Any time the liberal media want to disparage the right side of the political spectrum, they call on a pool of go-to guys and gals to make their case for them. 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. ((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.)) 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.” ((Lachlan Markay, “Newsweek Trots Out Discredited SPLC Lawyer Mark Potok to Decry ‘Patriot’ Groups” (April 12, 2010).)) 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, hold elected officials accountable to their Constitutional oath, and uphold certain moral values. There’s not much money in fighting real hate groups now that only a few of the real haters are still around, ((http://crime.about.com/b/a/179433.htm)) so the SPLC needs a bigger, more menacing group of haters—your next door neighbors and the church down the street! Muslim extremists who kill soldiers in the name of Allah on an army base or plan to blow up the streets of New York City to kill and maim Americans are of little concern when there are bigger fish to land.
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 was 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.
Recently the folks at the SPLC have been publishing a “hate groups” list in their Intelligence Report publication. Their “Special Edition” issue now claims there are “1,002 active hate groups in the United States of America.” There is even a “hate map” where you can find the “hate groups” in your state. You could be living next door to a “hater” and not know it! There are 39 hate groups in Georgia. American Vision is listed at the top. (It’s in alphabetical order.) We are listed as an “anti-gay” hate group. Of course, we’re not “anti-gay.” We wish everybody could be happy. The use of “gay” is a clever marketing device to avoid having to describe what “gays” do that makes them “gay.” We’re anti-homosexual as are tens of millions of Americans because of a particular kind of sexual behavior. We’re also anti-adultery, anti-pedophilia, and anti-multiple marriages. Consider how pedophilia is being described in terms identical to the way clinicians explained homosexual “orientation” to justify its universal acceptance:
Pedophilia is another “sexual orientation,” comparable to heterosexuality or homosexuality, according to expert testimony recently presented to the Canadian Parliament.
The issue at hand was a bill that would either increase penalties or impose mandatory sentences on sexual offenders whose victims are children.
According to a report at LifeSiteNews, Dr. Hubert Van Gijseghem, a psychologist and retired professor at the University of Montreal and one of the expert witnesses, told members of parliament, “True pedophiles have an exclusive preference for children, which is the same as having a sexual orientation.”
The other expert, Dr. Vernon Quinsey, a professor emeritus of psychology at Queen’s University in Ontario, added, “There is no evidence that this sort of preference can be changed through treatment or anything else. . . . It’s not necessarily that they need to change their sexual orientation; they need to learn to control themselves, with our help (source).
When voters are given the chance to vote on the homosexual marriage issue, they vote against it. The SPLC still has a lot of work to do if they are going to stop all the “hate.” One of their tactics is to link the struggles of those who practice homosexual sex to gain full civil rights is to link it to the struggles of blacks. Here’s how the folks at the SPLC are positioning the debate:
The religious right in America has employed a variety of strategies in its efforts to beat back the increasingly confident gay rights movement. One of those has been defamation. Many of its leaders have engaged in the crudest type of name-calling, describing LGBT people as “perverts” with “filthy habits” who seek to snatch the children of straight parents and “convert” them to gay sex. They have disseminated disparaging “facts” about gays that are simply untrue — assertions that are remarkably reminiscent of the way white intellectuals and scientists once wrote about the “bestial” black man and his supposedly threatening sexuality.
Have you ever wondered why homosexuals describe themselves as “gay” and not homosexual? They know that to describe their behavior would mean turning people away from the idea of special sexual rights. Check out images from so-called Gay Pride parades. A moral equivalency is being made by the SPLC between the struggle of blacks to gain their civil rights with men and women who are working to gain certain types of sexual rights. There is no end to where “sexual rights” legislation will take us.
Voddie Baucham, pastor of Grace Family Baptist Church in Spring, Texas, challenged Christian broadcasters at the 2011 National Religious Broadcasters convention not to equate the homosexual agenda with the civil rights movement. Baucham, who is black, stressed that practicing homosexuality is not the same as being black. “I’m insulted that people equate not just a sinful behavior but a behavior that’s a special category of sin called an abomination with the level of melanin in my skin,” he said. He charged that some black leaders were providing “cover” for homosexual activists to play the “race card.” Baucham cautioned the NRB audience from falling victim to three common attacks in the homosexual agenda: the ad hominem attack, question-begging logic, and the genetic fallacy. Here’s how Katherine T. Phan, a Christian Post reporter, summarizes Pastor Baucham’s message:
With the ad hominem attack, homosexual activists attack the man and label them a “homophobe” or “bad person” and with the question-begging logic tactic they only assume gay marriage is a fundamental right without ever proving it. Genetic fallacy is used when homosexual activists say, “you are using your religion to impose your morality on me,” thereby rejecting the argument simply based on where it comes from, not based on the logic of that argument.
Reading from several Bible verses, Baucham contended that Christians should respond to homosexuality with biblical truth. Some Christians may point to the verse that says not to judge others to justify their silence, he acknowledged, but they should also read the part where Jesus tells us to judge ourselves so that we can judge others.
“Take the log out of your own eye so that you can see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye. We’re commanded to judge,” said Baucham.
Referring to Ezekiel 33, the pastor reminded the Christian media professionals that the blood will be required on their hands if they don’t tell the wicked man to turn from his ways.
Showing true love, argued Baucham, is not to just allow homosexuals to live in sin but to call them to repent and speak of what Christ has done on the cross.
“There is nothing more loving than calling a person to repent of their sins.”
For years, to use Theodore Roszak’s phrase, Christians had a theology that was “socially irrelevant, even if privately engaging.” ((Theodore Roszak., Where the Wasteland Ends: Politics and Transcendence in Postindustrial Society (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1972), 449.)) 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.