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crossposted on Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters
The American Family Association is confronting its designation as a hate group via its phony news service, One News Now:
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is defaming a number of pro-family organizations by adding them to its list of “hate groups.”
The leftist legal organization has issued a list of alleged “hate groups” that includes mainstream Christian ministries because of their opposition to the sin of homosexuality. Dr. Gary Cass of DefendChristians.org, a ministry of the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission, tells OneNewsNow the American Family Association earned a spot in the ranks with other groups that are usually considered racist or violent.
“To say that anybody who has a principled objection to homosexuality [and] the impact that that sinful lifestyle has on individuals and on society is somehow morally equivalent to overt racism and violence is absolutely defamatory,” Cass contends.
However, just as in the case of the other supposed moral values groups who have cried foul over their designations as hate groups and profiles, it's not what the AFA is saying that's important. It's what the organization is not saying.
Nowhere in the article is a quote from anyone in the AFA, nor does the article address a key reason why the organization is seen as a hate group by SPLC, i.e. the words of its director of analysis for government and policy Bryan Fischer:
The AFA seeks to support “traditional moral values,” but in recent years it has seemed to specialize in “combating the homosexual agenda.” In 2009, it hired Bryan Fischer, the former executive director of the Idaho Values Alliance, as its director of analysis for government and policy. . . Fischer claimed in a blog post last May 27 that “[h]omosexuality gave us Adolph Hitler, and homosexuals in the military gave us the Brown Shirts, the Nazi war machine and 6 million dead Jews.” (Ironically, the elder Wildmon was widely denounced as an anti-Semite after suggesting that Jews control the media, which the AFA says “shows a genuine hostility towards Christians.”) Fischer has described Hitler as “an active homosexual” who sought out gays “because he could not get straight soldiers to be savage and brutal and vicious enough.” He proposed criminalizing homosexual behavior in another 2010 blog post and has advocated forcing gays into “reparative” therapy. In a 2010 “action alert,” the AFA warned that if homosexuals are allowed to openly serve in the military, “your son or daughter may be forced to share military showers and barracks with active and open homosexuals.”Gays aren’t the AFA’s only enemies. “Islam is a totalitarian political ideology,” Fischer said in August 2010. “It is as racist as the KKK. … Allowing a mosque to be built in town is fundamentally no different that granting a building permit to a KKK cultural center built in honor of some King Kleagle.” In late 2009, he suggested that all Muslims should be banned from joining the U.S. military.
The irony of Cass being interviewed in the article is that his group, the Christian Anti-Defense Commission, was profiled by SPLC but not considered as a hate group. Cass has called for an elimination of “taxpayers monies” to SPLC, something he has been advocating since April.
Cass also said in the article:
“To say that anybody who has a principled objection to homosexuality [and] the impact that that sinful lifestyle has on individuals and on society is somehow morally equivalent to overt racism and violence is absolutely defamatory.”
However, he did not address SPLC's reasons for profiling his group. Nor did he address questionable things his organization has done in the past which may have contributed its profile, such as defending the work of the discredited Paul Cameron (a man who has in the past made up stories about gay men castrating children) or defending the actions of a church which sought to exorcise a “homosexual demon” out of a child.
Claiming to be victims of an “anti-Christian leftist conspiracy” may gain Cass and the AFA some initial support, but sooner or later they and members of other organizations profiled by the SPLC will have to answer questions regarding their actions.
You cannot continue to cry “victim” when there is a paper trail showing you to be a bully.
Related posts:
Concerned Women for America – endorsing hateful anti-gay comics and bad data
Why the National Organization for Marriage was profiled for its anti-gay hatred
20 Comments
Cass apparently isn’t too bright
SPLC doesn’t get any government funding.
Perkins must not be very bright.The days of unfettered homobigotry are over. We will still have to continue to point out the obvious to the MSM, however, we need to stay on top of emerging threats such as NOM, CWA, etc. whose rhetoric has been ratcheted up in the last year. These are the people who still talk in somewhat acceptable terms, but turn around and use the “gifts” of members to bash us in Congress and in the media with unfounded lies and bigotry.
I have one thing to say to Tony Perkins, Exodus 21:14 “But if a man come presumptuously upon his neighbour, to slay him with guile; thou shalt take him from mine altar, that he may die.”
There’s another Biblical quotethat always comes to mind when I think of Perkins:
Why doesn’t he just find a cute boy to lift his luggage and leave the rest of us alone?
I don’t know what your expectfrom these anti gay hate groups. What? Now all of a sudden they are going to roll over and say, whoops sorry? Your thread headlines constantly crack me up what with words like “should”, “must”, and “will not confront’. I know it’s just a style thing, but really, do you expect these groups to suddenly change their ways?
No more than …… we expect you to suddenly start making sense.
There is a one right wing religious group that SPLC won’t take on. The Democrats. Nobody in their right mind would accuse SPLC of being afraid of taking on the right wing. They launched a series of lawsuits that broke the back of the KKK and have had to take strict security measures ever since.
So why won’t they be honest and describe the DNC and the White House as hate groups far more dangerous than CWA, AFA and NOM. The damage those groups do pales in comparison to the devastation created by the Democrats passage of DADT and DOMA.
The Democrats have a long history of bigotry. Bill Clinton gave us DADT and DOMA. Leah Daughtry, an ordained pentecostal minister, is the CoS at the DNC and an anti-LGBT bigot who opposes same sex marriage, the key proof of bigotry. She used DNC funds to promote anti-GLBT and anti-choice christer groups.
Daughtry reports to Tim Kaine, a superstitious Dixiecrat bumpkin from the home of the Confederacy. Kaine, appointed by Obama to chair the DNC, promotes anti-gay bigotry and opposes unions, reproductive choice and stem cell research. Naturally, he’s an avid supporter of Obama’s racist anti-civilian wars of terror to steal oil.
The 2008 Obama campaign’s ‘outreach’ to bigots was organized by another anti-GLBT bigot, Joshua DuBois, who, like Daughtry is a pentecostal minister and anti-LGBT bigot. Dubois used scum like Donnie McClurkin and Rick Warren to win back the christer bigot vote from Roves Republicans. Dubois’ reward was to chair the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships where he’ll dispense hundreds of millions of our tax dollars to pulpit pimps like Warren and McClurkin to help insure Obama’s reelection.
Why in the world won’t SPLC list them too?
I can’t speak for Alvinbut sometimes the intended target of diaries isn’t the well-informed Blend reader but others out there who have not yet caught on to the fact that groups like AFA are hishonest and slippery. in fact my own father was scandalized to learn from me that “Christian” groups lie. he really didn’t know, because if you tack “family” or “Christian” onto your name, people just assume you’re upstanding. Alvin is doing a great job not letting AFA & friends get away with more lies.
The poll is rather hilarious.OneNewsNow.com Poll
What might have motivated the Southern Poverty Law Center to label several conservative, faith-based organizations as ‘hate groups’? (related article)
1. Encouragement from liberal financial donors
2. Ran out of any valid arguments to criticize these groups
3. A desire to further marginalize traditional family values
It couldn’t have been for any other reason, could it?
I’m just finding it kind of ironic that these people are doing more to make the words “Christian” and “crackpot” synonymous than any secular humanist atheist ever could.
Tony Perkins to be on Chris Matthews in minutesThis outta be good.
“these people are doing more to make the words “Christian” and “crackpot” synonymous than any secular humanist atheist ever could”amen
Chris Matthews just said…“Tony you are always welcome on this show.”
MSM still let’s Perkins spew deliberate misinformation .
What I find amazing (okay, given that Tweety is involved I really don’t find it amazing – just sad)is how Tweety let Perkins get away with doublespeak.
In the clip, Sprigg flat out said he wanted gay sex criminalized. In response to Tweety asking Perkins if he agreed with Sprigg on that, Perkins said – more than once – that he and FRC weren’t working toward having it criminalized.
Tweety acted as if Perkins had resolved the controversy – when, in reality, he just dodged it. What he said was in no way incompatible with what Sprigg said.
But…
That’s our Tweety.
No argument from meNo way around it, the Bible is simply full of hate and acts that by modern standards would bring heads of state and military leaders in it in front of the International Criminal Tribunal for organised rape and genocide.
God wouldn’t get a pass either, as he commanded the acts.
“..whereas the Defendant God did order the military of Israel to kill(insert the names of various tribes) to the last man and boy and to rape the women, killing the then non-virgins and taking those who were virgins at the time of the sexual assaults and binding them into concubinage against their will, the aforementioned acts being violations the Brehon Laws, the laws of the Roman Republic and the Athenian Republic, those codes being representative standards age of the last atrocities of the Defendant, as well as violations of Hague I, Hague II, Hague III and the Geneva Conventions, as well as the UN Charter.
The prosecution will prove beyond any doubt that the Defendant not only ordered these acts, threatened retribution were they not to be carried out, but also insisted that they be written into a book of laws as his irrevocable commands and that they thus remain in the body of knowledge of his co-conspirators “til the end of days,” in his own words.
Thank you, LurleenThat is what I was going to say before you beat me to it. We have to remember that not everyone is in the “know” about these groups. My stories and headlines are geared to reaching people who are reachable. A lot of folks don’t know about how these groups lie but if they did, those would be more allies for us.
And my posts are also geared to reach those in our community who are not aware of these groups. Unfortunately there are many out there.
I’ve seen polls from this place before.They are always that “How do you agree with this article the most?” format.
It makes me giggle until I remember how serious they are being.
Being anti-gay is not sufficient for the SPLC to consider a group a hate group.And this is the problem with these groups complaining that they are classified as such for promoting “traditional values.”
Said group has to promote slurs or spread harmful misinformation about homosexuality directly before getting described in such a way.
Bright enoughOn Hardball he sat there smilin’ and lyin’ because he knows he gets away with it. And he did again. For his gay men are pedophiles smear he quoted The American College of Pediatricians (you know, as in Reker and Rentboy) to be purposely confused with the actual medical association, The American College of Pediatrics.
MSM is still inviting him on programs and still not calling him on his intentional misinformation.
May I just sayThat I love this quote: “You cannot continue to cry “victim” when there is a paper trail showing you to be a bully.”
It describes these groups to a T.
Obama, McCain and the Clintons spread the viscious slander that we aren’t quite human enough to get married. The religious groups the DNC financially supports actually do spew vile lies about us.
By any definition SPLC should list the White House and the DNC as hate groups.
That happened to me too.It does seem like a joke but it’s their firm belief on some level but it’s also their bread and butter. They have to try to get people angry to stay in business and anger is what the average bigot and/or idiot does well, if Glenn Beck’s ratings are anything to go by.