Southern Poverty Law Center’s Poverty of Ethics
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which defines itself as “a nonprofit civil rights organization dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry,” recently labeled family-values organizations as “hate groups” for championing faith-based moral views, including opposition to same-sex marriage and support for the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.
The Family Research Council, of Washington, D.C., was among the insulted parties and decided to fight back. On December 15, 2010, the organization launched the website StartDebatingStopHating.com and took out a newspaper ad (the latter appearing in Politico and the Washington Examiner) that denounced the speech-chilling “character assassination” tactics of the SPLC, while supporting “vigorous” and “responsible” exercise of open debate. Those who signed the online petition showed their solidarity with the Family Research Council, the American Family Association, Concerned Women for America, and other national groups that have made their mark in the culture wars. Heavy hitters supporting the full-page ad, which featured some 150 signatories, included Michele Bachmann, Jim DeMint, Phyllis Schlafly, Richard Land, Alveda King, Alfred Regnery, Star Parker, John Boehner, and David Limbaugh.
The line-in-the-sand stance by conservatives against the leftist outfit is long overdue. The Southern Poverty Law Center, a Montgomery, Alabama-based non-profit, public interest law firm, was launched by attorneys Morris Dees and Joseph Levin, Jr. in 1971. It has become synonymous with tracking the speech and conduct of white supremacists (e.g. the National Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and Aryan Nations) with an interactive 50-state “Hate Map” that lists 932 groups.
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