Inside Track
Ministry Sues SPLC for Calling It a “Hate Group”
The National Center for Life and Liberty of the D. James Kennedy Ministries (DJKM) filed suit August 22 against the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) for “trafficking in false or misleading descriptions of the services offered under the ministry’s trademarked name; and for defamation pursuant to Alabama common law arising from the publication and distribution of information that libels the ministry’s reputation and subjects the ministry to disgrace, ridicule, odium, and contempt in the estimation of the public.”
At issue is the SPLC’s inclusion of the ministry in its “hate” map, along with the KKK and various Nazi groups. Thanks to the acceptance of that “hate map” as legitimate by various members of the media, it has damaged the ministries. That’s why included in the lawsuit are Amazon and the charity guidance group GuideStar — both have taken SPLC’s accusation seriously, with Amazon blocking DJKM from AmazonSmile and GuideStar removing DJKM from its list of approved ministries.
The lawsuit states, “It is the SPLC’s intent that the people who receive the information that SPLC publishes about the ministry will rely on SPLC’s information as fact and will base their charitable giving decisions on that information.” The lawsuit includes GuideStar for “knowingly accept[ing] defamatory information from the SPLC regarding the ministry and knowingly, intentionally, and purposefully republish[ing] that defamatory information with the intent that the people who receive the republished SPLC information from GuideStar will rely on that information as fact for the purpose of making their charitable giving decisions.”
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