The Southern Poverty Law Center Has Lost Its Way

Any time the liberal media want to disparage the right side of the political spectrum, they call on pool of go-to guys and gals to make their case. It’s not news reporting; its ideological position marketing. One of their go-to guys is Mark Potok of the hard-left Southern Poverty Law Center. The SPLC is in the money raising business for every known and unknown left-wing cause. It has gone from tracking the movements of violent racists, skinhead groups, and a brief resurgence of the KKK that number in the hundreds to creating hysteria over mainstream value voters. If you don’t agree with the SPLC leftist litmus test, then you are probably a member of a “hate group.” With its new definition of what constitutes a hate group, the SPLC has become a fund raising machine. It’s no wonder that the SPLC is flush with cash.[1] Ultimately, the tactic is to strike fear in middle-America so the checks keep rolling in. Most communities don’t see skinheads or even KKKers, so the SPLC needs a tangible enemy. You might remember the census worker in Kentucky who was found hanging from a tree. Potok was Johnny-on-the-spot with his “expert” analysis. He blamed the incident on “anti-government sentiment very much whipped up by militia” types. Here’s the problem. The man wasn’t murdered by anti-government marauders. “Bill Sparkman, the late Census worker, had killed himself, and staged the homicide in the hope of recouping insurance money for his family. Tragic, yes. Right-wing terrorism? Only in Potok fantasy-land.”[2] Even the liberal USA Today got the story right. So, was Potok discredited enough that the media no longer call on him? You already know the answer. Of course not! See this April 9, 2010 story from Newsweek.

According to the SPLC, hate has gone mainstream, so you better send a donation before these “haters” come and get you, too! Am I making this up? I counted twelve categories of giving on their website. I’m surprised there isn’t a category to donate body parts for the cause. The SPLC is a fund raising industry designed to silence conservatives who want their country back and hold elected officials accountable to their Constitutional oath. There’s not much money in fighting real hate groups now that only a few of the real haters are still around,[3] so the SPLC needs a bigger, more menacing group of haters—your next door neighbors!

You might remember that the SPLC is the same group that went after Chief Justice Roy Moore because he refused to remove the Ten Commandment monument from the court house in Montgomery, Alabama. He’s one of their favorite whipping boys. Without God’s commandments, everything is up for grabs except for condemning a worldview that says everything is up for grabs. Early in its 40-year history, the SPLC probably did some good work in the area of civil rights. The group has lost focus in recent years and has decided to persecute and libel Christian groups who hold to a moral worldview that opposes the legalization of sodomy and homosexual marriage.

For years, to use ’s phrase, Christians had a theology that was “socially irrelevant, even if privately engaging.”[4] Now that many Christians have awakened from the slumber of a false privatized spirituality and applied their beliefs culturally and politically, the Leftists are enraged, and the SPLC is the enabling institution because it carries so much clout with liberals. It’s OK for Liberals to barnstorm the country and threaten businesses and politicians with their own political clout, but beware of anyone who opposes them in peaceful demonstrations— and God forbid—at the ballot box.

1. Richard A. Viguerie and David Franke, America’s Right Turn: How Conservatives Used New and Alternative Media to Take Power (Chicago, IL: Bonus Books, 2004), 146–150. [↩]
2. Lachlan Markay, “Newsweek Trots Out Discredited SPLC Lawyer Mark Potok to Decry ‘Patriot’ Groups” (April 12, 2010). [↩]
3. http://crime.about.com/b/a/179433.htm [↩]
4. Theodore Roszak., Where the Wasteland Ends: Politics and Transcendence in Postindustrial Society (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1972), 449. [↩]