In a story about Bret Baier’s withdrawal from a Catholic conference, where he was going to speak about his Catholic faith, the website known as Mediaite noted that Republican Governor Bobby Jindal (LA) was going to go through with his appearance at the event. But the website warned him about the consequences of offending the homosexual lobby. “Given the controversy that follows U.S. House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) more than a decade after he allegedly spoke before a group connected to white supremacists, Jindal, who has presidential ambitions of his own, must be giving his appearance some serious thought right about now,” it said.

Hence, the philosophy of white supremacism associated with the Ku Klux Klan and the Nazis is compared to Catholicism. That’s the message this so-called “respectable” source of news and information is sending. Jindal rejected that. The governor’s spokesman said, “Governor Jindal looks forward to addressing the summit and speaking about what faith means to him.”

The summit is sponsored by Legatus, a group that upholds the teachings of the Catholic Church on human sexuality and other matters.

If Baier was speaking at or attending a fundraiser for the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA), that would have been perfectly okay. After all, many Fox media stars, including Megyn Kelly, have done so in the past. In addition, Fox pours money directly into this important lobby in the homosexual movement, and it’s not even a controversy.

What’s fascinating in this case is that the attacks which forced Baier and actor Gary Sinise out of the Legatus conference do not involve opening fire on anybody’s editorial offices and murdering the offenders. These things are mostly done differently in America. I say “mostly” because of the terrorist attack on the Washington, D.C. offices of the Family Research Council (FRC) in 2012. That was inspired by a “hate map” posted by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) pinpointing the location of the FRC. A security guard was injured as he stopped a homosexual militant from trying to carry out a massacre in the FRC offices.

In most cases, however, the weapons of character assassination, distortion, and anti-Christian bigotry will suffice. The purpose is to intimidate and ostracize those who dare to associate with groups affirming traditional standards of morality. One of the new tactics, as used by Mediaite, is to associate Catholics with racial extremists. This is a smear that is beneath contempt, but the gay lobby and its fellow travelers will stop at nothing.

The message that the site was sending to Jindal is that he risks his political future by associating with a notorious hate group called the Catholic Church. It was a threat disguised as news.

The leftists have no quarrel with the views of the pope on economic matters. And they certainly won’t quibble with his encyclical on climate change when he issues that in March. But challenging the morality of the lifestyle of so many in Hollywood and the media is something else. Questioning the homosexual lifestyle simply cannot be tolerated.

Jindal, who is a Catholic, didn’t succumb to the pressure. He had the intestinal fortitude to remain true to his beliefs. He understood that the attacks on Legatus were an attack upon his own faith. He couldn’t back down and maintain his own principles. Jindal’s decision to stand up to the modern totalitarians in the gay rights movement has to be seen as courageous.

Backing out is especially troubling in the case of Bret Baier, since his speaking appearance at the Legatus summit was for the purpose of talking about his own Catholic faith expressed in his book, Special Heart: A Journey of Faith, Hope, Courage and Love. He wasn’t there to talk about gay rights. Neither was Sinise, for that matter.

Baier, or his corporate bosses, have to take the blame for giving in to the pressure. We would have thought that the Fox News Channel would have stood firmly for freedom of expression and freedom of conscience. It sets a terrible precedent that a “conservative” news channel, which became successful by speaking for many without a traditional voice in the liberal media, should bow at the altar of political correctness. Why they buckled to the pressure is a story in itself.

As we have pointed out, Fox News anchor Shepard Smith is allowed to pontificate on the air, including on behalf of the gay rights cause. But a Bret Baier speech about his book at a Catholic event is supposed to be offensive. This is the state of our media today.

The tactics used by the homosexual lobby have been perfected by such groups as the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Council on American-Islamic Relations against their enemies. What’s new is that the official Catholic Church teachings on human sexuality are now labeled as so offensive that people can’t even be associated with a group that promotes them. This is the kind of religious discrimination we have seen in countries like France against the Jews.

Some in the media called the summit “anti-gay,” which is a complete lie. As Legatus Executive Director John Hunt said in a statement, “Legatus embraces all that the Catholic Church teaches—nothing more, nothing less. Of course, at the core of all that the Church teaches is Christ’s unconditional love for every man and woman. While the Church has and always will teach about the morality of certain behaviors, these teachings are always to be understood in the context of the value of and respect for every human person.”

Turning Christian love into “hate” is an indication of how a situation can be twisted into something it’s not. This is how political correctness, a form of cultural Marxism, works in practice. The homosexual lobby has perfected this tactic of intimidation.

Hunt said the group’s members are only asking for the freedom to exercise their religious beliefs, “which includes the ability to gather together and discuss their faith.”

That such a meeting has become controversial, to the point where major figures in the media and Hollywood can be forced to back out, is a terrible reflection on the condition of the First Amendment right to free speech in America today. The news organizations that are involved in this silencing of freedom of expression have shown they have no understanding of what “I am Charlie” is all about.

This article was originally posted at the Accuracy in Media website.

Last week, this hateful and vulgar message was sent to IFI’s Facebook page: 

A prayer for all of you. Dear Lord, I ask that you strike down the children of any staff, supporters or friends of this EVIL hate group. May their children have cancer, be hit by cars or be murdered. May the staff and founders be victims of a mass shooting or bombing—that would be nice!!!  And finally, may any children of that very unattractive WHORE—Laurie Higgins—be slaughtered and offered to your greatness lord.  May her entire family be struck down and return to Hell from which they came.  F*** YOU Laurie Higgins and your entire disgusting family!!! Amen. 

This troubled person chose to communicate his feelings in the form of a twisted prayer to a god he calls “Lord.” He describes IFI as an “EVIL hate group.” He asks that the IFI staff and our families be violently attacked and murdered. And he singles out my good friend Laurie Higgins with an especially demeaning and misogynistic attack.   

This is the toxic fruit of the social and political movement that regularly demonizes its opponents with the most hateful and dehumanizing tactics.  Ultimately it seeks to silence anyone or any group that opposes them.

If you are alarmed and shocked — good, you should be. The degree of hatred that some on the Left have for conservative groups like IFI, simply because we believe and articulate orthodox Christian moral teachings, is beyond the pale.

How does anyone get to the point of wishing violence and murder on another human being, let alone the innocent children of those with whom you have philosophical and political disagreements?

The hatred expressed in this Facebook comment is aggravated by liberal groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) that label pro-marriage groups like IFI as “hate organizations.” The SPLC’s inclusion of organizations that uphold Judeo-Christian views of sexual morality with racist groups is not only intellectually dishonest, but incendiary.

These comments reflect the growing sentiment of some Leftists, and it predicts a culture increasingly hostile to religious belief and practice. Comments like this — and this writer is not alone — reflect an embrace of perversity and portend even violence. Most important, such rhetoric points to a culture that hates the God of the Bible. 

How do we respond? While we are relatively accustomed to hateful, harassing, obscene, and hostile messages, this Facebook message cannot be ignored. Threatening the lives of the IFI staff and our children is criminal. In the wake of the shooting at FRC a couple of years ago, we cannot ignore it. 

Our good friends at the Thomas More Society helped us draft a letter to the FBI and local law enforcement officials, asking for their help and protection. At the very least, I hope that we can secure a restraining order against this angry person. 

IFI supporters can respond to this situation by praying for God’s continued protection of the entire IFI Team. Additionally, please pray for the person who sent this message to us. He obviously doesn’t realize how wicked his thoughts and words are. Ask God to change his heart and mind. 

Finally, we need your financial support to help fund the work and ministry of IFI: your voice in the public square that many on the Left want to eliminate. 

The fact is, we need your help. We cannot do it without you. 

We need your partnership, your prayers, and the resources to do the work we are called to do. 

If American institutions like IFI don’t speak perseveringly and clearly on marriage, family formation, life, and human sexuality, our society WILL continue this descent into the dark, violent, and wicked abyss that led to the destruction of many once strong and proud cultures. 

Our commitment at the Illinois Family Institute is to boldly stand up for Judeo-Christian values and to make sure that biblical principles and God’s standards are heard in our contemporary culture. 

We must not be intimidated.  

What then shall we say to these things? 
If God is for us, who can be against us? ~Romans 8:31 

Will you stand with us?

If Christians refuse to stand up for truth, our children and grandchildren will suffer in an America that is willing to marginalize, criticize, bully and even attack Christians.  

Please help the IFI team to remain strong on the front lines of this critical cultural and moral battlefield by praying for us and by contributing to the costs of running a state-wide ministry and family policy organization. 

Thanks for your prayers and support. 

Sincerely,

David E. Smith, Executive Director
Illinois Family Institute
P.O. Box 88848
Carol Stream, Illinois  60188

P.S.  Become an IFI Sustaining Partner by pledging monthly support, and I will rush a copy of a special DVD featuring an inter-faith conversation between best-selling author Eric Metaxas (author of Bonhoeffer), syndicated radio show host, Dennis Prager, and Dr. Erwin Lutzer, author and pastor of the historic Moody Church. 

Many Americans find President Obama’s obsession with income inequality troubling. Many think the goal of equality of outcome as opposed to equality of opportunity is misguided and harmful. Many are concerned with his hyper-focus on race, class, gender, and the dubious classification “sexual orientation.” Well, get used to it, folks, because the government is breeding a new generation of Obamas, chiefly through public education.  

This indoctrination occurs in schools, colleges, and departments of education that train teachers and then through them, filters down into our high schools, middle schools, and elementary schools. 

One of the scores of ways the Obama/Bill Ayers/Peggy McIntosh/Paulo Freire worldviews are promulgated is through the annual “White Privilege Conference” being held this March 26-29 in Madison, Wisconsin. And one sure sign that this conference is up to no good is that the morally impoverished Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) will be participating through its ironically named “educational” project: Teaching Tolerance. Yes, the Southern Poverty Law Center, which identifies the Family Research Council, American Family Association, Concerned Women for America, Liberty Counsel, and IFI as “hate groups” because of our orthodox Christian belief that homosexual acts are immoral thinks of itself as the teacher of tolerance. 

The documents for this conference include a glossary of terms for the uninitiated in which the term “Christonormativity” is defined: “The system of oppression which assumes Christianity as the norm, favors Christians, and denigrates and stigmatizes anyone that is not Christian. Equates Americanness with Christianity.”

Oddly, I couldn’t find the term “Christophobia,” which is the system of oppression which assumes Christianity is the source of all evil and stigmatizes anyone who is an orthodox Christian.

To give you a clearer picture of the ideologies that infect public education, below is a sampling of bios and workshops from the White Privilege conference. (Remember as you read the following that when the terms “racism” and “bias” are used, they do not refer primarily to actual racism and bias, but rather to “institutional racism” and “bias” which are horses of an entirely different color—definitely not white. Just know that if you’re a white, male, heterosexual, orthodox Christian you’re automatically guilty of racism, patriarchy, heteronormativity, Christonormativity, and hegemonic practices):

Paul Kivel: “The Roots of Racism in Christian Hegemony: Decolonizing our Thinking, Behavior, and Public Policy”: Before Europeans understood themselves as white they thought of themselves as Christians participating in a cosmic battle between good and evil against all those labeled Other. Today, Christian hegemony punishes the poor, destroys the environment, and contributes to our seemingly endless “war on terror.” As our crises of financial meltdown, war, racism and environmental destruction intensify; it is imperative that we dig beneath the surface of Christianity’s benign reputation to examine how it undermines our interpersonal relationships, weakens our communities and promotes injustice. Join me in a discussion of the impact of dominant Christianity on our lives and on how Christians and those who are not Christian have resisted oppression and built communities of healing and justice. 

Emily Chiariello: The Teaching Tolerance Anti-bias Framework, “Understanding Identity, Diversity, Justice and Action,” will orient participants with the first-ever road map for anti-bias education. Organized into four domains: Identity, Diversity, Justice and Action, the framework represents a continuum of engagement in anti-bias, multicultural and social justice education, moving anti-bias educators from prejudice reduction toward collective action….Participants will walk away with a copy of the complete framework and strategies for integrating the framework into classroom instruction.

Rosemary Colt and Diana Reeves: “Examining White Privilege and Building Foundations for Social Justice Thinking in the Elementary Classroom”:  Learn how to design and implement curriculum around concepts of power, justice, relationship and community building. How does white privilege impact our society at a community level, a global level? …In this session, we will share curriculum that allows children to construct an understanding of how race and privilege have determined what our neighborhoods look like. Even young students can learn to understand and think critically about white privilege and power, as well as detect bias, assume perspectives different from their own, and take social action.

Christine Saxman: “Saxman is an English teacher [at Deerfield High School, Deerfield, Illiniois], Equity leader, Pacific Education Group Affiliate and “Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity” facilitator. She works for racial justice inside her classroom, school district and community….She will be co-facilitating “Interrupting White Privilege at WPC and Beyond: How Interruption Can Strengthen Relationships and Build Community Relationships and Build Community.” What do you do if you see white privilege asserting itself at WPC? What do you do when someone shares that you’ve been asserting privilege and you didn’t realize it? This workshop, facilitated by a Woman of Color and a White woman, will examine how to recognize privilege and how to interrupt it in the service of relationships, community, and justice.   

Andrea Haynes Johnson: Johnson is a Black, female anti-racist leader and educator. Currently she serves as the Director of Diversity and Grants for [Deerfield and Highland Park High Schools], and she is an Affiliate with Pacific Educational Group. She will be the co-facilitator of “Moving K-12 Public Schools to Anti-Racist Action,” in which Participants will engage in a vibrant conversation about the paths and pitfalls to transforming Public Schools into spaces that interrupt White Privilege and promote anti-racist practices. Strategies for accountability, staff development and student engagement will be shared. The dialogue will empower participants to return to their home schools armed with language and concrete practices that can foster a more inclusive environment for all stakeholders.

White Privilege Conferences are attended by public school teachers who will take these controversial ideas about race, gender, class, “sexual orientation,” and bias into the classroom in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. There is no reason for teachers to attend this voluntary conference other than to bring the dubious ideas they ingest back to the classroom. And folks, we often pay for it. 

Take ACTION: Contact your local high school and ask if any teachers are speaking at or attending this dubious conference, and if so, ask whether the school district is footing the bill.

 Click HERE to support the work and ministry
of Illinois Family Institute.

Written by Austin Ruse

A state legislator in Hawaii has filed an ethics complaint with the State Department of Education alleging that the Southern Poverty Law Center is bribing elementary teachers to take an SPLC course called Teaching Tolerance. State Representative Bob McDermott also charges that the SPLC course is biased against Christians and teaches leftist ideas. 

McDermott sent a letter to District Superintendant Kathryn Matayoshi on February 28 asking her to halt the implementation of the program. She did not respond to the letter and allowed the training to go ahead the weekend of March 1. 

Specifically, McDermott believes a $250 payment to teachers to implement content from the training in their lesson plan is not allowed under Hawaiian law. He says it “raises all kinds of ethical issues.” 

McDermott said, “I want political agendas, right or left, out of the schools. I want the teachers to spend the precious little time they have with students educating them in the basics. English teachers should focus on English, things like sentence structure, and not mainlanders’ political viewpoint of social justice. Make no mistake, this program only presents one side of the story.” 

McDermott believes the SPLC program is “social engineering” that includes a “disproportionate focus on normalizing homosexuality.” He said, “The theme of this curriculum is so called ‘anti-bias’ unless, of course, you are a person of faith.” He points to one lesson featuring a character named Patrick who is “being raised in a very strict and exclusionary fundamentalist Christian home…” McDermott says if this isn’t “biased, I don’t know what is.” 

Other lessons include a story called 10,000 Dresses about a little boy who likes to wear dresses and another about two homosexual penguins in a curriculum for children in kindergarten through second grade. “Why [do] first graders need to know about homosexual penguins?” McDermott wants to know. 

SPLC is coming under increased scrutiny and criticism in recent years for including Christian groups like the Family Research Council (FRC) alongside neo-Nazi skinhead groups and the KKK as hate groups. Even liberal columnist Dana Milbank of the Washington Post has scoffed at the inclusion of FRC on the hate list. 

A peer reviewed critical analysis just issued by Professor George Yancey of North Texas University demonstrates that SPLC reserves only conservative groups for its hate list, ignoring leftist groups saying the same things that land conservative groups on the list.

This article was originally posted at the Breitbart.com blog.

AFA and other pro-family groups have sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, urging the Department of Defense to stop using the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as a resource.

SPLC materials are specifically anti-Christian and label many faith-based organizations like American Family Association, Illinois Family Institute and Family Research Council as “hate groups” because of our strong stand defending traditional marriage laws and resisting the aggressive, radical homosexual agenda.

The Department of Defense should stop using SPLC’s fabrications immediately. Add your voice to ours!

The American Family Association has been singled out as a “hate group” in briefings at Camp Shelby, Mississippi, and Fort Hood, Texas by military trainers relying on false SPLC materials.

In one presentation, the photo of Fred Phelps of “God hates fags” fame was disgustingly displayed on a screen with AFA’s logo. Not only did trainers lie by claiming there was an association between AFA and Phelps, they warned our men and women in training that to have any dealings with AFA, including making donations, would be a breach of conduct.

The SPLC has no credibility among people who value truth, and the military should not be using it as a source for training materials for service members.

Take ACTION:  Click HERE to join the coalition of conservative organizations in sending your copy of the letter we wrote to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel urging the Department of Defense to stop using the Southern Poverty Law Center as a resource.  

 Read more:  What is Wrong with the Southern Poverty Law Center? by IFI’s Laurie Higgins

The magnitude of this Obama administration’s “progressive” radicalism becomes more evident with each passing day. In recent months, there has been a drastic spike in acts of both anti-Christian and anti-conservative discrimination and intimidation on military bases across the country. This mounting harassment is not being carried out at the hands of regular enlisted folk but, rather, at the hands of high-ranking officials who, in their official capacity, are targeting Christian and conservative organizations and individuals in an effort to silence them.

It has long been suspected that the Obama administration is using propaganda circulated by the roundly discredited Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a left-wing extremist group that, in recent years, has adopted two primary goals: 1) raising truckloads of money and 2) smearing as “domestic hate groups” dozens of mainstream Christian ministries like the Family Research Council (FRC), the American Family Association (AFA), and local groups like Illinois Family Institute (IFI).

This suspicion has now been verified.

The problem on military bases has gotten so bad, in fact, that the U.S. Congress is demanding answers from the Pentagon. Recently, the AFA-affiliated OneNewsNow.com newsgroup reported that “Congressman Alan Nunnelee (R-Mississippi) is 1 of 38 members of Congress signing off on a letter to the Secretary of the Army – especially about an incident last month at Camp Shelby, Mississippi, in which the Tupelo-based American Family Association was labeled in Army training material as a ‘hate group.’ The Army initially claimed it was an isolated incident.

“‘But as we looked into it, [we found] this is not an isolated incident,’ Nunnelee [told] OneNewsNow. ‘There are a number of cases where the Army has singled out the American Family Association and other Christian organizations as hate groups, and service men and women have been threatened with sanctions if they support these groups.”

After a tremendous public outcry – and in an embarrassing slap to the face of the SPLC – the Pentagon quickly backpedaled, later apologizing about the Camp Shelby incident and publicly admitting that, despite the SPLC’s absurd claims to the contrary, the AFA is not a “hate group.”

Still, rather than distancing itself from the anti-Christian SPLC as one might expect, the Obama administration has, instead, strengthened ties to the hard-left outfit. Even after this string of military scandals.

For instance, I recently learned that on its official website, the FBI lists as one of its primary “hate crimes resources,” the Southern Poverty Law Center.

This is especially mysterious when you consider that the FBI’s own verified hate crimes statistics are completely at odds with numbers put out by the SPLC in its fundraising propaganda. Whereas the FBI indicates that there was a sharp 24.3 percent decrease in hate crimes from 1996 to 2010, with racial hate crimes dropping by 41.9 percent, the SPLC incongruously claims that since 2000, the number of “hate groups” has somehow increased by 67.3 percent.

So send your money right away!

The FBI’s empirical data doesn’t track with the SPLC’s political propaganda. Consequently, by partnering so closely with this discredited organization, the Department of Justice significantly undermines its own credibility.

Still, while the SPLC has proven utterly unreliable in its actuarial acumen – as well as intentionally dishonest – it has also proven demonstrably dangerous in its prolonged campaign of anti-Christian agitation.

You may recall that it was the Southern Poverty Law Center’s somewhat clever, yet patently dishonest and reprehensible strategy of juxtaposing, as fellow “hate groups,” mainstream Christian organizations like the FRC and the AFA alongside violent extremist groups like the Aryan Brotherhood and the Skin Heads that, on Aug. 15, 2012, led to an actual act of domestic terrorism.

On that date, “gay” activist Floyd Lee Corkins II – who later confessed in court that he was spurred-on by the SPLC’s anti-Christian materials – entered the lobby of the Washington-based Family Research Council intending to kill every Christian within.

Corkins was armed with both a gun and a backpack full of ammunition. He also had 15 Chick-fil-A sandwiches that he intended to rub in the faces of his would-be victims. (FRC had recently defended the food chain’s COO Dan Cathy for pro-natural marriage statements he made.)

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 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 both the SPLC and the FBI (by virtue of its close ties to the group), Leo’s heart is, instead, full of hate. Everyone at FRC is hateful.

In fact, if you happen to be a Bible-believing Christian, you too are hateful.

You get the drill.

The Obama administration has absolutely no business partnering with this extremist organization – and it’s an outrage that it does. If this troubles you as much as it does me, please contact the FBI at (202) 324-3000 and respectfully voice your concern. Then call or email your local FBI office. (Click here to find that location.) It’s critical that freedom-loving Americans light-up the FBI’s phone lines and demand that all facets of government completely disassociate from the SPLC and disavow any further use of its anti-Christian propaganda.

The Southern Poverty Law Center must be held accountable for its inflammatory and potentially deadly anti-Christian bigotry.

 There are scores of organizations across America that help people overcome same-sex attraction disorder and gender identity confusion.  All of them are becoming targets of the far left.  In California, the state legislature actually passed a bill nearly shutting down all such agencies even though clients voluntarily choose their help.
 
A counseling group in New Jersey, another liberal bastion of tolerance, is being sued by a far-left group called the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).  The SPLC claims that JONAH (Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing) is involved in consumer fraud because reparative therapy and sexual reorientation counseling is not always successful.  (No counseling of any kind, even the very best, is ever anywhere near 100 percent successful.)
 
The SPLC is arguing that sexual orientation is fixed at birth and therefore cannot be changed.  But the Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund, which is representing JONAH, has pointed out that the medical community is deeply divided on this issue. They have submitted numerous affidavits from medical professionals providing evidence that change is possible and sexual preference is fluid among those identifying as homosexuals and bisexuals.
 
One of the affidavits for JONAH should have made big news.  It comes from renowned psychologist, Dr. Nicholas Cummings, who was the past President of the American Psychological Association (APA).  In recent years the APA has become political and very left leaning on social issues and even their own research involving homosexuality. Yet, Cummins affidavit states that he personally treated over 2,000 homosexuals for various conditions, while his staff counseled thousands more.  Cummins affidavit states that he personally knows hundreds of former homosexual who successfully changed their orientation to heterosexual.

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.

The Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) educational arm Teaching Tolerance created yet another school event intended in part to normalize homosexuality and gender confusion. The SPLC claims that 2,800 schools across the country participated in this event, which is called Mix It Up Day.

According to an article in the Chicago Tribune, the SPLC claims that Mix It Up Day “makes no explicit mention of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender population.” That’s a very peculiar claim to make in light of these activities listed on the Teaching Tolerance website for Mix It Up Day:

1.     Allies: A Discussion Activity   Mix It Up Day

Level: Grades 1 to 2, Grades 3 to 5

• Ask students to think of times when they witnessed some kind of oppression. This might be someone ignoring a child who is waiting to be served in favor of an adult (adultism)…[or] one student calling another a “faggot” or a “lezzie” (homophobia).

  From there, engage students in role-plays or discussion about how they can interrupt bullying or other oppressive behaviors, using…provided examples: You’re on the playground and one of your friends tells you not to invite Marcus to be in the game because he’s a “homo.” What do you do?

2.     Controversial Issues   Mix It Up Day

Level: Grades 6 to 8, Grades 9 to 12 

Materials: Explain to students that they’re going to be discussing a controversial topic in class….The model we’re providing is on the common, everyday put-down, “You’re so gay!”… This is a lesson in crossing the social boundaries of ideology.

[H]ave them read the Controversial Topic Handout on “You’re so gay!” silently for at least five minutes:

I think saying it is wrong because…

It is bullying.

There is nothing wrong with being gay in the same way that there’s nothing wrong with being heterosexual.

It’s hurtful to people.

Sometimes if people aren’t really masculine or feminine they get called gay and they aren’t.

A ‘faggot’ literally means a stick for kindling and it’s used to denigrate gays and lesbian because in medieval times they used to use gay men as kindling to burn women accused of witchcraft.

“Gay men are effeminate” is a stereotype. Plenty of gay men are not and plenty of heterosexual men are. There is no such thing as a typical gay or lesbian person.

Thinking that effeminate is negative is sexist.

Gay people believe they are born gay, that it isn’t a choice. Therefore, it’s not a sin.

Extension: As a follow-up, share with your students…articles on school-age children who have recently been killed or taken their own lives because of anti-gay bias in schools. Remind students that the words we use can either give life or death — that’s how important they are.

3.     Stay in the Mix for Valentine’s Day   Mix It Up Day 

Level: Pre K to K, Grades 1 to 2, Grades 3 to 5, Grades 6 to 8

Celebrate Valentine’s legacy of love and resistance!

Did you know…The origins of the Valentine’s Day holiday are rooted in resisting injustice. Most stories focus on a man named Valentine who lived in the third century, during the Roman Empire. In one, the emperor, believing unmarried men would make better soldiers, issued a decree banning soldiers’ marriages. Valentine believed this was unjust and performed secret marriages. Imprisoned for doing so, Valentine fell in love with the jailer’s daughter and sent her letters, which he signed, “Your Valentine.”

Student Voices

Injustices routinely occur during Valentine’s Day — moments of exclusion and ostracism, assumptions of a heterosexual norm. Here [is a story from a student] addressing such injustices:

[When I wanted to take a same-sex date to a school dance] my vice principal told me I’d need a note from my parents. The note was supposed to acknowledge that they were aware we were taking someone of the same sex to the dance, and that there could be security problems. I was told I’d need a note for every dance I attended. So would my date.” (Pointing out that no African American, physically challenged or heterosexual students were being forced to obtain permission to attend a dance, the student called the requirement discriminatory.) “[The vice principal] said, ‘There’s good discrimination and bad discrimination.’ I told him that discrimination is discrimination.”
— Jason Atwood, then 17, whose demands sparked a student walkout and other protests leading to a removal of the restriction just prior to that year’s Valentine’s Day dance

Discussion Questions

What do you think of Jason’s story? Could — or has — that happened at your school?

Activity Ideas

State bans on gay marriage — and the proposed Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage — echo the “soldier marriage ban” in the Valentine story. An excellent, and balanced, lesson is available free on the PBS website. With the extensions provided, the lesson also is ideal for structured dialogue within — or between — extracurricular clubs. (Grades 9-12)

No public school should use any resources from the dishonest Southern Poverty Law Center or its propaganda project, Teaching (in)Tolerance, both organizations of which use public schools to promote their unproven moral and political assumptions.

In light of the recent attempted murder of employees at the Family Research Council (FRC), several pro-family organizations, including IFI, and private citizens are asking Fox News to discontinue guest appearances by homosexual agitator Wayne Besen on the popular O’Reilly Factor TV show. 

Besen has a long history of slandering conservative groups and the ex-gay community in language that foments hatred and undermines civil discourse.  

Last week Fox News reported that Tony Perkins, FRC’s president, blamed the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and its rhetoric of hateful lies against FRC for helping to create a climate that led to shooter Floyd Corkins’ actions, (attempting to kill conservative Christians at FRC for opposing ‘gay’ marriage).
 
The SPLC and Wayne Besen are united in demonizing conservative organizations and individuals.  Despite repeated complaints about Besen’s appearances, producers of the O’Reilly Factor continue to feature Besen, a radical homosexual activist aligned with the SPLC, as a guest commentator.

SELECT HERE TO READ A FULL LIST OF PRO-FAMILY LEADERS SIGNING THIS PETITION.

Last year the controversial Besen and the SPLC ally jointly staged a protest  outside of FRC’s Values Voters conference, falsely accusing FRC and the American Family Association of hatred and lies.  Besen publicly labeled FRC’s conservative speakers as “certifiable lunatics with dangerous agendas.”  Both Besen and the SPLC took out an ad in the Washington Post falsely blaming FRC for gays being more likely “to be victimized by violent hate crimes” and “driven to suicide by relentless bullying.” 

Besen and the SPLC also target the ex-gay community, claiming that former homosexuals are a ” “ and that ex-gays are not entitled to the same rights and respect that gays currently enjoy.  In a bizarre move, Besen and SPLC are now filing complaints against therapists who counsel homosexuals with unwanted same-sex attractions, thereby denying gays the right of therapeutic self-determination.  (Read more HERE.)
 
Condemnation of the SPLC’s — and by extension Wayne Besen’s — designation of pro-family groups as “hate groups” comes from both the political Right and Left. Rich Lowry of National Review wrote, “The SPLC’s promiscuous labeling of organizations it disagrees with as ‘hate groups’ came to the fore last week when someone tried to shoot up one of its targets.” 
 
And liberal journalist Dana Milbank echoed Lowry’s criticism: “[T]he Southern Poverty Law Center should stop listing a mainstream Christian advocacy group alongside neo-Nazis and Klansmen.”
 
It is time that the O’Reilly Factor cease using Besen as a guest commentator. Providing Besen with a forum lends credibility to his pernicious tactics and enables Besen to exploit his appearances for fundraising purposes.
 
When Fox News provides a forum to a radical homosexual activist known for employing inflammatory and hateful language in the service of promoting lies, the network becomes complicit in the damage done to the victims of Wayne Besen’s and the SPLC’s smear campaigns.
 
We ask the News Corporation, Fox News, and Bill O’Reilly to find more ethical spokespersons for the liberal view of sexuality.  In their infamous Washington Post ad accusing FRC of hateful values, Besen and the SPLC claim that “words have consequences.”  Yes, they do.  And Besen’s may lead to violence.

TAKE ACTION FOUR WAYS:

1) Click HERE to sign our free petition now, write a free comment, and we will deliver your first name, state, and comments to FOX NEWS and Bill O’Reilly.

2) Send Bill O’Reilly an email (oreilly@foxnews.com) and ask him to “Stop Inviting Wayne Besen and Stop Helping Anti-Christian SPLC.”

3) Tweet these words to your friends:  “Tell Bill O’Reilly to STOP giving airtime to SPLC anti-Christian haters. Sign the Petition: http://dld.bz/bKfu3 “

4) After you sign below, please share our petition widely on facebook, twitter, and email. 

LET’S STOP THE VIOLENCE AGAINST CHRISTIANS WHO DEFEND MARRIAGE = 1 MAN + 1 WOMAN.

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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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 here, here, here, and here.

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.

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 here, here, here, and here.

(Originally published on December 3, 2010)

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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.

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.

Decades ago, summer was the time that necessitated increased parental vigilance. School was the safe place. But the times they have a’changed. Self-righteous “agents of change” stand ready at the schoolhouse door to mold other people’s children into ideological replicas of themselves. So now the school year has become the time that necessitates increased parental vigilance.

One organization that warrants particular attention is “Teaching Tolerance,” which is laughingly called an “educational project,” but is, in reality, the pernicious propaganda project of the leftwing Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). This is the organization that has listed the Illinois Family Institute, Family Research Council, and the American Family Association as “hate groups.”

The propagandists — I mean educators — at Teaching Tolerance are taking full advantage of the propensity of parents to remain blissfully unaware of what their children are being taught. These “tolerance teachers” count on parents remaining ignorant of their goal to undermine conservative moral and political beliefs.

Here is the newest resource spawned by the manipulators of children at the SPLC’s Teaching Tolerance of which parents should be aware:

Planning to Change the World: A Plan Book for Social Justice Teachers 2011-2012

This handbook for teachers begins with a quote from the Brazilian Marxist, Paulo Freire, who is the guru for “social justice teachers” and wrote their bible, Pedagogy of the Oppressed.

The introduction makes clear that liberation from oppression supersedes sound, apolitical education:

Planning to Change the World is a plan book for teachers who believe their students can create meaningful social change. It is the product of a collaboration between two education networks — the New York Collective of Radical Educators (NYCoRE) and the Education for Liberation Network — and is published in partnership with Rethinking Schools. The information and ideas featured on its pages come from teachers, college students and activists who, like you, struggle daily to put their values into practice. As educators, our vision of teaching for liberation often gets buried under the everyday realities of teaching. Bombarded with paperwork, tests, curriculum mandates, we feel frustrated, overwhelmed, alone.

…Planning to Change the World is packed with important social justice birthdays and historical events, words of wisdom from visionary leaders, lesson plans, resources, social justice education happenings and more. [Emphases added]

The planning book includes quotes from radical historical revisionist Howard Zinn, homosexual activist Staceyann Chinn, and controversial labor leader Cesar Chavez. It also includes dozens of resources for teachers, most of which are extreme leftwing resources, including resources that promote far leftist assumptions about homosexuality, economics, religion, and American “imperialism.”

Here are some of the historical events honored just in November by the SPLC’s “educators” from Teaching Tolerance:

• Transgender Day of Remembrance
• The 50th anniversary of the first openly gay person to run for public office
• Eid al-Adha: an Islamic holiday
• Muharram, the first day of the Islamic calendar
• The 170th anniversary of the Creole revolt
• First day of Native American Heritage Month
• 80th anniversary of the beginning of the removal of the Choctaw Indians from their lands
• Thanksgiving: Teaching Tolerance recommends that teachers use resources from the anti-American organization, Oyate, about which I have previously written.

Teaching Tolerance also recommends an activity they created called Thanksgiving Mourning:

[S]tudents will review two written works by Native American authors. The first — a speech written by Wamsutta James in 1970 — gave birth to the National Day of Mourning, which is observed on Thanksgiving by some indigenous people. To them, Thanksgiving is ‘a reminder of the genocide of millions of their people, the theft of their lands, and the relentless assault on their culture.’ The Day of Mourning, on the other hand, is a day of remembrance and spiritual connection, as well as a protest of the racism and oppression that Native Americans continue to experience.”

I wonder if Teaching Tolerance would revise their list of important “social justice” historical events to include mention of Joseph Scheidler, father of the pro-life movement. He is the indefatigable pursuer of social justice for the most vulnerable in America: babies in utero, whose developmental immaturity or imperfections put them at risk of legalized extermination.

As I’ve written before, “teaching for social justice” is, in a nutshell:

repackaged socialism with its focus on economic redistribution. Social justice theory emphasizes redistribution of wealth and values uniformity of economic and social position over liberty. Social justice advocates seek to use the force of government to establish economic uniformity.

Its other dominant features pertain to race, gender, class, and sexual orientation/ identity/ expression. Social justice theory as I’m describing it encourages people to view the world through the divisive lens of identity politics that demarcates groups according to which group constitutes the “oppressors” and which the “oppressed.” Those who are identified as the “oppressors” need not have committed any acts of actual persecution or oppression, nor feel any sense of superiority toward or dislike of the supposed “oppressed” class. The problem with social justice theory is that it promotes the idea that “institutional racism,” as opposed to actual acts of mistreatment of individuals by other individuals is the cause of differing lots in life.

Social justice theorists cultivate the racist, sexist, heterophobic stereotype that whites, males, and heterosexuals are oppressors. This is an offensive, prejudiced stereotype that robs minorities of a sense of agency in and responsibility for their own lives, telling them that their lots in life cannot improve through their own efforts but only through an appropriate degree of self-flagellation on the parts of the purported oppressors. It cultivates a sense of perpetual victimization and powerlessness on the parts of minorities and an irrational and illegitimate sense of guilt on the parts of whites, or men, or heterosexuals.

Finally, social justice theory is distinctly anti-American and hyper-focuses on America’s mistakes and failings. Social justice theory diminishes or ignores the remarkable success America has achieved in integrating virtually every ethnic and racial group in the world, and in enabling people to improve their lots in life through economic opportunity and American principles of liberty and equality.

To learn more about the ethically and intellectually bankrupt Southern Poverty Law Center’s deeply troubling ideology, goals, and tactics, click HERE (this is a very recent and important article from an immigration reform organization on the SPLC’s “phony claims”), and HERE.

When you’re done, email your children’s teachers, some of whom likely subscribe to Teaching Tolerance’s free online newsletter for educators, asking whether they will be using any resources or activities from Teaching Tolerance. Then make it clear that should they decide to use any resources created by, or recommended by Teaching Tolerance, you want to be notified so you can opt your child out.