Ever since the Southern Poverty Law Center designated the American Family Association as an anti-gay “hate group” back in 2010, the AFA has vehemently objected to being designated as such. In addition to regularly attacking the SPLC, the AFA has also taken a few half-hearted steps to try and distance itself from Bryan Fischer, who was almost single-handedly responsible for getting the AFA placed on the SPLC’s hate list in the first place, in an effort to salvage its reputation.
Now, it seems, the AFA has decided to take a page out of the SPLC’s playbook by releasing its own “Bigotry Map” which seeks to highlight organizations that it claims “openly display bigotry toward the Christian faith”:
These groups are deeply intolerant towards the Christian religion. Their objectives are to silence Christians and to remove all public displays of Christian heritage and faith in America.
A common practice of these groups is threatening our nation’s schools, cities and states. By threat of lawsuit, they demand prayer removed from schools and city council meetings, Ten Commandments monuments stricken from courthouses and memorial crosses purged from cemeteries and parks.
Because of anti-Christian bigotry, private business owners have been sued and forced to close their business. Families and businesses that express a Christian worldview on social issues often face vicious retaliation from bigoted anti-Christian zealots.
Some members or supporters of these groups have committed violent crimes against Christians and faith-based groups. Physical and profane verbal assaults against Christians are methods frequently exercised in their angry methods of intimidation.
At first glance, the map appears to be pretty heavily populated, but a quick search of the actual groups listed reveals that the AFA basically just listed every atheist, humanist, or freethinker organization it could find, as well as the state chapters of national organizations such as Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, SPLC, the Human Rights Campaign, and GLSEN:
We’re honored to see that we here at PFAW also made the map as one of the groups that supposedly “actively engages in the complete eradication of the Christian faith from society, government and private commerce. These groups file lawsuits and use intimidation to silence any reference to Christianity from the public square”:
