Hate under cloak of religion (yes, it is a barf alert)

The Southern Poverty Law Center is an organization with deep roots in the civil rights movement. Its ingenious lawsuits helped break the back of the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist factions, and in recent years, it has joined the Anti-Defamation League as a reliable monitor of hate groups.

The Family Research Council is an influential Washington-based advocacy group with deep roots in the religious right. Its annual political forum, the Values Voter Summit, has become a nearly obligatory stop for ambitious Republican office-seekers hoping to win the support of so-called values voters. In recent years, the council has given an increasing share of its attention to opposing marriage equality and open military service by gays and lesbians.

Now, the two groups are locked in a sharp confrontation that raises crucial questions about where the expression of religiously based views on social issues ends and hate speech begins.

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Last week, the law center added the Family Research Council to its list of more than 930 active hate groups, citing the anti-gay rhetoric of its leaders and researchers, which have included calls to re-criminalize consensual sex between individuals of the same gender. The Southern Poverty Law Center defines a hate group as one with "beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics."

The council's president, former Louisiana lawmaker Tony Perkins, reacted angrily to the designation, calling it "slanderous" and demanding an apology. "The left is losing the debate over ideas and the direction of public policy, so all that is left for them is character assassination," ...

The SPLC was founded in 1971 - after all the milestones of the Civil Rights movement were historical facts. They were basically a liberal think tank in the beginning. They didn't file their first anti-Klan lawsuit until 1979 when Dees and Levin realized how much money there was to be made in tort law.

I assumed they had been active when "active" was dangerous - that usually elicits some respect on my part - but '71? That's a joke. Thanks for clearing this up. (In the 60's Bond did his part - I'll give him that...)

According to their most recent financial report, they have $189 million in funds, raised $31 million in 2009 and spent approximately $4 million on "management".

They have 18 full-time employees. That works out to $205,000 per employee - but only five or six are lawyers, and non-profit lawyers in the rural South probably do not get paid more than $60-70K. Likely less.

I'm guessing the whole payroll - not including Dees and one or two top-ranked buddies - is significantly less than $1 million.

That leaves upward of $3 million, the lion's share of which likely goes to Dees.

And I highly doubt that his meals, his travels, his car, his medical expenses or pretty much anything else is not expensed to the SPLC.

He is living the high life, funded by donations - and a large chunk of those donations probably come from poor, working class churchgoing African-American ladies from the deep South who respond generously to his inflammatory mailers.

That's sad. SNCC (Snick) provided valuable contributions to the civil rights movement - this stuff trashes that legacy. Dreadful.

My concern is about their political 'take'... and I don't mean opinion. Before Hillary did her wonderful slip about the 'vast right wing conspiracy' the Southern Poverty Law Center was working with groups giving seminars to police officers ( Top Cops ) explaining that 'the enemy' was right wingers - middle-class, middle aged white men who used words like 'constitution ... they told police officers that the right wingers moved up the organizational ladder by killing police officers. Now of course on the surface it looked a little silly - when a police officer is murdered, EVERYONE - the press, citizens - everyone - knows about it - and there are public hunts for the killer - and thousands attend the funeral.

It's not a private affair.

Also the MSM covers stories of cops being killed. So IF this was happening - random murders of police officers - the information would be out there. And it wasn't. Because it wasn't happenign. That didn't stop the Southern Poverty Law Center from putting out this lie - and pitting police officers against their most loyal supporters.

It was a beautiful system - people would be afraid to stand up to the rumor - for fear they would be labeled. Also, when it's 'a secret' it isn't looked at too closely. The press - liberal that they are - would have caught the obvious fabrications - and reported on it. Then - thank God, Hillary let it slip and the country started laughing at liberals and their 'black helicopter' stuff - and the crisis ended. Even the MSM said 'where's the proof'. That was the final straw.

But the fact that the SPLC was in on this - the most totalitarian move I've seen in my lifetime - was telling...

The thing is that even the liberal media was on to the SPLC's nonsense: both the Montgomery Advertiser (a reliably liberal Gannett publication in a still reliably Democrat-voting town) and the solidly left Harper's have done exposes on the SPLC as a tax-free cash cow for Dees and his cronies.

The Advertiser story was even nominated for a Pulitzer.

This all happened roughly within the timeframe of Hilary Clinton's on-air meltdown.

I'm not surprised some journalist went out on a limb and took on a liberal group.

We trash the MSM here - often with good cause - but journalists are not people who lack courage. My favorite story - one expressed in different ways - is that the road is always open for members of the press. As white knuckled citizens are escaping a disaster - bumper to bumper - afraid - the journalist is driving toward it on a road wide open.

The Montgomery Advertiser and Harper's took on the SPLC? And at that critical time? I like that - restores my faith. Thanks for sharing.

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