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PODCAST: The SPLC: An Anti-Christian Hate Group

In the wake of the Charlottesville melee, the mainstream press is citing the disreputable Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and its “hate” groups list ad nauseum with nary a peep about the repeated criticism of the SPLC as a bastion of anti-Christian bigotry.

The Illinois Family Institute (IFI) is included on the “hate” groups list alongside white supremacist and white separatist groups for no reason other than our biblical view of marriage as a sexually differentiated union and our biblical views of sexual morality—views that are shared by the Roman Catholic Church, many Protestant denominations, many non-denominational churches, Orthodox Judaism, 2,000 years of church history, and the Bible.

Read more…




Laurie Higgins and the SPLC’s “Hate” on WGN Radio

Yesterday morning, WGN radio host Mike McConnell interviewed IFI’s Laurie Higgins about the fallacious “hate” designations given to conservative Christian groups like IFI, Family Research Council (FRC) & American Family Association (AFA) by the extreme leftist Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).  

Laurie did a fantastic job, clearly articulating the hypocrisy,  inconsistency and destructiveness of their “hate” label.

Kudos to the host, Mike McConnell, who provide Laurie the time to discuss important issues surrounding these dubious “hate” groups listings.  If you were not able to listen to it, you can listen to an MP3 recording of the segment HERE.

If you are interested in learning more about the SPLC, please take time to read this comprehensive indictment from the Social Contract Journal, which dedicated its spring 2010 issue to exposing the SPLC.

And if that’s not enough, read the following articles hereherehere, and here.


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The Morality Police at the SPLC

Oh, for the good old days when the term “hate group” referred to groups that actually hated someone. Now the term “hate group” refers to any group that expresses political, philosophical, moral, or theological beliefs with which the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) disagrees.

Last week, the SPLC released the winter issue of Mark Potok‘s ironically named “Intelligence Report.” Thearticle “18 Anti-Gay Groups and Their Propaganda” by Evelyn Schlatter lists 18 organizations as “anti-gay” groups with 13 of those to be added to their formal list of “hate groups.” The American Family Association, Family Research Council, and the Illinois Family Institute are three of the 13 that will be included on a list with neo-Nazi organizations.

Schlatter explains that the “propagation” of “known falsehoods” about homosexuality will result in organizations being included on the SPLC’s “anti-gay” list and perhaps also their “hate groups” list. Here are the “known falsehoods” that she and co-author Robert Steinback cite in the companion article “10 Anti-Gay Myths Debunked”:

  • If an organization claims that homosexuals “molest children at far higher rates than heterosexuals,” it goes on the SPLC’s “hate groups” list.
  • If an organization says that “same-sex parents harm children,” it goes on the SPLC’s “hate groups” list.
  • If an organization claims that “people become homosexual because they were sexually abused as children or there was a deficiency in sex-role modeling by their parents,” it goes on the SPLC’s “hate groups” list.
  • If an organization claims that “homosexuals don’t live nearly as long as heterosexuals,” it goes on the SPLC’s “hate groups” list.
  • If an organization claims that “homosexuals controlled the Nazi Party and helped to orchestrate the Holocaust,” it goes on the SPLC’s “hate-groups” list.
  • If an organization claims that “hate crime laws will lead to the jailing of pastors who criticize homosexuality and the legalization of practices like bestiality and necrophilia,” it goes on the SPLC’s “hate groups” list.
  • If an organization claims that “allowing homosexuals to serve openly would damage the armed forces,” it goes on the SPLC’s “hate groups” list.
  • If an organization claims that homosexuals “are more prone to be mentally ill and to abuse drugs and alcohol,” it goes on the SPLC’s “hate groups” list.
  • If an organization claims that “no one is born a homosexual,” it goes on the SPLC’s “hate groups” list.
  • If an organization claims “Gay people can choose to leave homosexuality,” it goes on the SPLC’s “hate groups” list.

Under each of these “myths,” Schlatter and Steinback offer analyses and evidence of such poor quality that their arguments wouldn’t pass muster in many high school English classes in which there are actual standards for logic and use of evidence. I will examine just a few of the many problems in their analyses, which in turn will reveal the intellectual and ethical vacuity that pervades the SPLC.

Same sex parents harm children

The SPLC thinks that the belief that same sex parents harm children constitutes hatred. The first problem is that Schlatter and Steinback fail to define harm. If one believes that homosexuality is morally flawed, then a household centered on a morally flawed relationship cannot be beneficial.

It is entirely possible that a brother and sister in an incestuous relationship or that polyamorist parents could raise children, providing for their physical needs, comforting them, and teaching them their ABCs. But most of society believes that such relationships would harm children because they would teach children that incest and polyamory are morally permissible. Would Schlatter and Steinback include organizations on their “hate groups” list that propagate the belief that incestuous parents or poly-parents harm children?

The SPLC and many homosexuals are outraged over any comparison of homosexuality to adult consensual incest or polyamory because they view homosexuality as moral and incest and polyamory as immoral. But no one is obligated to accept the SPLC’s flawed comparison of homosexuality to race or to accept their moral assumptions. After all, who is the SPLC to impose their moral views on all of society? Why are IFI’s moral beliefs about homosexual acts hateful and the views of those who oppose incest or polyamory legitimate? Why do IFI’s moral beliefs about volitional homosexual acts land us on the “hate groups” list, while the moral beliefs of those who oppose incestuous parents or poly-parents do not land them on the “hate groups” list?

Many people believe that children have a fundamental right to be raised by the biological parents who procreated them. Many people, including Roman Catholics, Muslims, Orthodox Jews, and Protestants as well as people who follow no faith tradition, believe it is immoral for homosexuals to adopt or use in vitro fertilization and surrogacy to acquire children. Do they all deserve to be labeled “haters”?

Homosexual parents teach their children that gender is irrelevant to marriage and to parenting. They teach them that homosexual acts are inherently moral. And they deliberately deprive children of either a mother or a father. Those corruptions of truth and essential human relationships harm children.

Childhood molestation, innateness (“born that way”) and homosexuality

The one point about which many on both sides of the homosexuality debate agree is that the causes of same-sex attraction are not known. Many believe that same-sex attractions result from a complex interaction of biologically shaped predispositions and environmental factors. If we do not know the causes of same-sex attraction, and if some of the factors that contribute to it are environmental experiences, how can anyone declare that childhood molestation never contributes to the development of same-sex attraction? And if childhood molestation may contribute in some cases to the development of same-sex attraction, how can it constitute hatred to say so?

Oprah, an inveterate promoter of all things homosexual, recently did two powerful programs about men who were molested as children. One of her guests was a therapist who has treated hundreds of men who were molested as children. He stated that one result of the sexual molestation of boys is “sexual orientation confusion.”

Schlatter and Steinback also assert that it’s hateful, false, and mythical to say “no one is born homosexual,” and then virtually their entire analysis reveals that there is no research proving that people are “born homosexual.” Schlatter and Steinback write, “a great many studies suggest that it is the result of biological and environmental forces.”

Following their repeated assertions that there is no proof that homosexuality is congenital, Schlatter and Steinback suggest the false dichotomy that if people do not choose their same-sex attraction, they must be “born that way,” completely ignoring two essential truths. First, the fact that people do not choose their feelings does not mean that such feelings are biologically determined. Second, freely chosen behaviors that emerge from feelings shaped by biological influences are not automatically moral.

IFI has consistently said that although no one chooses their feelings, people do choose how to respond to them. Saying that people ought not to act upon same-sex attraction is no more hateful than saying that people ought not to act upon unchosen, powerful, persistent attractions to pornography, multiple people, or their siblings. All moral beings have to decide which of their unchosen, powerful feelings are morally legitimate to act upon.

Homosexual men and shortened life spans

Under the “myth” about the shortened life spans of homosexual men, Schlatter and Steinback made the following statement:

Bob Unruh, a conservative Christian journalist who left The Associated Press in 2006 for the right-wing, conspiracist news site WorldNetDaily, said shortly before the federal law was passed that it would legalize “all 547 forms of sexual deviancy or ‘paraphilias’ listed by the American Psychiatric Association.” This claim was repeated by many anti-gay organizations, including the Illinois Family Institute.

Either because of Schlatter’s and Steinback’s poor research or lack of ethics, they failed to include the fact that exactly one week after making the error regarding the DSM, writer Kathy Valente posted a correction which is still on our website. It reads as follows:

In the article entitled “Hate Crimes Bill Moves to Senate” (5/5/09), we mistakenly stated that the American Psychiatric Association’s actual definition of “sexual orientation” includes paraphilias. The APA’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) classifies “sexual orientation” as heterosexual, homosexual, and bi-sexual. The 547 mental disorders called paraphilias specifically involve non-human objects, physical pain, or unwilling partners as in pedophilia. IFI apologizes for the error.

I hope and assume that Schlatter and Steinback will demonstrate the integrity and professionalism that Ms. Valente did by publishing a correction and apology.

In their argument that talking about the shorter life spans of homosexual men constitutes an act of hatred, Schlatter and Steinback focused on research by Paul Cameron, while completely ignoring research by the well-respected International Journal of Epidemiology that found the following:

[W]e demonstrated that in a major Canadian centre, life expectancy at age 20 years for gay and bisexual men is 8 to 21 years less than for all men. If the same pattern of mortality continued, we estimated that nearly half of gay and bisexual men currently aged 20 years would not reach their 65th birthday. Under even the most liberal assumptions, gay and bisexual men in this urban centre were experiencing a life expectancy similar to that experienced by men in Canada in the year 1871.

The authors of this article, upset that conservative groups disseminated this troubling fact, issued an update that said, “if we were to repeat this analysis today the life expectancy of gay and bisexual men would be greatly improved. Deaths from HIV infection have declined dramatically in this population since 1996.”

Though mortality rates have dropped due to improved treatment protocols, HIV infection rates for “men who have sex with men” (MSM) are soaring. According to the CDC, “While CDC estimates that MSM account for just 4 percent of the U.S. male population aged 13 and older, the rate of new HIV diagnoses among MSM in the U.S. is more than 44 times that of other men.”

I wonder if Schlatter and Steinback are planning on publishing an addendum to their article in which they address HIV infection rates for homosexual men, or perhaps they’re going to include the CDC on their “hate groups” list.

Nazism

Schlatter claimed erroneously that I “compared homosexuality to Nazism,” which makes me wonder if she even bothered to read the articles in which I referred to Nazism. Here’s an excerpt from one:

Although genocide and homosexual acts are both sins, in man’s economy–and my own belief system–genocide is a far greater sin. And although I believe that all sin represents rebellion against God, I believe that homosexuality and genocide are by nature distinct….I never posited that homosexuals were the moral equivalents of Nazis. Rather, I compared the rationalizations church leaders offered for the silence of the church in the face of the evil of Nazism to the rationalizations church leaders offer for the silence of the church in the face of the evil of using public schools to promulgate destructive, erroneous views of homosexuality….The feckless or deceitful claim that I said homosexuals are equivalent to Nazis makes no more sense than claiming that someone who says the church should address both the sin of murder and the sin of gossip are saying that murderers and gossips are morally equivalent.

Sin in the closet

The SPLC believes it’s an act of hate to say that homosexuality should remain in the “in the closet.” Ms. Schlatter quoted an article in which I said “There was something profoundly good for society about the prior stigmatization of homosexual practice…. [W]hen homosexuals were ‘in the closet,’ (along with fornicators, polyamorists, cross-dressers, and ‘transsexuals’), they weren’t acquiring and raising children.”

Many people believe that immoral behavior should be concealed from the public rather than paraded about or publicly celebrated. For example, many people–perhaps most–do not want polyamorists’ or cross-dressers’ behavior to be public where children can see it. Does the SPLC view those who don’t want their children to see manifestations of polyamory or cross-dressing as haters?

My belief that it would be better for society if homosexuality were not publicly affirmed, normalized, or celebrated no more constitutes hatred of homosexuals than does other people’s belief that polyamory should not be publicly affirmed, celebrated, or normalized constitute hatred of polyamorists.

Ex-gays

The SPLC states that saying people can choose not to act on same-sex attraction or that they can leave a homosexual lifestyle constitutes hatred of homosexuals. Following that logic, what does it mean when someone says people can leave a polyamorous lifestyle or that they can choose not to act on their powerful attractions to multiple people? And what does it say to the hundreds of men and women who have abandoned their homosexual lives that the SPLC says discussing such a path is an act of hatred?

Conclusion

No longer is hate defined as, well, hatred. Anyone who finds the SPLC’s analogies faulty; their research selective; their concealing of inconvenient facts troubling; or their unproven, non-factual moral beliefs wrong, is now guilty of hatred.

The SPLC holds the unproven, non-factual belief that homosexuality is moral and arrogantly demands that all of society agree, or be silent, or be labeled a “hate group.” That strikes me as a strange manifestation of tolerance or respect for speech rights and diversity. Ironically, the SPLC has become the oppressor.

The SPLC hopes that their smear campaign will silence conservatives so that only the SPLC’s moral views will be heard in the public square. No one should allow the unprincipled bullying tactics and specious reasoning of the SPLC to intimidate them into silence. The SPLC’s ontological and moral beliefs about homosexuality are not facts, and dissent from the ethically impoverished SPLC’s beliefs does not constitute hatred.

Please take time to read this comprehensive indictment of the SPLC from the Social Contract Journal, which dedicated its spring 2010 issue to exposing the SPLC.

And if that’s not enough, click hereherehere, and here.

(Originally published on December 3, 2010)


Stand With Us

Your support of our work and ministry is always much needed and greatly appreciated. Your promotion of our emails on Facebook, Twitter, your own email network, and prayer for financial support is a huge part of our success in being a strong voice for the pro-life, pro-marriage and pro-family message here in the Land of Lincoln.

Please consider standing with us by giving a tax-deductible donation HERE, or by sending a gift to P.O. Box 88848, Carol Stream, IL  60188.




SPLC: Medical Science, Christianity = ‘Hate’

Sometimes the most effective way to deal with a bully is to simply pop him in the chops. While it may not shut him up entirely, it usually gives him pause before he resumes flapping his toxic jaws. It also has the effect of showing the other kids in the schoolyard that they have nothing to fear. Though the bully struts about projecting the tough-guy image, he’s typically the most insecure pansy on the block.

Such is the case with the bullies over at the fringe-left Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). Having been recently “popped in the chops,” if you will, for a series of hyperbolic and disingenuous “anti-gay hate group” slurs against a dozen-or-so of America’s most well-respected Christian and conservative organizations – the SPLC now finds itself publicly struggling, outside of an extremist left-wing echo chamber, to salvage a modicum of mainstream credibility.

In response to the SPLC’s unprovoked attacks, a unified coalition of more than 150 top conservative and Christian leaders across the country has launched a shock-and-awe “Start Debating, Stop Hating” media blitz to educate America about the SPLC’s ad hominem, politically driven smear campaign.

The mainstream pro-family conglomerate already includes presumptive Speaker of the House John Boehner, former presidential contender Mike Huckabee, four current U.S. senators, three governors, 20 current or newly-elected members of the House of Representatives and many more.

As the controversy wears on and the facts become public, the moribund SPLC has understandably become increasingly defensive, strongly suggesting that it has come to regret this gross political overreach. Catch the tiger by the tail, you get the teeth.

Still, lazily labeling its ideological adversaries “hate groups” has yet to satisfy the anti-Christian law center. It’s taken the slander even further down petty path, launching a succession of amateurish personal attacks against a number of individual Christian advocates (to include yours truly). This is a clear sign that the sexual relativist left recognizes that it’s losing the debate on the merits.

Indeed, the SPLC’s poorly constructed analysis bears deconstructing, but first I’ll make a prediction. The center has yet to pin its official “SPLC designated hate group” badge of honor on either me or Liberty Counsel, the civil rights group with which I’m affiliated.

Somehow we were able only to earn the equally deceptive lower ranking of “anti-gay.” I suspect this is because I’ve been a primary public critic of the center’s feeble “hate group” crusade. Even the far-left understands that premature retaliation would betray dishonest political motives.

Still – and you heard it here first – within the next year or two (maybe less) the SPLC will move to even the score by tagging Liberty Counsel an “official hate group.” At that point – and beyond the question: “If the SPLC calls you a ‘hate group’ in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?” – any remaining media outlet that may wish to treat the center as an objective arbiter of “hate” will do so at grave risk to its own credibility.

Nonetheless, the SPLC has begun to grease the skids. Quotes cherry picked, taken out of context and misapplied are a powerful tool of the propagandist. Such are the Maoist techniques of the SPLC. Among other things, here’s what the group has said about me:

“Barber suggested against all the evidence that there were only a ‘miniscule number’ of anti-gay hate crimes …”

Let me be clear: I didn’t “suggest” there were a “miniscule number of anti-gay hate crimes” in 2007. I proved it. I merely cited the FBI’s own statistics which demonstrate the fact beyond any serious debate. Let’s look at “all the evidence” to which the SPLC refers. Here’s what I actually wrote in theWashington Times:

“Consider that according to the latest FBI statistics, out of 1.4 million violent crimes in 2007; there were a mere 247 cases of aggravated assault (including five deaths) reportedly motivated by the victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity. There is zero evidence to suggest that, where appropriate, perpetrators were not prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law in every instance.”

A bit different than the SPLC portrayal, no? Let’s do the math:

Approximately 247 aggravated “hate crime” assaults, taken within the context of 1.4 million violent crimes means that exactly .00017643 percent of violent crimes in 2007 were “anti-gay hate crimes.” A miniscule number? You be the judge.

Continued the SPLC:

“Barber had argued that given ‘medical evidence about the dangers of homosexuality,’ it should be considered ‘criminally reckless for educators to teach children that homosexual conduct is a normal, safe and perfectly acceptable alternative.'”

Note that the SPLC neither identifies nor addresses the “medical evidence about the dangers of homosexuality.” It’s no wonder. Again, the evidence proves the case beyond any serious debate.

For instance, a recent study released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finds that, as a direct result of the demonstrably high-risk and biologically incongruous act of male-male anal sodomy, one-in-five “gay” and “bisexual” men in American cities have been infected with HIV/AIDS.

If five people got into a car and were told that one of them wasn’t going to survive the drive, how quickly do you suppose they’d scatter? Yet we systematically promote celebration of homosexual conduct in our public schools.

Criminally reckless? You be the judge.

Or consider that current U.S. health regulations prohibit men who have sex with men (MSM – aka “gays”) from donating blood. Further studies conducted by the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration categorically confirm that if MSM were permitted to give blood, the general population would be placed at risk.

According to the FDA: “[‘Gay’ men] have an HIV prevalence 60 times higher than the general population, 800 times higher than first-time blood donors and 8,000 times higher than repeat blood donors.”

The FDA further warns: “[‘Gay’ men] also have an increased risk of having other infections that can be transmitted to others by blood transfusion. For example, infection with the Hepatitis B virus is about 5-6 times more common, and Hepatitis C virus infections are about 2 times more common in [‘gay’ men] than in the general population.”

A 2007 CDC study further rocked the homosexual activist community, finding that, although “gay” men comprise only 1-to-2 percent of the population, they account for an epidemic 64 percent of all syphilis cases.

Again I ask: Is it “criminally reckless” to indoctrinate children into this potentially deadly lifestyle?

Again I say: You be the judge.

So, according to its own “hate group” standard, the SPLC is left one of three possible choices: Either it remains consistent, tagging the CDC, the FDA and the FBI with its pejorative “hate group” moniker; it offers a public retraction and apology for its attacks against me and other Christians; or it remains silent while its credibility continues to swirl down the toilet bowl of irrelevancy.

Still, the SPLC has done a significant disservice to its homosexual propagandist and sexual relativist allies. My friend Gary Glenn with the American Family Association of Michigan (a “hate group” target of the SPLC) sums it up nicely:

“The SPLC’s demonization of groups that tell the truth about the public health implications of homosexual behavior may be the biggest boon we’ve seen in years to efforts to publicize those health consequences. We welcome this opportunity. The SPLC has provided a public service by focusing attention and discussion on the severe public health consequences of homosexual behavior.”

Indeed, the SPLC and its allies are flailing violently as they swim upstream against a torrent of settled science, thousands of years of history and the unwavering moral precepts of every major world religion.

It’s little wonder they’ve resorted to childish name calling.