goodwill. This is not a game. Lives are at stake,” I implored. “I know you have good employees (I’ve met some) who believe they’re doing the right thing; so, please, validate that belief. It’s time to remove your metaphorical ‘hate group’ Star of David from mainstream Christian organizations before another of your ideological allies spills blood.”

I no longer believe the SPLC has a sense of goodwill. In fact, based on FBI evidence and the group’s own actions (and inaction), I and many others are left with no other inference but this: The SPLC – a left-wing extremist fundraising behemoth – may be intentionally inciting anti-Christian violence.

Just days ago, Corkins pled guilty to a number of charges, including domestic terrorism. FBI evidence revealed that he was both motivated by and utilized the SPLC’s “anti-gay hate map” to target and locate his intended Christian mass murder victims.

Further evidence reveals that the “hate map” – more accurately labeled “hit map” – even provided the exact location of FRC and other Christian groups found on Corkins’ hit-list with little red dots to helpfully pinpoint their precise locations.

Corkins told the FBI after the shooting that he intended to “kill as many as possible and smear the Chick-fil-A sandwiches (which he brought with him) in victims’ faces.” Prosecutors said that he planned to leave FRC after the attack and go to another conservative group to continue his reign of terror. A handwritten list of three other groups was found with his belongings while an investigation of Corkins’ computer revealed that he identified his targets on the SPLC website. The other groups were also maliciously listed by the SPLC as “hate groups.”

Motive to kill? Fomented. Who to kill? Provided. Where to kill? Pinpointed, with easy access to driving directions. The only thing the SPLC did not do was purchase Corkins’ gun and drive him to the crime scene.

Here’s why, to my own aghast bewilderment, I’m left with little choice but to believe the SPLC may be intentionally inciting anti-Christian violence. As noted by the FRC, “Even after an attempted mass murder of the FRC staff, the ‘hate map’ is still prominently featured on the SPLC website today – which shocks most conservative pundits.”

“Shocks” is an understatement.

“When Congresswoman Giffords and several others were shot in Arizona by Jared Loughner, the left went into overdrive blaming Sarah Palin for a map that had a list of political targets on it. After the fact, we learned that Loughner was apolitical and he clearly had not used Sarah Palin’s map of political targets. That did not stop the left from blaming the right,” noted RedState’s Erick Erickson. “By the way, Palin took down her target map after the controversy. The Southern Poverty Law Center? Crickets …” 

What other explanation is there? I understand that it’s difficult to admit you’re wrong, especially when the scheme seemed so delicious at the time. But once FBI evidence conclusively proves that you were, to a large degree, responsible for inciting an act of domestic terrorism, most reasonable people would take a deep breath, take a step back, admit fault and hobble forward in an effort to rehabilitate a reputation in ruin.

Is the SPLC a left-wing extremist group? Absolutely. Are they anti-Christian? Without a doubt. But few would have believed, until now, that they might intentionally, with malice aforethought, seek to incite anti-Christian bloodshed.

Scandalously, the Barack Obama administration continues to maintain deep ties with this radical organization.

“The Southern Poverty Law Center has a long history of maliciously slandering pro-family groups with language and labels that incite hatred and undermine civil discourse,” said Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel. “In the issues of family and marriage, Christians are literally in the crosshairs of radical homosexual activists, and the SPLC is fueling the hatred and providing the targets. The SPLC should be held accountable for its reckless acts. Even more disturbing than the SPLC’s irresponsible behavior is the fact that the Obama administration is in bed with this group,” said Staver.

“It is ironic that Christians who believe in natural marriage have been isolated by radical homosexual activists and demonized as ‘homophobes’ and ‘haters,’” he concluded.

Weeks before Corkins pleaded guilty of terrorism and assault with intent to kill, a study from the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point entitled “Challengers from the Sidelines: Understanding America’s Violent Far Right” said the “violent far right” exhibits an intense fear or dislike of foreign people, “including people with alternative sexual preferences.” The SPLC’s warped view of reality has been adopted by the Obama administration.

“What the SPLC and other homosexual activists are doing is intentional and dangerous,” said Staver. “It is time to end the dangerous rhetoric and resume a civil discourse on the subject of natural marriage and morality.”

Indeed if, God forbid, this SPLC “hate group” propaganda leads to another act of left-wing terrorism like that at FRC, this dangerous group should be held legally – perhaps even criminally liable.

In the meantime, to the media, I say this: If you dare, even for a moment, give any credence whatsoever to this deadly SPLC “hate group” nonsense, you too will have blood on your hands.

SPLC, you’re no longer fooling anyone.

Stop fooling yourselves.

It’s probably too much to hope for, but perhaps the day of reckoning for the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has come. Perhaps the shooting last week at the Family Research Council headquarters in Washington D.C. will bring scrutiny to and condemnation of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s pernicious “hate group” list on which the Family Research Council (FRC), American Family Association (AFA), and we, the Illinois Family Institute (IFI), are included.

All three organizations are included on the SPLC’s ever-expanding list of hate groups that also includes “neo-Nazi” groups, ”racist skinhead” groups, and the Ku Klux Klan. FRC, AFA, and IFI are listed as “anti-gay hate groups.”

News reports revealed that shortly after the FRC shooting, the FBI contacted the Traditional Values Coalition, another conservative Christian organization on the SPLC’s “anti-gay hate group” list to notify them that the shooter, Floyd Corkins, had its address in his backpack. The Traditional Values Coalition is so small that very few conservatives have even heard of it, so where might Corkins have learned about  it? Hmmmm, let’s see… Could it be from the SPLC’s hate group list?

In an interview following the shooting, FRC President Tony Perkins said, “I believe the Southern Poverty Law Center should be held accountable for their reckless use of terminology.” While Mark Potok, editor-in-chief of the SPLC’s ironically named “Intelligence Report” and “Hatewatch” blog continues to spew defamatory lies, he takes umbrage at this criticism of the SPLC’s ethics.

Countless liberal bloggers, political pundits, and the mainstream press repeat the SPLC’s specious designation of conservative Christian groups as “hate groups.” But one wonders how many of those who repeat the SPLC’s fallacious claims bother to read the criteria that the SPLC uses to determine who goes on its “hate group” list. Do any journalists, law enforcement agencies, or gullible acolytes of the SPLC bother to analyze the soundness of the evidence the SPLC provides for the inclusion of groups on their “hate group” list?

And do disciples of the SPLC know that it included groups on its “anti-gay hate group” list prior to the establishment and publication of any criteria to determine which groups would go on it?

SPLC’s “hate group” criteria center on social science research and policy speculation with which the SPLC disagrees.

The SPLC has been harshly criticized for its anti-religious bias, even—irony of ironies—its hatred of orthodox Christians. In an obvious attempt to distract attention from the truth of that criticism, Potok and his accomplices Heidi Beirich, Evelyn Schlatter, and Robert Steinback manufactured a set of criteria in 2010 that would enable them to include groups like the FRC, AFA, and IFI on their “anti-gay hate group” list. They apparently counted on Americans not noticing that their criteria bear no resemblance to actual hatred: no expressions of hate, no calls for violence, no claims that those who identify as homosexual are less valuable as human beings.

What the SPLC has done is create an elastic definition of hatred that centers on social science research,  facts, or propositions that the SPLC doesn’t like.

One criterion that the SPLC uses to establish “hate group” status is whether an organization makes any predictions that the SPLC doesn’t like about the potential legal consequences of law or policy related to homosexuality.

The SPLC claims that groups warrant inclusion on its “hate group” list if they propagate “known falsehoods” about homosexuality. I’m not sure if Potok and his compeers actually understand what a “known falsehood” (also called a lie) is. A known falsehood is a statement that is objectively, provably false and is known to be false when made.

The SPLC has said, for example, that if an organization argues that hate crime legislation may result in the jailing of pastors who condemn volitional homosexual acts as sinful, the organization is guilty of “anti-gay” hatred and will be included on the SPLC’s “hate group” list.

And any organization that argues that allowing homosexuals to serve openly in the military will damage the military in some way merits inclusion on its “anti-gay hate group” list.

How can Potok sensibly claim that speculating that hate crimes legislation may lead to the jailing of pastors who condemn homosexuality is a known falsehood? It is a prediction of possible future events that may result from the logical working out of a law. This prediction may not come to fruition, but at this point it cannot reasonably be deemed a “known falsehood.”

And how can a prediction about the effects of allowing homosexuals to serve openly in the military be a known falsehood. Certainly, there are differences of opinion on the effects of the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, but liberal speculation that such a change will not damage the military is not a known truth.

Another criterion used by the SPLC to determine whether an organization is a “hate group” is whether the organization cites any social science research that the SPLC doesn’t like.

According to the SPLC, if an organization says that “gays are more prone to mental illness and to abuse drugs and alcohol,” it goes on the SPLC’s hate groups list. I’m sure this is not news to Potok, but there is a lot of research showing just that.

The SPLC engages in some tricksy rhetoric to defend this intellectually and ethically bankrupt criterion. Schlatter and Steinback argue that mental health organizations no longer consider homosexuality a mental disorder, which is true, but has no relevance to the fact—which even the SPLC concedes—that homosexuals experience much higher rates of mental illness and drug and alcohol abuse.

What really sticks in the craw of the SPLC is that conservative organizations don’t agree with the unproven speculation by the  SPLC and some social scientists that the reasons for the increased incidence of mental disorders and drug use are social stigma and “discrimination.”

The SPLC deems hateful the claim that same-sex parents harm children. Of course, Potok and his minions don’t feel any obligation to define harm and apparently reject a whole body of social science research that claims that children fare best when raised by a mother and father in an intact family. Even President Obama in his Mother’s Day and Father’s Day proclamations argued that both are essential to the welfare of children.

While homosexual activists revel in even the most poorly constructed social science research if it reinforces their presuppositions, they reject better constructed studies that undermine them. The truth is that if organizations don’t accept the ever-fluid, controvertible, and highly politicized social science research that the SPLC favors, they go on the “hate group” list.

“Hate group” designation relies on the redefinition of terms

In addition to marshaling only that social science research that fits their subversive sexual worldview, the SPLC does what virtually every homosexuality-affirming organization does, which is redefine terms to silence dissent and enable them to promote fallacious charges of hate with carefree abandon.

Among the many terms that homosexuality activist organizations like the SPLC have redefined are “hatred,” “tolerance,” “acceptance,” “bias,” “discrimination,” and “safety.” What the new definitions share in common is their utility in humiliating, intimidating, and silencing those who believe that same-sex attraction is disordered, that homosexual acts are immoral, and that  marriage is the inherently procreative union between one man and one woman.

The SPLC is continually telling people who identify as homosexual that those who believe homosexual acts are immoral hate them. The tragic effect of propagating that ugly lie is not only that it may lead unstable people to commit acts of violence. The truly tragic effect is that it undermines the potential for relationships between people who hold diverse moral views and effaces the potential for dialogue.

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To borrow from President Obama’s Black Nationalist mentor, Jeremiah Wright, the Southern Poverty Law Center’s hate-baiting chickens “have come home to roost.” The hard-left group has become everything it presumes to expose.

On Wednesday, homosexual activist Floyd Corkins entered the Washington-based Family Research Council (FRC) armed with a gun and a backpack full of ammunition. He also had 15 Chick-fil-A sandwiches (FRC recently defended the food chain’s COO Dan Cathy for pro-natural marriage statements).

The only thing standing between Corkins and mass murder was FRC facilities manager and security specialist Leo Johnson. As Corkins shouted disapproval for FRC’s “politics,” he shot Johnson who, despite a severely wounded arm, managed to tackle Corkins and disarm him (of course, this is all impossible as it’s illegal in Washington, D.C., to carry a concealed weapon).

Of Johnson’s actions, D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier said, “The security guard here is a hero, as far as I’m concerned.”

I agree.

Upon hearing of Leo’s selfless act of heroism, I was reminded of John 15:13: “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”

But according to the SPLC, Leo’s heart is, instead, full of hate. In fact, everyone at FRC is hateful. After all, in 2010 the SPLC, with much fanfare, “officially certified” FRC as a “hate group” for its orthodox Christian positions on marriage and family.

Alongside violence-charged photos of actual hate groups like the Aryan Brotherhood and the KKK, the SPLC lists on its website the decidedly mainstream and always peaceful FRC.

It’s a clever strategy, dishonest and reprehensible though it may be. By juxtaposing FRC and other Christian organizations with violent extremist groups, SPLC has engaged in intellectual sloth at its worst (the organization has repeatedly declined to debate FRC President Tony Perkins over its “hate group” smear).

Rather than debating – on the merits – mainstream Christian groups with which it has ideological disagreement, SPLC has chosen, instead, the coward’s way out: demonization and marginalization through false guilt by association.

It’s a scheme not only slimy, but extremely dangerous.

If ever there were a time I’d prefer not to have been right, now is that time. Back in November 2011, I essentially predicted both the FRC shooting and the SPLC’s undeniable complicity therein.

With a column headlined, “Liberal violence rising,” I wrote, “The SPLC’s dangerous and irresponsible (‘hate group’) disinformation campaign can embolden and give license to like-minded, though less stable, left-wing extremists, creating a climate of true hate. Such a climate is ripe for violence.” (If anyone deserves to be taken out – rationalizes the unbalanced SPLC dupe – its members of this or that evil “hate group” whom, as he’s been repeatedly told, mean him great harm.)

That was before the fact. After the fact – one day after the shooting – Tony Perkins addressed exactly that which I forecast:

“Let me be clear that Floyd Corkins was responsible for firing the shot yesterday,” he told Washington reporters. “But Corkins was given a license to shoot an unarmed man by organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center that have been reckless in labeling organizations hate groups because they disagree with them on public policy.”

The SPLC “should be held accountable for their reckless use of terminology that is leading to the intimidation and what the FBI here has categorized as an act of domestic terrorism.”

Regrettably, Mr. Perkins finds himself in a uniquely credible position to make this charge.

Still, although there remains a vast ideological divide between the SPLC and the tens of millions of Christian Americans represented by the Family Research Council, the Southern Poverty Law Center now finds itself with a brief window of opportunity to both do the right thing and rehabilitate its badly damaged reputation.

To the SPLC, I say this: Your cynical efforts to dehumanize Christians and equate biblical truth to “hate” are working better than I think even you expected. It’s now within your power to right a horrible wrong and restore a sense of peace and security to the rattled folks at FRC. What a gift that would be.

I appeal to your sense of goodwill. This is not a game. Lives are at stake. I know you have good employees (I’ve met some) who believe they’re doing the right thing; so, please, validate that belief. It’s time to remove your metaphorical “hate group” Star of David from mainstream Christian organizations before another of your ideological allies spills blood.

And to homosexual activists and other liberal groups, I say this: Rise above the fray. Let’s come together. Here is something on which even we can agree. Publicly encourage SPLC to lift this veil of fear.

Media, you, too, are on notice. Remember Wednesday’s shooting next time you even think about repeating SPLC’s “hate group” brand while addressing the Christians upon whom it’s tattooed. You also have share in the blame.

SPLC, hear me now: If, God forbid, something like this – or even worse – happens in the future and you have yet refused to retract and apologize for your “hate group” propaganda, then your hands will forever be stained with the blood of innocents.

Still, either way, we Christians are commanded to speak the truth of Christ “even unto death.”

FRC will not be deterred. “We’re not going anywhere,” Tony Perkins told reporters Thursday. “We’re not backing up; we’re not shutting up,” he vowed. “We feel that – we don’t feel, we know [that] we have been called to speak the truth. Speak it in love, but to speak the truth nonetheless – and we will not be intimidated, we will not be silenced.”

“I was there as [Leo] came to from the anesthesia,” said Perkins, “and I told him, ‘Leo, I want you to know you’re a hero.’ And he thought about it for a minute and he said, ‘You know, this hero business is hard work.’”

Heroes don’t work for “hate groups,” and FRC’s hard work is heroic indeed.

I’m proud to count them my friends.

You should be, too.