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EDITOR OF REDSTATE

Human Rights Campaign Maintains Family Research Council is a “Hate Group”

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  August 15th, 2012 at 05:54 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

I got this email from Fred Sainz, the Vice President for Communications and Marketing at the Human Rights Company:

I have a great deal of admiration for you and like watching you on CNN. These Tweets are beneath you.

It’s really unseemly to insinuate — in any way — that HRC had anything to do with the violence that occurred today at FRC.

FRC IS a hate group. It’s not HRC that calls them that; it’s the Southern Poverty Law Center that has classified them as such – years ago. Have you seen the things that FRC says about gay people? I think if you did you wouldn’t be so quick to associate yourself with them:

http://www.glaad.org/cap/tony-perkins

http://www.glaad.org/cap/peter-sprigg

I’m more than happy to have a dialogue with you on the issue but would ask that you not make irresponsible connections that are completely illogical.

He is referencing several tweets I made noting that just yesterday the Human Rights Campaign called Family Research Council a “hate group.” (See here and here)

I noted that if a gunman had entered the Human Rights Campaign’s offices a day after being labeled a “hate group” by a conservative organization, the media would be denouncing the conservative group as inciting the shooting and spend a week on homophobia, etc.

To be clear, I do not think the Human Rights Campaign incited the shooter. I generally don’t think conservative or liberal groups incite violence — the crazy does it all on its own.

But I have absolutely no doubt that the media would engage in handwringing had the situation been reversed.

I would also note the Human Rights Campaign is doubling down today on calling the Family Research Council a “hate group.” They might as well label mainstream (not mainline) Christianity a hate group as Family Research Council does nothing more than reflect the orthodox tenets of Christian faith.

I’d also note that the Southern Poverty Law Center long ago stopped being a useful organization for anyone other than the left with only rare exception, but gives cover to the media and the left to label many conservative groups that are well within the mainstream as hate groups. That’s not to say the Southern Poverty Law Center does not accurately label some groups as hate groups, but it paints with too broad a brush.

Oh, and Tony Perkins and Pete Sprigg are friends.

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  • http://moelane.com/ Moe Lane

    If the Deputy Press Secretary for the Human Rights Council does not realize that ‘the Southern Policy Law Center says so’ is a rejoinder that is… unconvincing… to a conservative, then the HRC needs a new Deputy Press Secretary.

  • http://www.thehayride.com MacAoidh

    …Human Rights Campaign to persist in calling the FRC a “hate group” on the very day someone who shares that opinion of them went into the place to murder them. for their opinions.

    It demonstrates a complete lack of class and judgement on HRC’s part. They should never be taken seriously again.

  • http://travismonitor.blogspot.com Freedoms Truth

    “might as well label mainstream (not mainline) Christianity a hate group”

    Give it time. Give it time.

    If you oppose gay marriage or want to enforce immigration laws and/or restrict immigration laws, because you think that is good public policy, Southern Poverty Law Center will call you a ‘hate’ group:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_organizations_designated_by_the_Southern_Poverty_Law_Center_as_hate_groups

    SPLC manages to mix in real extremist groups with legitimate conservative organizations, solely because they push a conservative agenda … so you get:

    AFA, FRC, and FAIR (Federation for American Immigration Reform) on the ‘hate’ list. These are not ‘hate’ groups in any real sense, unless tradiational family values and enforced immigration laws is ‘hate’.

    .

  • reclaimit

    But now that white supremacists have been driven either underground or melded into Southern Christian groups, the SPLC is unreliable when it comes to identifying “domestic terrorists.” they are no different than Big Sis Janet Nepolitano, who sees evil at every gun show or Aryan music festival. Total pandering to the equal rights crowd.

  • Viet71

    It’s a term that invites the reader to turn off reasoning.

    Late 1970s. The Nazis want to march in Skokie, Illinois, home to many Holocaust survivors. Want a First Amendment test, this is it.

    The ACLU backs the march, as does the Supreme Court.

    The march occurs. It’s a bust for the Nazis. Despite police protection. Why? Because the Nazis are losers with no message except hate. Nothing like the the sunshine disinfectant of the First Amendment.

    Today, “hate group” is a term you are trained by the Left to hate.

    TEA Party: Hate group (and much, much worse).

    The Right needs to gain control of the language, as the Left did in the 1960s.

  • Bill S

    …any group that disagrees with conservatives and Redstate is officially a hate group. Problem solved.

  • streiff

    Note that this assclown doesn’t say a word of condemnation about the shooting. His only concern is that his right to sacramental sodomy not be impeded.

  • proudmarinemom

    this week when I chased a couple of OFA/Acorn members off my front porch. Felt great slamming the front door.

    Prayers for all at the FRC.

  • Martin Knight

    .

  • reclaimit

    What are you talking about?

  • reclaimit

    So stealing that!

  • runner12

    The one line that stood out the most to me was this:

    “They might as well label mainstream Christianity a hate group as the Family Research Council does nothing more than reflect the orthodox tenets of Christian faith.”

    This is not just an attack by the SPLC on a conservative organization, it is an attack on religion. Even worse, the SPLC and the HRC crew have been spreading lies and misinformation about FRC for years. Namely that the FRC wants to “outlaw” homosexuality, despite the fact that the president of FRC Tony Perkins has denied that this not a part of the purpose of the organization.

    Another favorite attack of their is that FRC ties homosexuality to pedophelia. I have never heard FRC say that all people who are gay are pedophiles or promote that idea. That is ridiculous (BTW, by the SPLC’s nonsensical standards the Mayo Clinic would be a hate-group, given a report they published in 2007 profiling pedophiles).

    The bottom line is that the only reason the SPLC and the HRC called the FRC a hate-group is because they are pro-life and pro-traditional marriage.

  • cactusjack

    and it deserves to be honored and upheld as such, at the end of many musings on the subject and the activist gay element of society (which does not equal all gays admittedly) I came across a good scientific, anthropolgocial reason why society shouldnt legally ensconce gay marriage (and abortion) as it should the traditional family. It goes like this: “if radical gays aggressively practice what they say they want, and radical Libs pursue aggressive abortion on demand – after a generation or two, they are statistically insignificant due to naturally selecting themselves out of the race.” ( It’s kind of the inverse of the truism that whichever group(s) preserves the family unit and propagates now, has already won tomorrow.) They’ve already foreseen this problem their lifestyle brings and are trying to argue it away today.Thus the gay activists new desperate drive to acquire adoption equality and brand “being gay” genetic, not a personal choice, for which honestly the jury is still out.

  • checkmate2012

    titled “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment”, which they were pressured by the GOP and did finally retract it in 2009.
    http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/rightwing.pdf

    If you don’t recall, the first paragraph: “The DHS/Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) has no specific information that domestic rightwing* terrorists are currently planning acts of violence, but rightwing extremists may be gaining new recruits by playing on their fears about several emergent issues. The economic downturn and the election of the first African American president present unique drivers for rightwing radicalization and recruitment.”

    From http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/08/13/sikh-temple-shooting-returns-attention-to-military-s-white-power-problem.html

    ?That report was spot-on,? says Mark Potok, a Senior Fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center, a non-profit, left-leaning civil-rights organization that monitors extremists and militias. ?Janet Napolitano, in an act of political cowardice, pulled back that report without any justification. What it said was unquestionably true.?

    The report was focused on ex-military members that fought for their country, among other “right-wing” groups so the SPLC is hardly a harbinger for unbiased judgement of hate groups.

    I can’t help but wonder how it is that the FBI and DHS call the Sikh shooting domestic terrorism, which I agree with, but won’t call radical Islam killings of Americans terrorism but instead referred to them as ?man-caused? disasters.

  • David123

    1. Crimes against nature should also be crimes against state law. This is not a commonly held view today, but it was the mainstream view held by the vast majority of Americans for almost the first 200 years of American independence.

    2. It should not be against the law for two consenting adults to engage in homosexual acts within the privacy of their own home. About 1980 this was the liberal position.

    3. Homosexuals in a longterm committed relationship should be able to enter into a “civil union” which would give them similar treatment under the law to married couples.

    4. Marriage should be redefined so that homosexuals can marry each other.

    5. Anyone who opposes the redefinition of marriage is a bigot and full of hate.

    6. Anyone who opposes the redefinition of marriage should lose his livelihood/be driven out of business. This appears to be Rahm Emanuel’s view.

    Quite a shift over the past 40 years. The Bible says the same thing today that it said 40 years ago, and the Constitution hasn’t been amended in any way within the past 40 years that would change homosexual’s relationship with the law.

  • rickey5825

    is a hate organization!They are completely intolerant of anyone that does not agree with their views!

  • aesthete

    Sounds like something an environmentalist would throw up as a defense for anti-development laws, or pro-vegan policy.

    FWIW, Reagan was probably a 2.5 on that scale. I’m a 3. Of course, the proper evaluation of government policy should not be how beneficial a policy is to homosexuals or homosexual acceptance (as far as I can tell, that is what you intend to point out with this scale), but rather how conducive it is to advancing ordered liberty and autonomy of self in the context of proper governance.

  • David123

    I’m not advocating going back to “1″, but we are losing freedom in the other direction as we veer toward 4, and especially 5, and 6.

    Back before 1970, “crimes against nature” more likely meant homosexual acts than starting forest fires, and I was using the language of that time.

  • aesthete

    I think you’re on the money with your remarks.

  • The_Rebel

    only goes after those groups or individuals it feels it can smear or push around, with the obvious aid of the MSM. It treats Tea Party members, conservative groups, and Christian groups as the second coming of the KKK and neo-Nazis.

    The SPLC may have created the term “hate group”, but they by no means have sole rights to its use. So, starting today, I am calling the SPLC an anti-conservative, anti-Christian hate group. In its dealings with the MSM when the situation presents itself, I suggest our conservative brethren do the same.

  • acat

    I think the right compromise on that scale, based on “equal before the law”, is about a 3.

    The word marriage meant a religious rite long before it meant government benefits .. so I have no trouble denying the term to any union not recognized by the church.

    That said, I have trouble with government rights being withheld based on things we don’t get a vote on before we’re born, including race and gender and, in my opinion*, some of orientation.

    There’s a pretty clear historical belief that creed, i.e. what one chooses to believe cannot be a reason to withhold government benefits… this appears to cover the rest of orientation.*

    Mew

    No, I don’t believe “born that way” covers it .. nature and nurture (or lack thereof) both play a part, therefore it’s covered either on par with race, or on par with religion, and in either case while the church is free to discriminate, the government should not be.

  • David123

    Cursing America is a lot more hateful than saying “taxed enough already.”

  • acat

    They’re not white, suburbanite, Chick-Fil-A-eatin’ NASCAR-watchin’ folk so they simply can’t commit hate crimes.

    Mew

  • eugenio

    “To be clear, I do not think the Human Rights Campaign incited the shooter.”

    I strongly disagree, Erick. If you’ve ever had the displeasure of listening to a group of Leftists talk about their enemies amongst themselves, you would hear them talking about rubbing our their oppenents all the time. One guy today was crazy enough to try. His buddies, while feigning indignation, are huddled together tonight praising his “courage.” Sad, but true.

  • eugenio

    meant to type “rubbing out” instead of “rubbing our”

  • aesthete

    but I will also say the following:

    1) Government involvement in marriage, properly understood, should not be a “benefit” but something more akin to liability reduction: heterosexuals in a committed sexual relationship are overwhelmingly more likely than no to have children. There are some assymetries related to the biological differences between males and females, and some child-rearing issues, which make it prudent for government to recognize and deal with these relationships when something problematic happens (especially as involves children). Benefits (i.e., more money or some advantage) based on marriage should not come into play at all, but various legal protections should be in place, in much the same way and for some of the same reasons that we recognize and treat corporations as a distinct entity under the law.

    2) Some other functions of government (orphanages and adoption agencies, for example) require decisions which are directly relevant to child-rearing and such. Ceteris paribus, we should prefer a loving, committed traditional heterosexual family to a homosexual counterpart.

    3) The cat’s out of the bag at this point, but there are some jobs and functions in government where the ideal of equality in hiring is trumped by practical concerns: the effectiveness of some parts of our military is diminished by establishing mixed-gender units, for example. This does not, strictly speaking, need to result in a wholesale ban, but does need to be considered from time to time for the same reason that height or back problems need to be considered as liabilities for certain jobs.

  • funwithknives

    N/T

  • funwithknives

    Semi-Activists and Concerned Citizens has no bearing on their stances or ‘living’ outlines on who the “The Bad Guy de’ jour ” is,
    for this news cycle.

    The SPLC used to, not so long ago, sully the reputations of People I knew and admired in the Michigan Militia Movement.
    Half-Truths , and outright Falsehoods were S O P .
    This is where Chip Berlet, the Major Domo of same, made his bones.

    SPLC has Endowments and Investments in the Tens of Millions.
    They only need the money, ’cause there is never enough for a greedy bunch of S O B ‘s like they are known to be.

    The hilarious part of this is that in the late 90′s ,SPLC started an initiative for schools called “Teaching Tolerance”. I got a mailer from them and to my everlasting shame, I chucked the sucker.
    Now, I’d like to create endless copies and shove them right into their faces, at light speed.

    {Can you tell I don’t care for them?}

  • funwithknives

    from their childen in droves, Father Figure-wise and ‘whack’ each other with some regularity.

    But don’t ever Disrespect Them, or you are gonna feel their wrath.

    What is Black on Black crime, if it cannot be decribed as
    “A Hate Crime” ?

    ‘Round here, ‘it’s just another day on the planet’.

    {Coming to you from just outside MoTown , where gunfire is a backround noise}

  • uselogic

    Have listened a group from “Food Not Bombs” discuss who they’d like to get rid of. Bullet in the head, execution style. “Just like in that (famous Vietnam era) photo.” They got all titillated about it.