Rich Lowry @ NRO:
The Southern Poverty Law Center is the nation’s self-appointed monitor of “hate groups.”
Too bad it can’t tell the difference between people who hate blacks and people who support the traditional definition of marriage. 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.
You may not have heard that an armed assailant stormed the offices of the Family Research Council. That’s because the assailant was a gay-rights activist and the assailed was an organization devoted to social-conservative causes. If circumstances had been reversed, you’d know. If a gun-toting Family Research Council volunteer had burst into the headquarters of the Human Rights Campaign, 60 Minutes would already have done its hard-hitting feature on right-wing terrorism.
As they ask in kindergarten, which of these things isn’t like all the others? The home page of the Aryan Nation features an appeal to “white Americans” to fight anti-white genocide in South Africa, along with a photo of Nelson Mandela standing next to “the Jew Joe Slovo.” The home page of the Family Research Council has a tab to learn more about “Marriage, Family, & Sexuality.”
A man named Floyd Corkins allegedly showed up at the Family Research Council carrying a bag of Chick-fil-A sandwiches and a 9 mm and said “I don’t like your politics” before shooting an unarmed guard who managed to subdue him (the guard is recovering). Corkins volunteers at a gay community center. According to an FBI affidavit, his parents “informed the FBI Special Agents that Corkins has strong opinions with respect to those he believes do not treat homosexuals in a fair manner.” Obviously.
The head of the Family Research Council, Tony Perkins, said the SPLC had given Corkins “a license to shoot.” This goes too far. Nothing the SPLC does sanctions violence, and Corkins’s alleged crime is his responsibility and his alone. But the SPLC’s designation of the Family Research Council is intolerant all the same, a bullying attempt to short-circuit free debate.
I would agree that any religious organization the fosters extreme dislike for a group of individuals, simply based on their religious text, although no civil crime has been committed, is a hate group—though possibly lower on the hate continuum than the Aryan Brotherhood, for example.
@Liberal1 (objectivity):
So I guess, given that you consider a religious organization that “fosters extreme dislike for a group of individuals” a hate group, that you will soon be protesting Obama due to his ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, right?
Or will you give him a pass because the hate coming from the Muslim Brotherhood is directed towards a group that liberal/progressives feel aren’t the “right kind of group”?
johngalt
wow, what a way to shut a liberal spit,
you have the way to the WHITE HOUSE,
I can see you there having fun. with a BOW AND ARROW.
bye
ARROW
where are you, we haven’t had your visit lately,
best to you
@Liberal1 (objectivity):
That religious organization would of course be Islam in every normative variant. Agreed? Which Islamic organization does the Southern Poverty Law Center classify as a hate group Mr. Liberal?
How about irreligious organizations Mr. Liberal? In this instance the Southern Poverty Law Center fostered extreme dislike for a group of individuals, simply based on their religious text. Is the Southern Poverty Law Center a hate group?
Family Research Council opposes the agenda of radical homosexual organizations in as much as it wants to defend traditional marriage. If based upon a religious text, a religious organization were to strongly oppose pedophilia, as is the case with the Family Research Council, would that religious organization be fostering extreme dislike for a group of individuals, pedophiles, and therefore be a hate group? If based upon a religious text, a religious organization were to strongly oppose rape, as is the case with the Family Research Council, would that religious organization be fostering extreme dislike for a group of individuals, rapists in this case, and therefore be a hate group?