The Newest Right Wing Crusade: Defund the SPLC!

It is no secret that Religious Right groups do not particularly like the Southern Poverty Law Center, especially ever since it started keeping a list of “Active Anti-Gay Groups” that includes groups like the Family Research Institute, Watchmen on the Walls, and Traditional Values Coalition. 

MassResistance is also featured on the list, and is now fighting back, claiming that the SPLC secretly wrote the Department of Homeland Security report on right-wing extremism that was released last year: 

So now we find out that the Southern Poverty Law Center, the leftist front group that has called so many good Americans “haters”, authored the infamous Dept. of Homeland Security report last year (“Right-wing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment”).

MassResistance links to this article by Tom DeWeese, president of the American Policy Center, who asserts that this is the case: 

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) hates us. Who? According to several reports they have released over the past year, “us” is the following: One concerned over the economy; loss of jobs; foreclosures; antagonism toward the Obama Administration (that it’s racist); criticism of free trade programs like NAFTA and the Security and Prosperity Partnership; anti-abortion; oppose same-sex marriage; believe in the “end times;” stock pile food, ammunition and weapons; oppose illegal immigration; opposition to the new world order; opposition to the United Nations; opposition to global governance; fear of Communist regimes; opposition to loss of US manufacturing to overseas nations; opposition to loss of US prestige; use of the Internet (or alternative media) to express these ideas. Did this list miss anyone reading it? You are all haters and potential terrorists.

The above list was published in a report issued last year by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) entitled, “Right-wing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment.” The report, while issued by the DHS, was in fact, written by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which labels itself as a civil rights organization which “tracks the hate movement.” Ironically, SPLC is becoming one of the biggest purveyors of hate and discord in the nation. Worse, SPLC’s reports are often so inaccurate and misleading that they would be simply laughable if they didn’t have the support of the Federal government.

DeWeese provides no evidence or documentation for the allegation that the SPLC drafted the DHS report … but that doesn’t matter, as the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission is already accepting it as truth and is therefore demanding that Congress must “defund the Southern Poverty Law Center”:

The Southern Poverty Law Center is an extremely liberal group that compiles a list of hate groups in America. But according to their latest list, if you advocate for traditional biblical values, you are lumped together with violent neo-Nazis and skinheads.

The Law Center just named forty leaders of the conservative movements as extremists including pastors and elected members of Congress. This is slanderous and outrageous, yet many people take this unscientific, biased list seriously.

Even the Federal Government, that gives the Law Center millions of your tax dollars, uses the biased information to shape national policy. Last year’s discredited report from the Department of Homeland Security on Right-Wing Extremism was actually written by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

We must stop the biased practices and the hateful campaign against Christians and urge Congress to defund the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Where the CADC got the idea that the Federal Government “gives the [SPLC] millions of your tax dollars” is anybody’s guess, since they cite absolutely nothing to support the claim.