After a much-publicized campaign against America’s leading source of information on U.S. charities, GuideStar, partnering with America’s most notorious uber-left smear machine, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), GuideStar has removed the “hate group” label from conservative and pro-freedom organizations (including ours, AFDI).
Last week, a coalition of conservative groups and organizations working in defense of freedom submitted a letter calling out America’s leading source of information on U.S. charities, GuideStar, on its libelous and defamatory use of the SPLC’s hate labels in smearing conservative organizations.
“Conservative Leader ‘Encouraged’ by Nonprofit Tracker’s Removal of ‘Hate Group’ Labels From Conservative Groups,” by Rachel del Guidice, Daily Signal, June 26, 2017:
The nation’s leading source of information on U.S. nonprofits has removed its use of a controversial “hate group” designation in listings for some well-known and broadly supported conservative nonprofits.
GuideStar, which calls itself a “neutral” aggregator of tax data on charities, recently incorporated the “hate group” labels produced by the left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center, which inspired 41 conservative leaders to protest the move, asking GuideStar in a letter last week to remove the flagging.
Individuals who signed the letter referenced recent history and noted the “hate group” designation propagated by the Southern Poverty Law Center and adopted by GuideStar can have harmful implications.
Floyd Corkins, the man convicted of a 2012 attempt to massacre employees at the Family Research Council, was inspired by the Southern Poverty Law Center’s description of the Christian pro-family research organization as a hate group.
In an interview with the FBI, Corkins said a list on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s website motivated his attack.
The SPLC has acknowledged the connection.
GuideStar used an organization that incites murder and violence in the cause of leftist hate. This speaks to the morally inverted state of veracity and integrity in a left-dominated society.
Last week, a number of us working in defense of freedom submitted a letter calling out the compromised and complicit GuideStar.
The complaints prompted GuideStar to reverse its course. The company said it’s removing the labels “for the time being” beginning Monday, in part because of concerns raised about their objectivity but also because of the threats against employees.
Threats? None of our followers and members have ever killed or plotted violence against anyone, but members of SPLC, the very group whose defamation GuideStar cites, have killed and attempted to assassinate any number of us.
GuideStar announced its decision to remove the labels last week, two days after being sent a complaint letter signed by 41 people, largely representing conservative organizations, including Pamela Geller of the American Freedom Defense Initiative, whom the Southern Poverty Law Center describes as “one of America’s most notorious Islamophobes,” and Tim Wildmon of the American Family Association, a group the SPLC says is staunchly anti-LGBT.
“The ‘hate group’ list is nothing more than a political weapon targeting people it deems to be its political enemies,” the letter said. “The list is ad hoc, partisan, and agenda-driven.”
Letter: 2017.06.21_vfinal_signatures_LTR_Coalition to Guidestar-Harold Jacobs
We, the undersigned organizations and individuals, write to express our strong disagreement with Guidestar’s newly implemented policy that labels 46 American organizations as “hate groups.” Your designations are based on determinations made by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a hard-left activist organization. As such, SPLC’s aggressive political agenda pervades the construction of its “hate group” listings.
The SPLC has no bona fides to make such determinations. It is not a governmental organization using a rigorous criteria to create its lists, and it is not a scientifically oriented organization. The SPLC is merely another “progressive” political organization. It gained credibility attacking Klansmen, neo-Nazis, and skinheads – many of whom were engaged in violence. The SPLC is now trying to export the same tactics into areas of mainstream political discourse including debates about immigration and sexual-identity politics.
The “hate group” list is nothing more than a political weapon targeting people it deems to be its political enemies. The list is ad hoc, partisan, and agenda-driven.1 The SPLC doesn’t even pretend to identify groups on the political left that engage in “hate.” Mosques or Islamist groups that promote radical speech inciting anti-Semitism and actual violence are not listed by the SPLC even though many have been publicly identified after terrorist attacks. Radical, violent leftist environmentalists or speech suppressing thugs – like the rioting “antifa” movement – receive no mention from the SPLC.
Despite its denials to the contrary, this highly refined method of ostracism and dehumanization practiced by the SPLC isn’t just about verbal debate – it can foreseeably lead to violence. The SPLC’s primary goal is to achieve the political submission of its opponents, but its practice of sustained demonization in one’s community – which is what a “hate map” is all about – inflames passions of hatred and animus against its targets……
Read the whole thing here.
We fought the lies and the smear. And we won.
The SPLC should be relegated to the dustbin of history like their intellectual inspiration: Goebbels. The networks and major newspapers should follow GuideStar’s lead on this and sever all ties with this vile hate machine. If not for the mainstream media the SPLC would be where it belongs, on the outer fringe of decent society. Like the KKK.