This column will probably land me on the Southern Poverty Law Centers list of hate groups."
After all the left-wing group has a very broad definition of hate." Last week it added the Family Research Council to its list for being anti-gay"alongside genuine hate groups like the KKK and Neo-Nazis.
Im not a member of the Christian right but I do have enough sense to realize that the FRC is a mainstream evangelical group. Its yearly event is the Values Voters Summit which features exhibits from Christian and pro-family organizations as well as speeches from people like Mike Huckabee and former Miss California Carrie Prejean. Its not exactly a Klan rally. The SPLCs classification of the FRC as a hate group" would be laughable if it werent so devious.
After doing extensive research on the SPLC the Social Contract Press revealed that the organization has little to do with assisting poor people and much to do with enriching its already well-heeled directors…The SPLC has been rated poor by Charity Navigator stating that net assets were $152 million." In short: the SPLC isnt a nonprofit run by brave civil rights crusaders. Its a band of sleazy greedy lawyers who have gotten rich by declaring organizations hate groups and suing them. (After I write this column theyll probably try to sue me.)
And thats when theyre not harassing people with endless fundraising letters warning of a resurgence of extremism. This is despite the fact that the KKK Americas most infamous hate group has 8000 members nationwide (an estimated 10 percent of them FBI informants)--down from 6 million in the 1920s.
So they pad their list with mainstream conservative groups like the FRC so it can claim in fundraising letters that theres been a 54 percent increase in the number of hate groups since 2000. And despite the SPLCs definition of hate as vilifying an entire group for their immutable traits" theyve added immigration-control groups to the list. Apparently the desire to cross the border illegally is now genetic.
Profit not tolerance has been the goal all along. The SPLCs founder Morris Dees started out defending Klan members before he realized he could make more money suing them. As the Social Contract Press discovered Dees won a judgment for a black woman whose son was killed by Klansmen. She received $51875 as settlement. Mr. Dees according to an investigation by the Montgomery Advertiser pulled in $9 million from fund-raising solicitation letters that featured a particularly gruesome photograph of the grieving mothers son. Mr. Dees offered the grieving mother none of the $9 million her sons death made for him." He probably bought a new vacation home with it. Its hard to say where else the money goes since in 2007 the SPLC raised twice as much money as it spent on its anti-hate programs.
With a miniscule number of genuine hate groups left in America the SPLC has simply stretched the definitions of extremist" and hate groups." It was bad enough when fellow phony Southern folksy lawyer John Edwards made a fortune by suing doctors based on specious medical claims. The SPLC ruins reputations and slanders decent people who dont believe in gay marriage or illegal immigration.
The only thing remarkable about the FRCs classification as a hate group" is the fact that anyone still takes these shysters seriously.
Ashley Herzog is a Townhall columnist and the author of Feminism vs. Women.
This column will probably land me on the Southern Poverty Law Centers list of hate groups."
After all the left-wing group has a very broad definition of hate." Last week it added the Family Research Council to its list for being anti-gay"alongside genuine hate groups like the KKK and Neo-Nazis.
Im not a member of the Christian right but I do have enough sense to realize that the FRC is a mainstream evangelical group. Its yearly event is the Values Voters Summit which features exhibits from Christian and pro-family organizations as well as speeches from people like Mike Huckabee and former Miss California Carrie Prejean. Its not exactly a Klan rally. The SPLCs classification of the FRC as a hate group" would be laughable if it werent so devious.
After doing extensive research on the SPLC the Social Contract Press revealed that the organization has little to do with assisting poor people and much to do with enriching its already well-heeled directors…The SPLC has been rated poor by Charity Navigator stating that net assets were $152 million." In short: the SPLC isnt a nonprofit run by brave civil rights crusaders. Its a band of sleazy greedy lawyers who have gotten rich by declaring organizations hate groups and suing them. (After I write this column theyll probably try to sue me.)
And thats when theyre not harassing people with endless fundraising letters warning of a resurgence of extremism. This is despite the fact that the KKK Americas most infamous hate group has 8000 members nationwide (an estimated 10 percent of them FBI informants)--down from 6 million in the 1920s.
So they pad their list with mainstream conservative groups like the FRC so it can claim in fundraising letters that theres been a 54 percent increase in the number of hate groups since 2000. And despite the SPLCs definition of hate as vilifying an entire group for their immutable traits" theyve added immigration-control groups to the list. Apparently the desire to cross the border illegally is now genetic.
Profit not tolerance has been the goal all along. The SPLCs founder Morris Dees started out defending Klan members before he realized he could make more money suing them. As the Social Contract Press discovered Dees won a judgment for a black woman whose son was killed by Klansmen. She received $51875 as settlement. Mr. Dees according to an investigation by the Montgomery Advertiser pulled in $9 million from fund-raising solicitation letters that featured a particularly gruesome photograph of the grieving mothers son. Mr. Dees offered the grieving mother none of the $9 million her sons death made for him." He probably bought a new vacation home with it. Its hard to say where else the money goes since in 2007 the SPLC raised twice as much money as it spent on its anti-hate programs.
With a miniscule number of genuine hate groups left in America the SPLC has simply stretched the definitions of extremist" and hate groups." It was bad enough when fellow phony Southern folksy lawyer John Edwards made a fortune by suing doctors based on specious medical claims. The SPLC ruins reputations and slanders decent people who dont believe in gay marriage or illegal immigration.
The only thing remarkable about the FRCs classification as a hate group" is the fact that anyone still takes these shysters seriously.
Ashley Herzog is a Townhall columnist and the author of Feminism vs. Women.
