Coven of Haters Protests the Southern Poverty Law Center

As a number blogs including Pam's House Blend have reported, a gathering of extreme anti-gay zealots descended on the offices of the Southern Poverty Law Center ("SPLC") in Montgomery, Alabama, to whine and bloviate over the SPLC's designation of some of them as anti-gay hate groups. No one loves to play the victim more that truth and veracity challenged Christianists who feel that they have a license to lie without the least compunction about others. When in contrast, someone like the SPLC speaks the documented truth about them, they disingenuously wail and gnash their teeth. I'm sorry, but with these folks, Christianisty is all about hate and little else. Fortunately, the SPLC set the record about these protesters on its website. And, as the photo above indicates, once again black pastors allowed themselves to be co-opted as water carriers for those who in truth are white supremacists. Here are highlights:

Today at noon, a group of the nastiest gay-bashers in America plans to hold a press conference in front of the Montgomery, Ala., offices of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which publishes this blog. Claiming that the SPLC is engaged in a “campaign to demonize adherents of traditional Judeo-Christian morality,” the white organizers of the press conference are bringing along a set of black pastors in a presumed bid to embarrass the SPLC, a 40-year-old anti-racist civil rights organization.

The irony is that SPLC has named five of the participating organizations as hate groups precisely because they demonize LGBT people, using a series of well-worn lies to paint gays and lesbians as perverts, pedophiles and worse. Despite the claims of the groups, the SPLC is not attacking anyone’s morality. Instead, our hate group listings reflect the fact that they regularly propagate known falsehoods.

Here are some facts about the other organizations participating in today’s press conference that are listed by SPLC as hate groups:

Abiding Truth Ministries: Represented today by Rachel Conner, this group is headed by Scott Lively, who is the originator of the most remarkable smears of gay people of all — the completely false claims that Hitler was gay, that “the Nazi Party was entirely controlled by militaristic homosexuals,” and that gays were especially selected for the SS because of their innate brutality. Meeting with Ugandan lawmakers who would later push the so-called “Kill the Gays” bill in that country, Lively told them that the gay rights movement is “an evil institution” that seeks to replace a healthy society with “a culture of sexual promiscuity.” Before starting Abiding Truth, Lively headed a failed effort to pass an Oregon referendum that would have listed homosexuality, along with pedophilia, as “abnormal behavior.”

Illinois Family Institute (IFI): The IFI’s Laurie Higgins will not be at the press conference, but plans to issue a statement of support. In 2006, IFI’s then executive director Peter LaBarbera — now with AFTAH — demanded the closing down of all “homosexual establishments” and the repeal of all “sexual orientation laws,” shorthand for statutes that ban discrimination against gay people. . . . . She also attacked McDonald’s for running a gay-friendly TV ad, saying it was “hell bent on using its resources to promote subversive moral, social, and political views about homosexuality to our children.”

Mass Resistance: Mass Resistance leader Brian Camenker has claimed that groups that back anti-bullying school programs actually want to lure children into homosexuality and, very possibly, sadomasochism. In 2006, he said that gay people were trying to pass legislation that would allow sex with animals. Camenker has falsely claimed that no gay people died in the Holocaust and that the pink triangle that the Nazis forced imprisoned gay people to wear actually signified Catholic priests. He has also repeatedly linked homosexuality and pedophilia despite the falsity of that claim.

Other groups participating in the press conference but not listed by SPLC as hate groups include Liberty Counsel, whose director of cultural affairs, Matt Barber, is scheduled to speak. Barber has argued that it would be “criminally reckless for educators to teach children that homosexual conduct is a normal, safe and perfectly acceptable alternative.” Linda Harvey of Mission America is also scheduled to issue a supporting statement. Harvey has argued that employers should not hire gay people and that parents should keep their kids away from gay doctors.

As the SPLC also notes, it is these anti-gay groups that have refused to withdraw false claims about LGBT people that have no other purpose than to smear them. The SPLC has simply reported the ugly truth about them.