Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council has his panties in a bunch, because the Southern Poverty Law Center labeled the FCRC a hate group. That must be particularly embarrassing for a pseudo-Christian organization that falsely claims love as the driving force behind their faith. I see it as imperative that authentic believers take the lead in promoting acceptance of and coexistence with others, rejecting the path of intolerance, hate and violence promoted by the Republican religious right.
The Family Research Council is angry after being labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The Family Research Council is a Christian fundamentalist organization that has a long history of demonizing members of the gay and lesbian community.
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is a nonprofit civil rights organization dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry, and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of society. Founded by civil rights lawyers Morris Dees and Joseph Levin Jr. in 1971, the SPLC is internationally known for tracking and exposing the activities of hate groups.
The conservative Christian hate group Family Research Council (FRC) has long been an outspoken and vicious critic of the LGBT community. Recently the FRC has been a major critic of anti-bullying programs meant to protect gay and lesbian youth.
The SPLC’s recently released report added some of the nation’s leading Christian conservative groups, including the Family Research Council, Concerned Women for America, the National Organization for Marriage, the American Family Association, and the Traditional Values Coalition, to its registry of hate groups, groups like the Ku Klux Klan.
Not suprisingly, the Family Research Council doesn’t like being lumped together with the Ku Klux Klan and other hate groups. The FRC launched a strongly worded response [hate group delinked] to the SPLC, calling the action a "slanderous attack"
However, while Tony Perkins, leader of the FRC, and other leaders of the Christian hate movement may deny it, it seems clear that their demonization of homosexuals plays a role in fomenting the anti-gay violence, hatred and bullying that is present in society.
The Family Research Council is perhaps the most prominent voice in conservative social politics and their dehumanizing rhetoric around the gay and lesbian community is nothing short of despicable… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <The Portland Examiner>
It’s really quite simple. When people regularly practice hatred claim to be Christian, they aren’t.
24 Responses to “The Hate Group Hates "Hate"”
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All I can say is any adherent to ANY CREED is a cultist and their belief structures causes problems for someone. Just as the SPLC stance causes a problem FRC causes a problem for other humans who donot believe as they believe. It is no different anywhere in the world of any RELIGION (a word never used in the bible by the by). Be whatever you wish to be and leave me the hell alone to be what I am. Which any cultist could never be. including them of the cult of Jesus.
Mark, that’s coexistence.
It is wrong for me to write a blanket statement on those who claim to be Christain in my area but I do indeed see a lot of intolerence by them when it comes to people out of the local “mainstream.” One fellow I work with who is on average a decent guy is convinced Obama does not celebrate Christmas. What evidence he has for this assumption, other than his preconcieved notions, I have no idea. He and others like him wallow in a different world that is real and unshakeable. Silence may be accepting but if I am to keep my job so I can buy food I find I have to take a different tact other than direct confrontation with them.
Now on the other hand it is not hard to find Christains who are open and do much to make a better world. Many non-believers refuse to acknowledge such people exist and go about doing ther best to alienate them and push them into teh reactionary camp. Its a matter of cutting your own nose off to spite your face.
The fact remains that we should do everything to build bridges between different groups, even those we do not agree with on all points.
Beach, I would not think of writing a blanket statement covering all who claim to to be Christian in a religion, denomination, or church. My blanket statement is based on current behavior. Supporting hate is incompatible with authentic Christianity. I certainly acknowledge and respect the Christians you praise. Faith builds bridges. Tolerance builds bridges. Coexistence builds bridges. Hate burns them down.
The Southern Poverty Law Center has it right: the :RC IS a hate group! They are among the most intolerant of their ilk!
Correct, Jack.
The Boy Scouts of America have been publicly stating for decades that gay men “aren’t moral enough” to be Scout leaders and refuse to hire openly gay men as such.
Oddly, you won’t find a single word about the BSA’s blatant discrimination on the SPLC’s website, despite the facts that the BSA accepts public funding AND that its core mission is to shape the minds and morals of millions of American boys. Why not?
Because many of the SPLC’s mostly elderly donors were Scouts, or the parents/grandparents of Scouts, and linking the almighty donors with a “hate group” is bad for business.
It seems that this “nonprofit civil rights organization” is entirely “dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry” until it cuts into the the profits.
http://wp.me/pCLYZ-1c
And speaking of “nonprofits,” in 1994, SPLC founder Morris Dees vowed that he would stop soliciting donations when the SPLC’s Endowment Fund reached $100 million dollars. It reached that mark in 2002, yet the fund-raising letters continued to go out like clockwork.
By 2007, the Endowment Fund had reached $200 million, and still the fund-raising letters went out. Last year the Endowment Fund generated $39 million dollars in interest, or more than $15 million dollars in excess of the SPLC’s total annual expenses, (minus the $5.3 million they spent on fund-raising), and yet the fund-raising letters, like this one from this past September, http://wp.me/pCLYZ-6Y, keep coming.
If this be “non-profit,” where do I sign up??
The most ironic (read: “hypocritical”) thing about the Southern Poverty Law Center is that NOT ONE of its top ten, highest paid executives is a minority.
http://wp.me/pCLYZ-67
In fact, according to the SPLC’s hometown newspaper, the Montgomery Advertiser, despite being located LITERALLY in the back yard of Dr. Martin Luther King’s home church, the SPLC has NEVER hired a person of color to a highly paid position of power.
Some “experts”
Welcome Richard.
On the BSA, I agree that they are a bigoted group, but they do not promote hatred in the way FRC does. Have you asked SPLC why they have taken a benign stance with BSA?
On the fund raising, I have no problem with what they do.
People who are regulars here are more than welcome to promote their blogs, within reason. Two links to your own site on your first comment is disrespectful. Please tone it back until we get to know you.
Chickens coming home to roost, I say. After years of promoting homophobia, is the FRC really surprised at this development?
They certainly shouldn’t be.
And the more Lindsey Graham says he’s not gay, the more I think he is. SPLC has done some very good work and does an excellent job of tracking hate groups. If they say that the FRC is a hate group, who am I to argue? 😛
Lisa, be nice to Lindsey-poo. 😉
I am a Christian believer. I read my Bible every day. Jesus had NOTHING to say about gays, so I don’t understand why people make such a thing about it. Maybe some of the people at the FRC are gay themselves and can’t come to terms with it…? What’s frustrating for me is that so many people who claim to be Christian don’t seem to know what Jesus actually said and did. We are supposed to love other people, and not to judge them; when so-called Christians hate others, and pass judgment, it brings the name of Jesus into disrepute. The post author is right; those of us who do know what Christianity is about need to speak up, and loudly.
So am I, Oudiva. While I am not a daily reader, I know the Bible sufficiently well to have translated the NT from the koine. I agree with your comment 100% and thank you for it.
Oudiva amd TomCat,
Probably 95% of the so called Christians who “live by the Bible” read and quote only the Old Testament. Most of them do not have a clue about the love and forgiveness spoken of by Jesus in the New Testament. I find it strange that they harrangue against gays, yet don’t follow up with stoning those who commit adultery. As Tom Deagan loves to point out on The Rant, they are always chattering about the Ten Commandments but never say anything about the Beatitudes.
Charles, I agree completely. Theocons do not know the Bible. They know a few citations improperly related without respect for Biblical, theological, or historical context.
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck even if it is hiding behind Christianity. The FRC is being labeled a Hate Group because of it’s behavior, not it’s religion.
Jerry, that’s the key. The only reason that faith is a matter of import here is that they give authentic Christians a bad reputation by their anti-christian behavior.
this was long overdue. The damage these groups do is horrific. They never answer the one question–how are gay marriages hurting hetero ones? They simply are attempting to push their religious views on everyone else, any idea that is abhorant.
Indeed it was, Sherry. I think it is that they are so insecure in their beliefs that they cannot stand the notion that others disagree. Also important to the religious right, strong emotions tend to open wallets.
To be perfectly honest I don’t understand why many of these so called Christian groups aren’t also sited as terrorist organizations since they incite their followers to terrorize women at clinics, bomb clinics and murder doctors. Even doctors at a church mass like Dr. Tiller was murdered.
And yes they do give Christians a bad name while the whole time degrading what Jesus taught and preached.
AP, I agree. While certainly not all, some should indeed.
Considering that anti-gay bigotry is still respectable in a much wider range of social circles than anti-black bigotry (especially as extreme as the KKK’s) is, it took some guts for the SPLC to do this. The fundamentalist wing of the Republican party, or groups that they endorse as legitimate, hold views hardly distinguishable from the FRC’s. The finger is pointing at them, too.
And SPLC included several in the listing. FRC is just the most well known.