A new post at the Religion Dispatches looks at the manner in which the ultra far right is rallying around the hate merchants recently registered as anti-hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Among those flocking to support Klan loving Tony Perkins and Family Research Council and the Wilmons of American Family Association are leaders of the Congressional Republicans and other hate groups or those that border on crossing the line through their deliberately false and denigrating "facts" that they disseminate to uphold legalized discrimination against LGBT Americans. While many describe themselves as "family values" organizations or even charities, in truth most do little or no actual charitable work. Instead, their efforts are disproportionately focused on demonizing LGBT Americans and trying to inflict their religious beliefs on all citizens. Here are some post highlights:*
In response to the Southern Poverty Law Center's designation of 13 religious right organizations as "hate groups" because of their anti-gay rhetoric and advocacy, the Family Research Council just launched a campaign to "stand in solidarity" with those groups that received the "hate group" label (and others the SPLC labeled anti-gay) and in defense of what they call "Judeo-Christian values."
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By joining together in "solidarity" -- signatories include usual suspects Republican Reps. John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Mike Pence, and Michele Bachmann; Republican Sens. Jim DeMint, James Inhofe, and David Vitter; and probable presidential hopefuls Mike Huckabee, Tim Pawlenty, and Rick Santorum -- these groups and individuals are standing together as demonizers of homosexuality and, in some cases, supporters of criminalizing it.
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[SPLC's Mark] Potok emphasized that the SPLC's decision to place a group on the list is not about criminality or violence, but is based on whether the groups in question "demonize other groups with falsehoods" or conspiracy theories. FRC, he added, has associated gay men with pedophilia, a known falsehood.
TPM's Evan McMorris-Santoro reported that the SPLC sees little difference between FRC and the KKK: As [SPLC's Heidi] Beirich told me, there is no difference between the FRC and the KKK in the eyes of the SPLC now. Still, she said that the hate group designation doesn't mean the SPLC thinks everyone who supports the FRC "has a full understanding of what they're up to."
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Warren Throckmorton, the evangelical psychologist who has played such a significant role in raising awareness of the evangelical world's use of myth and falsehood to spread homophobia, had last month taken the religious right groups to task for their "mostly unfortunate and unhelpful" responses to the the SPLC. He called Kaminer's free speech argument a "distraction" but also wrote that attempts by the evangelical groups to claim religious persecution "miss the point."
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But even as the anti-gay groups are attempting to elicit sympathy from the SPLC's decisions, they're overplaying their hand in a big way. After all, despite the big splash that the "hate group" designation first made, it sort of fizzled and the mainstream press continues to treat the "marriage" issue as simply a dispute over the meaning of the Bible over which well-meaning people can disagree. Bringing it up again, and involving so many high-profile Republicans, invites new and probably enhanced scrutiny of the rhetoric and actions which drew the SPLC's attention in the first place. . . Though perhaps it wasn't the SPLC that did that, but rather, fittingly, the religious right's own hubris.
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Throckmorton and I had heated e-mail exchanges in the past and it has been interesting to watch him cast aside the "change myth" and adopt a more moderate approach. Whether it's because his mind has become more open or the fact that he fears for his license if he bucks APA guidelines is hard to say.
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