DL Foster, founder of Gay Christian Movement Watch (www.gcmwatch.com), speaks at Jan. 17 pro-family press conference protesting the Southern Poverty Law Center, in Montgomery, AL. At center is Pastor Patrick Wooden, and at right is AFTAH President Peter LaBarbera.

WARNING: Graphic descriptions

This is Part Four of our interview with Patrick Wooden [Click HERE to listen], pastor of the Upper Room Church of God in Christ, based in Raleigh, North Carolina. This was pre-recorded and aired February 4, 2012. Wooden and AFTAH President Peter LaBarbera are joined in this discussion by DL Foster, founder of Gay Christian Movement Watch, based in Atlanta. Homosexual activists have sought to make fun of Wooden for describing in these AFTAH interviews) the body-destroying perversions associated with male homosexuality. But LaBarbera, noting that the Homosexual Lobby a “sin movement,” says one would expect it to yield heinous perversions like “fisting,” rimming and “water sports” (“gay” slang for men urinating on and in one another for sexual pleasure).

Foster says that the portrayal of himself, Wooden and other Black leaders who participated in AFTAH’s Jan. 17 press conference [click HERE for audio] outside the Southern Poverty Law Center headquarters as somehow being controlled by “white organizers” “highlights the high level of racist arrogance inside the homosexual movement” – which he said he experienced when he was active as a homosexual. “The white gay movement needs to deal with its own latent racism,” he said.  Wooden said he’s never been called “Nigger” so much (by white “gay” activists) than since his interviews with AFTAH went public.

Foster and LaBarbera talk about the case of Jesse Dirkhising, a 13-year-old Arkansas boy who was raped and grotesquely sodomized in 1999 by two older homosexual men who left him for dead after drugging, gagging and penetrating him with foreign objects including a cucumber.

[Click HERE to watch a YouTube video of DL Foster's speech as the SPLC press conference; and click HERE for Part 1, HERE for Part 2, and HERE for Part 3 of LaBarbera's interviews with Pastor Wooden.]

HOW TO LISTEN: This is an mp3 file, supported in most operating systems by Windows Media Player, Quick Time and/or I-Tunes.  Real Player is not supported and there may be difficulty when attempting to listen with it.  Left click once on the link below to play. (Please be patient, depending upon the speed of your internet connection it may take a moment or two to load.)  OR right click the link then “save target as” to download the whole show.

2-4-12, Patrick Wooden with D.L. Foster, Part Four

Pastor Patrick Wooden speaks at last week's press conference highlighting the SPLC's anti-Christian "hate group" politics. The AFTAH banner reads: "SPLC: Stop Lying: Christianity is NOT 'HATE.'" Click on photo to enlarge slightly.

Here is Part Two of AFTAH President Peter LaBarbera’s interview with Dr. Patrick Wooden, pastor at Upper Room Church of God in Christ, in Raleigh, North Carolina [Click HERE to listen, and go HERE for Part One.] This was pre-recorded and aired Jan. 21, 2012. Wooden discusses the pastors’ press conference that he led denouncing the Southern Poverty Law Center’s “hate group” smear-campaign against pro-family groups, including Americans For Truth. Wooden addresses some of the homosexual activist criticisms of Part One of this interview – in which he touched on the destructive effects of practicing sodomitic perversion (which, he said, should not be compared to skin color). LaBarbera references a Wikipedia entry on “fecal incontinence” that cites this 1993 study on the ill effects of anal sex. They talk about the SPLC’s racist-tinged release on the AFTAH protest. And when Wooden brings up the heinous “gay” sex practice of “fisting,” LaBarbera recalls the 2000 Massachusetts “Fistgate” scandal at a conference sponsored by the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network – in which homosexual youth were given verbal “how-to” instructions by adults on “fisting” (hand-arm-rectal “sex”). LaBarbera notes that GLSEN never issued a sincere, strong apology for the incident — and the media double standard that excuses and ignores scandals on the Left.

HOW TO LISTEN: This is an mp3 file, supported in most operating systems by Windows Media Player, Quick Time and/or I-Tunes.  Real Player is not supported and there may be difficulty when attempting to listen with it.  Left click once on the link below to play. (Please be patient, depending upon the speed of your internet connection it may take a moment or two to load.)  OR right click the link then “save target as” to download the whole show.

1-21-12, Patrick Wooden, Part Two

North Carolina pastor Patrick Wooden criticized the Southern Poverty Law Center for implying that Black leaders cannot think for themselves and had to be "brought" to the SPLC press conference by "white organizers." Here he is interviewed by a Montgomery TV reporter after the AFTAH press conference. In the background is a large SPLC banner decrying "HATE." Click on photo to enlarge.

Here is the audio [click HERE to listen] for AFTAH’s press conference January 17, 2012, outside the headquarters of the Southern Poverty Law Center, in Montgomery, Alabama, featuring a coalition of African American pastors and pro-family leaders challenging the SPLC’s tendentious “hate group” designation against Americans For Truth and other pro-family groups. Total length is 33 minutes.

The following speakers appeared (with beginning times on recording):

• Peter LaBarbera, President, Americans For Truth About Homosexuality;
• Dr. Patrick Wooden, Pastor, Upper Room Church of God in Christ, Raleigh, NC; 3:03
• DL Foster, Founder, Gay Christian Movement Watch and Witness Freedom Ministries, Atlanta, Ga.; 7;10
• Matt Barber, Vice President, Liberty Council Action, Lynchburg, Va.; Board Chairman,  AFTAH; 13:07
• Tim Johnson, Chairman and Founder, Frederick Douglass Foundation; 17:07
• Wil Nichols, Pastor, Victorious Praise Fellowship Church of God in Christ, Durham, NC; 20:00
• Rochelle Conner, representing Scott Lively and Abiding Truth Ministries [Conner flew in from California]; 22:22
• Troy Towns, representing Apostle Kyle Searcy, Fresh Annointing House of Worship, Montgomery, AL; 26:05
• Glenn Sawyer, Pastor, New Mt. Zion Church of God in Christ, Elizabeth City, NC; 28:30
• Jon Robinson, Pastor, Kingdon C.O.M.E. Ministries, Clairton, Pa.; 29:50

Referenced links: Click HERE for the SPLC’s racist-tinged blog post by Mark Potok issued just before the press conference — alleging that “the white organizers of the press conference are bringing along a set of black pastors.” Click HERE for the SPLC “Hate Map [Illinois]” referenced by LaBarbera showing the Neo-Nazis.

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HOW TO LISTEN: This is an mp3 file, supported in most operating systems by Windows Media Player, Quick Time and/or I-Tunes.  Real Player is not supported and there may be difficulty when attempting to listen with it.  Left click once on the link below to play. (Please be patient, depending upon the speed of your internet connection it may take a moment to load.)  OR right click the link then “save target as” to download the entire segment.

SPLC Press Conf Audio, 1-17-12

January 16, 2012

Contact: Peter LaBarbera; americansfortruth@gmail.com

Raleigh pastor Dr. Patrick Wooden rejects the comparison of black civil rights to sinful and unnatural homosexual behavior.

MONTGOMERY, Alabama – A coalition of African American pastors and pro-family Christian and Jewish leaders is holding a press conference at noon tomorrow (the day after Martin Luther King Day) outside the headquarters of the Southern Poverty Law Center — to protest the SPLC’s smearing of pro-family groups that oppose homosexual activism as “hate groups”:

WHERE:  Outside the SPLC headquarters, 400 Washington Ave., Montgomery, Alabama

WHEN:  Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2012, noon, Central Standard (Montgomery, AL) Time

WHO:  Scheduled speakers:

• Peter LaBarbera, Americans For Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH), Chicago, IL (the SPLC has smeared AFTAH as a “hate group”);
• Dr. Patrick Wooden, pastor, Upper Room Church of God in Christ (COGIC), Raleigh, NC;
• DL Foster, founder, Gay Christian Movement Watch, Atlanta, GA;
• Matt Barber, Director of Cultural Affairs, Liberty Counsel, Lynchburg, VA;
• Tim Johnson, Fredrick Douglass Foundation, Washington, D.C.;
• Rachel Conner, representing Abiding Truth Ministries (smeared by SPLC as a “hate group”)
• Pastor Glen Sawyer, New Mt. Zion Church of God in Christ, Elizabeth City, NC
• Pastor Wil Nichols, Victorious Praise Fellowship COGIC, Durham, NC
• Pastor Jon Robinson, Kingdom C.O.M.E. Ministries, Clairton, PA
• Pastor Kenneth Jefferson, Greater Harvest COGIC

The following pro-family leaders and groups will issue supporting statements:

• Rabbi Yehuda Levin, Rabbinical Alliance of America;
• Laurie Higgins, Illinois Family Institute (smeared as “hate group”)
• Arthur Goldberg, author, “Light in the Closet: Torah, Homosexuality, and the Power to Change”;
• Linda Harvey, Mission America, Columbus, OH
• Brian Camenker, Mass Resistance, (smeared as “hate group”)

Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans For Truth, which is sponsoring the press event, recently interviewed Pastor Wooden, who said that the SPLC’s gambit of labeling mainstream pro-family groups that oppose homosexual activism as “hate groups” is seriously damaging the SPLC’s credibility. Wooden also debunked the “civil rights” analogy used by “gay” activists, saying it is wrong to compare “my beautiful blackness” with homosexual perversion.

LaBarbera said the SPLC is engaged in a thinly-veiled, one-sided campaign to demonize adherents of traditional Judeo-Christian morality. He noted that despite the considerable hatred and anti-Christian bigotry emanating from homosexual activists (e.g., Dan Savage’s vile hate-site, Santorum[dot]com), the SPLC has never labeled a “gay” organization or website as “hateful.”

Click on graphic to enlarge. Homosexual web activist website "All Out" lobbies PayPal to drop AFTAH and other pro-family groups as alleged "anti-LGBT extremists." The petition reads, "PayPal must act immediately to shut down their accounts and ban all sites that promote anti-LGBT hate."

TAKE ACTION NOW: a new homosexual web campaign is urging the internet payment company PayPal to drop AFTAH and other pro-family organizations as so-called “extremists” that “promote anti-LGBT hate.” Please help defend Americans For Truth from being dropped by PayPal in response to this anti-Christian pressure campaign.

1) Go to PayPal’s website and make a much-needed gift to AFTAH to support our work. Or do so through the AFTAH website at www.americansfortruth.com/donate/. Mail a check to AFTAH, PO Box 5522, Naperville, IL 60567-5522.

2) Write or call PayPal and urge them to STAND FOR FREEDOM and NOT give in to this intolerant pressure campaign by homosexual activists; use PayPal’s online “Comment Card” HERE, or post a note to the PayPal blog.  Or use their Contact Page HERE (note, the latter seems to favor comments by people holding a PayPal account).  Here is the Contact Page for PayPal’s parent company, e-BAY Inc.

Please THANK PayPal for initially siding with religious freedom so far [as reported HERE by the homosexual website Pink News] and not abruptly caving to All Out’s demands.  Urge them NOT to punish Christian and pro-family advocates – which could potentially alienate millions of potential PayPal customers.

3) Also, sign the LifeSiteNews petition to PayPal defending AFTAH and other pro-family targets by going here: http://www.profamilyfreedom.net/

4) Send this message to your friends and contact list to educate them on the anti-Christian and censorious nature of the homosexual movement. “Gay” activists no longer want “Tolerance”; now they want Dominance even if it means smearing pro-family people as “haters” and destroying our cherished religious freedoms.  

__________________________________________

By Peter LaBarbera

Dear AFTAH Reader,

Every day brings more evidence that the Homosexual Lobby is all about kicking pro-morality people (mostly committed Christians) who disagree with homosexual behavior OUT of the public square. More and more observers are seeing this for what it is: homo-fascism. Last week we learned of a homosexual web campaign called “All Out” that is targeting the payment service company PayPal for doing business with Americans For Truth and nine other groups — which it smears as ”extremists” who “promote anti-LGBT “hate.” Here is the wording of their All Out petition:

PAYPAL: END THE ONLINE HATE TRADE
Tell PayPal: Put Hate Out of Business

“PayPal officially states that its users ‘may not use the PayPal service for activities that [...] promote hate, violence, racial intolerance’ but PayPal has become a favorite payment service for anti-LGBT extremists all over the world. PayPal must act immediately to shut down their accounts and ban all sites that promote anti-LGBT hate.”

In an adjoining article, the grammatically-challenged All Out writes:

Thanks to PayPal, its [sic] easier than ever to send and receive money across currencies and continents – but it is also PayPal’s responsibility to make sure this technology doesn’t fall in the wrong hands. Anti-LGBT extremists all over the world are currently using PayPal to fundraise for their dangerous cause.

Not only is it against PayPal’s rules to promote promote [sic] “hate, violence, [and] racial intolerance,” hate groups also damage PayPal’s brand and credibility. We ask that PayPal join the fight against online hate and immediately shut down the accounts of anti-LGBT extremist groups using the service.

Already, All Out boasts that 35,000 people have sent web-generated letters to PayPal using All Out’s user-friendly web form. Among the other targeted groups beside AFTAH are Scott Lively’s Abiding Truth Ministries [Lively will be a speaker at AFTAH’s banquet outside Chicago on Oct. 15^th] and the Catholic group Tradition, Family, and Property. Also on the list is Brazilian expatriate and pro-family hero Julio Severo [Julio’s blog is written in Portuguese].

Here is All Out’s description of AFTAH:

Americans for Truth About Homosexuality (United States): This groups [sic] claims homosexuality is a “lethal behavior addiction,” a “dangerous” practice that is “neither normal nor benign.” 

PayPal cites religious freedom but takes complaints

The British “gay” website Pink News reports that in response to All Out’s pressure campaign, PayPal is declining to immediately revoke the pro-family groups’ payment accounts on the grounds of religious freedom:

“PayPal does not allow the use of its service for activities that promote hatred, violence or racial intolerance. We take very seriously any cases where a user has incited hatred, violence or intolerance because of a person’s sexual orientation.

“However, we also take into account the rights of free speech and freedom of religion. Balancing these conflicting rights is often difficult, and so we assess possible infringements objectively against our Acceptable Use Policy.

Pink News reports this continuation of the statement by PayPal – made more ominous by the fact that both AFTAH and Severo have already received e-mails from PayPal requesting more information about their accounts:

“While we can’t comment on any specific accounts because of customer confidentiality, we regularly review organizations and websites that use our service, and stop working with those that break our Acceptable Use Policy. We also enable people to report suspected breaches of this policy on our website.”

AFTAH will be following this story closely, and we are grateful that the pro-family news site LifeSiteNews is launching an online petition campaign of its own, www.ProFamilyFreedom.net, to defend Americans For Truth and the other targeted organizations against this homosexual pressure campaign.

______________________________

Facts and thoughts on this latest homosexual intimidation campaign:

1) Homosexual activists are doing all they can to push Bible-believing Christians and moral-minded people who believe homosexuality is wrong OUT of the public square;

2) “Gay” militants are in the vanguard of the Left’s war on biblical Christianity and religious freedom in the United States.  By labeling Christians as “haters,” they cruelly demonize people of faith – and encourage the outrageous idea that longstanding Christian and Bible-based beliefs are “extreme” and beyond the pale;

3) One of the tactics that homosexual militants are using is to pressure corporations and politicians to distance themselves from allegedly “hateful” groups (read: groups that rightly condemn homosexual practice as sinful or disordered — yet changeable — behavior);

4) Encouraged by media sycophancy and a lack of press accountability that feeds their success, homosexual militants are now working overtime to sell the public on the absurd notion that groups like AFTAH that adhere to traditional, biblical teachings on homosexuality are the hateful equivalents of racist fringe groups like the KKK or Neo-Nazis. This propaganda tactic gained significant traction when the left-leaning Southern Poverty Law Center – long known for exposing racist hate groups like the Klan – last year labeled AFTAH and other mainstream pro-family groups like the Family Research Council “hate” groups;

5) Predicated on such spurious analogies, the current “All Out” campaign against PayPal claims that groups like AFTAH foment violence against homosexuals. However, Americans For Truth has from its inception condemned violence and (real) hatred against homosexuals. We believe Christians should reach out to homosexuals with the Gospel truth, in the love of Christ. We believe that ALL people have dignity as human beings, but that persons should not be defined by immoral, unnatural – and changeable — sexual and gender behaviors;

6) AFTAH has condemned unbiblical and nasty messages like Fred Phelps’ (Westboro Baptist Church) “God Hates Fags.” And we have noted the contrast between Christians, who encourage men and women to abandon the homosexual lifestyle (as so many have) and “fundamentalist” Muslims who advocate the death penalty for homosexuals. (Not all Muslims hold this view.)

7) It is no longer advisable to laugh off, dismiss or ignore the activist homosexual/liberal lobby’s escalating campaign to demonize Christians and punish groups like Americans For Truth. That is because everyday Americans are being influenced by the liberal media, which enable groups like the SPLC and All Out by failing to call into question their preposterous analogies, lies and hateful smears against Christians. We must fight back with the Truth and engage our politically enemies in a dogged, “house-to-house” battle to preserve our liberties and our ability to operate freely in the public square. To do so, contact PayPal and see the “Take Action” steps at the top of this article.

Thank you for standing with Americans For Truth. God bless you.

 – Peter LaBarbera (americansfortruth@gmail.com)

AFTAH's Peter LaBarbera asks why there are so many boy victims of pedophlia when homosexual men comprise such a tiny percentage of society. Above is the cover of a magazine published by NAMBLA, the notorious North American Man/Boy Love Association. NAMBLA once marched in "Gay Pride" parades before homosexual activist leaders wised up and kicked the adult-child sex advocates out of their annual celebrations. Many adult "gay" men and lesbians testify to being victims of predatory sexual abuse in their youth.

In this interview with Concerned Women for America’s online radio program [Click HERE to listen], CWA’s Martha Kleder and I discuss the Southern Poverty Law Center’s spurious “hate” monitoring. In addition to discussing the SPLC’s lopsided “vigilance” against Christian groups while professing ignorance about obvious homosexual hate incidents, I challenge the SPLC’s “hate” criterion chastising any group that says homosexuals are disproportionately involved in child molestation. (I ask why there are so many boy victims of pedophilia if homosexual men comprise such a tiny percentage of society; I assume few boys are molested by women.) I also note how the SPLC’s Mark Potok reserved special praise on the group’s recent webcast for ex-pro-family advocate Warren Throckmorton. The Grove City College professor, who claims to be biblically orthodox on homosexuality even as he ramps up his pro-”gay” advocacy, cravenly commended the SPLC’s tendentious report — the same report that former Attorney General Ed Meese called “despicable” for its “ridiculous” campaign to demonize mainstream pro-family groups as “haters.”   – Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org  

CWA writes:

Southern Poverty Law Center Lists Pro-Family Groups with the KKK 

A recent report by the Southern Poverty Law Center demonizes mainstream pro-family groups as “hate groups,” simply because of their stand against the pro-LGBT agenda and same-sex “marriage.” Included on the SPLC”s list of “hate groups” are the Family Research Council, The American Family Association, Concerned Women for America, and Americans for Truth about Homosexuality. Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans for Truth, dissects the report and the SPLC’s recent press conference on this issue. He notes the complete lack of evidence in the report linking pro-family groups with “hate,” as well as the glaring omission of radical homosexual activists groups like ACT-UP and Bash Back!. Listen | Download

______________________________________________

SPLC Articles on Americans For Truth website:

• SPLC Plays Politics with Hate, Smears Americans For Truth as ‘Hate Site’
• Is AFTAH a ‘Hate Group’? — Higgins on the ‘Morality Police’ at the Southern Poverty Law Center
• AFTAH’s LaBarbera Challenges SPLC’s Potok to a ‘Debate on Hate,’ Asks to Reverse ‘Hate’ Designation
• Oops! Southern Poverty Law Center Mistakes Peter LaBarbera for Paul Cameron
• Barber: Southern Poverty Law Center Officially Declared ‘Left-Wing Hate Group’
    

The SPLC's Mark Potok oversees the organization's de facto "campaign of defamation" painting groups like AFTAH that oppose homosexuality as "hate groups." Potok admits that the SPLC has never identified a single "gay" group as hateful even though militant homosexual organizations like ACT UP and Bash Back! have targeted churches with vicious attacks.

TAKE ACTION: Contact the Senate Judiciary Committee (members listed HERE; Senate Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121) — and the House Committee on Homeland Security (202-226-2616; members listed HERE; House Switchboard: 202-225-3121) and urge them to investigate the Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) working relationship with the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI. The leftist SPLC is now slandering conservative, Christian and Tea Party groups by mislabeling them as “hate groups” on a par with genuine, fringe hate groups like the KKK.  American taxpayers should insist that the federal government have no role in legitimizing the SPLC, which has politicized “hate” and turned it into a fund-raising business to demonize conservatives – including mainstream pro-family groups that oppose homosexual activism. To read an in-depth report exposing the SPLC’s unethical practices, go HERE.

_______________________________________________

Below is a useful article by Laurie Higgins of the Illinois Family Institute — on the leftist Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) preposterous smear-job against mainstream pro-family groups (including AFTAH, IFI, Family Research Council, and AFA) as “hate groups” because we oppose homosexuality and LGBT (“gay”) activism. Technically, the SPLC would argue that AFTAH and the other groups opposed homosexuality in the wrong way, but let’s be honest: ideologically speaking, the SPLC is so deeply committed to pro-”gay” advocacy that it considers suspect any organization that opposes pro-LGBT activism. Predictably, the left-wing, pro-homosexual echo chamber is using the SPLC’s “findings” to discredit pro-family groups.

Indicative of the SPLC”s tendentious and polemical “hate reporting” is its description of this writer as a “longtime gay-basher.” Using such semantics, that would make SPLC staffers like Mark Potok “longtime Christian bashers.” To read an excellent set of reports on the SPLC’s escalating “campaign of defamation” against conservatives and traditionalists, read this special Social Contract Journal edition.

As Barb Anderson of the (potential future “hate” group?) Minnesota Family Council and I discussed in Part One of our AFTAH Radio Hour interview [click HERE to listen], the SPLC’s cynical “hate” dragnet is growing so wide that we have almost reached the point where if a pro-family group is NOT INCLUDED on the SPLC’s “hate” list, it must be slacking off in resisting the destructive homosexual agenda. I write “almost” because some of our good friends such as Liberty Counsel and Campaign for California Families have not yet officially been designated “haters”; their time will come. Of course, the truth is, nobody “hates” like the American Left — especially militant homosexual activists.

I like Laurie’s reference to the “Morality Police”; how ironic that the Left has become the mirror of what it hates:  the societal “moral” scold. Remember that the dogmatists on the Left once screamed against the “Religious Right”: “Don’t impose your morality on the rest of us!” Now it’s the pro-”queer” Left that works diligently to “impose its immorality” on America using every dirty tactic ever conceived by Saul Alinsky (e.g., “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it”; see this piece). I half expect Potok or SPLC co-founder Morris Dees to show up in Wheeling, West Virginia, claiming to “have in my hand the names of 57 newly designated anti-gay hate groups….”

Prior to Americans for Truth About Homosexuality’s “graduation” to full-fledged SPLC “hate” group, we were labeled a “hate” website by the SPLC — after a very… well, bigoted and hateful Marxist homosexual organization, the Gay Liberation Network (GLN), “reported” us to the Alabama-based SPLC. (You know those Communists are all about love, tolerance and honesty … one GLN leader, Bob Schwartz, a self-described Trotskyite, told me at a Chicago protest that he’d push me into oncoming traffic if it weren’t for the cops standing nearby; Schwartz has never denied making the threatening remark. I hereby report the GLN to the SPLC as a “hate” group for targeting sincere Christians with its slanderous and bigoted vilifications and protests.)

No hateful homosexuals?

You will recall that earlier this year SPLC Intelligence Project director Mark Potok confirmed to me via e-mail that no “gay” advocacy group has ever made the SPLC’s “hate” list — despite the fact that miltant homosexual organizations like ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) have engaged in numerous planned assaults against churches and other political opponents. (In 1989, as part of a huge protest againset then-Cardinal John O’Connor, ACT UP members stormed St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City during a Sunday mass; it was a particularly ugly, anti-Catholic attack in which protesters screamed and tossed condoms in the air, and even stomped on a consecrated wafer believed by Catholics to be the Body of Christ. More recently, in 2008, the homosexual activist group Bash Back! staged an invasion of a large evangelical church in Lansing, Michigan; the church was specifically targeted for its outspoken belief that homosexual practice is sinful and that “gays” can leave that lifestyle through faith in Jesus Christ. [Regarding that point and the SPLC's #10 "myth" below, we must ask: does the Southern Poverty Law Center "hate" former homosexuals?] A thorough investigation into the pro-homosexual “hatred” unleashed against Prop 8 supporters in California – especially churches — is in order.)

In the ensuing months since I corresponded with Potok, the SPLC appears not to have made even a token move to identify homosexual activist hate groups and websites (gay activist Dan Savage’s shockingly evil “Santorum.com” comes to mind [Warning: highly offensive content] — while it greatly expanded its list of alleged pro-family alleged “hate groups.” This contradiction alone demonstrates the SPLC’s extreme bias and the folly of taking seriously its self-appointed role as an objective, impartial hate-monitoring organization.

Higgins deftly exposes the shoddy “research”  of the SPLC (as we at AFTAH have personally experienced; the incompetent researchers for SPLC’s “Intelligence Report” initially confused me with Paul Cameron of the Family Research Institute). All this would be comical except that the SPLC is taken seriously by the liberal media and is used as an informational resource by the federal government’s Department of Homeland Security, so please take the action steps above.

Always remember: defending biblical morality is not ”bigotry” and disagreeing with homosexual activists is not “hate.” Thanks for standing with AFTAH for truth amidst all the politically correct lies. — Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org; write us at americansfortruth@gmail.com

Laurie Higgins writes:
_____________________________________________________

The Morality Police at the Southern Poverty Law Center

Evelyn Schlatter, Southern Poverty Law Center author of "hate groups" article

By Laurie Higgins, Illinois Family Institute

Oh, for the good old days when the term “hate group” referred to groups that actually hated someone. Now the term “hate group” refers to any group that expresses political, philosophical, moral, or theological beliefs with which the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) disagrees.

Last week, the SPLC released the winter issue of Mark Potok’s ironically named “Intelligence Report.” The article, “18 Anti-Gay Groups and Their Propaganda,” by Evelyn Schlatter lists 18 organizations as “anti-gay” groups with 13 of those to be added to their formal list of “hate groups.” The American Family Association, Family Research Council, and the Illinois Family Institute are three of the 13 that will be included on a list with neo-Nazi organizations.

Schlatter explains that the “propagation” of “known falsehoods” about homosexuality will result in organizations being included on the SPLC’s “anti-gay” list and perhaps also their “hate groups” list. Here are the “known falsehoods” that she and co-author Robert Steinback cite in the companion article “10 Anti-Gay Myths Debunked”:

1. If an organization claims that homosexuals “molest children at far higher rates than heterosexuals,” it goes on the SPLC’s “hate groups” list.
2. If an organization says that “same-sex parents harm children,” it goes on the SPLC’s “hate groups” list.
3. If an organization claims that “people become homosexual because they were sexually abused as children or there was a deficiency in sex-role modeling by their parents,” it goes on the SPLC’s “hate groups” list.
4. If an organization claims that “homosexuals don’t live nearly as long as heterosexuals,” it goes on the SPLC’s “hate groups” list.
5. If an organization claims that “homosexuals controlled the Nazi Party and helped to orchestrate the Holocaust,” it goes on the SPLC’s “hate-groups” list.
6. If an organization claims that “hate crime laws will lead to the jailing of pastors who criticize homosexuality and the legalization of practices like bestiality and necrophilia,” it goes on the SPLC’s “hate groups” list.
7. If an organization claims that “allowing homosexuals to serve openly would damage the armed forces,” it goes on the SPLC’s “hate groups” list.
8. If an organization claims that homosexuals “are more prone to be mentally ill and to abuse drugs and alcohol,” it goes on the SPLC’s “hate groups” list.
9. If an organization claims that “no one is born a homosexual,” it goes on the SPLC’s “hate groups” list.
10. If an organization claims “Gay people can choose to leave homosexuality,” it goes on the SPLC’s “hate groups” list.

Under each of these “myths,” Schlatter and Steinback offer analyses and evidence of such poor quality that their arguments wouldn’t pass muster in many high school English classes in which there are actual standards for logic and use of evidence. I will examine just a few of the many problems in their analyses, which in turn will reveal the intellectual and ethical vacuity that pervades the SPLC.

Same sex parents harm children

The SPLC thinks that the belief that same sex parents harm children constitutes hatred. The first problem is that Schlatter and Steinback fail to define harm. If one believes that homosexuality is morally flawed, then a household centered on a morally flawed relationship cannot be beneficial.

It is entirely possible that a brother and sister in an incestuous relationship or that polyamorist parents could raise children, providing for their physical needs, comforting them, and teaching them their ABCs. But most of society believes that such relationships would harm children because they would teach children that incest or polyamory are morally permissible. Would Schlatter and Steinback include organizations on their “hate groups” list that propagate the belief that incestuous parents or poly-parents harm children?

The SPLC and many homosexuals are outraged over any comparison of homosexuality to adult consensual incest or polyamory because they view homosexuality as moral and incest and polyamory as immoral. But no one is obligated to accept the SPLC’s flawed comparison of homosexuality to race or to accept their moral assumptions. After all, who is the SPLC to impose their moral views on all of society? Why are IFI’s moral beliefs about homosexual acts hateful and the views of those who oppose incest or polyamory legitimate? Why do IFI’s moral beliefs about volitional homosexual acts land us on the “hate groups” list, while the moral beliefs of those who oppose incestuous parents or poly-parents do not land them on the “hate groups” list?

Homosexual parents teach their children that gender is irrelevant to marriage and to parenting. They teach them that homosexual acts are inherently moral. And they deliberately deprive children of either a mother or a father. Those corruptions of truth and essential human relationships harm children.

Childhood molestation, innateness (“born that way”) and homosexuality

The one point about which many on both sides of the homosexuality debate agree is that the causes of same-sex attraction are not known. Many believe that same-sex attractions result from a complex interaction of biologically shaped predispositions and environmental factors. If we do notknow the causes of same-sex attraction, and if some of the factors that contribute to it are environmental experiences, how can anyone declare that childhood molestation never contributes to the development of same-sex attraction? And if childhood molestation may contribute in some cases to the development of same-sex attraction, how can it constitute hatred to say so?

Oprah, an inveterate promoter of all things homosexual, recently did two powerful programs about men who were molested as children. One of her guests was a therapist who has treated hundreds of men who were molested as children. He stated that one result of the sexual molestation of boys is “sexual orientation confusion.”

Schlatter and Steinback also assert that it’s hateful, false, and mythical to say “no one is born homosexual,” and then virtually their entire analysis reveals that there is no research proving that people are “born homosexual.” Schlatter and Steinback write, “a great many studies suggest that it is the result of biological and environmental forces.”

Following their repeated assertions that there is no proof that homosexuality is congenital, Schlatter and Steinback suggest the false dichotomy that if people do not choose their same-sex attraction, they must be “born that way,” completely ignoring two essential truths. First, the fact that people do not choose their feelings does not mean that such feelings are biologically determined. Second, freely chosen behaviors that emerge from feelings shaped by biological influences are not automatically moral.

IFI has consistently said that although no one chooses their feelings, people do choose how to respond to them. Saying that people ought not to act upon same-sex attraction is no more hateful than saying that people ought not to act upon unchosen, powerful, persistent attractions to pornography, multiple people, or their siblings. All moral beings have to decide which of their unchosen, powerful feelings are morally legitimate to act upon.

Homosexual men and shortened life spans

Under the “myth” about the shortened life spans of homosexual men, Schlatter and Steinback made the following statement:

Bob Unruh, a conservative Christian journalist who left The Associated Press in 2006 for the right-wing, conspiracist news site WorldNetDaily, said shortly before the federal law was passed that it would legalize “all 547 forms of sexual deviancy or ‘paraphilias’ listed by the American Psychiatric Association.” This claim was repeated by many anti-gay organizations, including the Illinois Family Institute.

Either because of Schlatter’s and Steinback’s poor research or lack of ethics, they failed to include the fact that exactly one week after making the error regarding the DSM, writer Kathy Valente posted a correction which is still on our website. It reads as follows:

In the article entitled “Hate Crimes Bill Moves to Senate” (5/5/09), we mistakenly stated that the American Psychiatric Association’s actual definition of “sexual orientation” includes paraphilias. The APA’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) classifies “sexual orientation” as heterosexual, homosexual, and bi-sexual. The 547 mental disorders called paraphilias specifically involve non-human objects, physical pain, or unwilling partners as in pedophilia. IFI apologizes for the error.

I hope and assume that Schlatter and Steinback will demonstrate the integrity and professionalism that Ms. Valente did by publishing a correction and apology.

In their argument that talking about the shorter life spans of homosexual men constitutes an act of hatred, Schlatter and Steinback focused on research by Paul Cameron, while completely ignoring research by the well-respected International Journal of Epidemiology that found the following:

[W]e demonstrated that in a major Canadian centre, life expectancy at age 20 years for gay and bisexual men is 8 to 21 years less than for all men. If the same pattern of mortality continued, we estimated that nearly half of gay and bisexual men currently aged 20 years would not reach their 65th birthday. Under even the most liberal assumptions, gay and bisexual men in this urban centre were experiencing a life expectancy similar to that experienced by men in Canada in the year 1871.

The authors of this article, upset that conservative groups disseminated this troubling fact, issued an update that said, “if we were to repeat this analysis today the life expectancy of gay and bisexual men would be greatly improved. Deaths from HIV infection have declined dramatically in this population since 1996.”

Though mortality rates have dropped due to improved treatment protocols, HIV infection rates for “men who have sex with men” (MSM) are soaring. According to the CDC, “While CDC estimates that MSM account for just 4 percent of the U.S. male population aged 13 and older, the rate of new HIV diagnoses among MSM in the U.S. is more than 44 times that of other men.”

I wonder if Schlatter and Steinback are planning on publishing an addendum to their article in which they address HIV infection rates for homosexual men, or perhaps they’re going to include the CDC on their “hate groups” list.

Nazism

Schlatter claimed erroneously that I “compared homosexuality to Nazism,” which makes me wonder if she even bothered to read the articles in which I referred to Nazism. Here’s an excerpt from one:

Although genocide and homosexual acts are both sins, in man’s economy–and my own belief system–genocide is a far greater sin. And although I believe that all sin represents rebellion against God, I believe that homosexuality and genocide are by nature distinct….I never posited that homosexuals were the moral equivalents of Nazis. Rather, I compared the rationalizations church leaders offered for the silence of the church in the face of the evil of Nazism to the rationalizations church leaders offer for the silence of the church in the face of the evil of using public schools to promulgate destructive, erroneous views of homosexuality….The feckless or deceitful claim that I said homosexuals are equivalent to Nazis makes no more sense than claiming that someone who says the church should address both the sin of murder and the sin of gossip are saying that murderers and gossips are morally equivalent.

Sin in the closet

The SPLC believes it’s an act of hate to say that homosexuality should remain in the “in the closet.” Ms. Schlatter quoted an article in which I said, “There was something profoundly good for society about the prior stigmatization of homosexual practice…. [W]hen homosexuals were ‘in the closet,’ (along with fornicators, polyamorists, cross-dressers, and ‘transsexuals’), they weren’t acquiring and raising children.”

Many people believe that immoral behavior should be concealed from the public rather than paraded about or publicly celebrated. For example, many people–perhaps most–do not want polyamorists’ or cross-dressers’ behavior to be public where children can see it. Does the SPLC view those who don’t want their children to see manifestations of polyamory or cross-dressing as haters?

And many people believe that children have a fundamental right to be raised by the biological parents who procreated them. Many people, including Roman Catholics, Muslims, Orthodox Jews, and Protestants as well as people who follow no faith tradition, believe it is immoral for homosexuals to adopt or use in vitro fertilization and surrogacy to acquire children. Do they all deserve to be labeled “haters”?

My belief that it would be better for society if homosexuality were not publicly affirmed, normalized, or celebrated no more constitutes hatred of homosexuals than does other people’s belief that polyamory should not be publicly affirmed, celebrated, or normalized constitute hatred of polyamorists.

Ex-gays

The SPLC states that saying people can choose not to act on same-sex attraction or that they can leave a homosexual lifestyle constitutes hatred of homosexuals. Following that logic, what does it mean when someone says people can leave a polyamorous lifestyle or that they can choose not to act on their powerful attractions to multiple people? And what does it say to the hundreds of men and women who have abandoned their homosexual lives that the SPLC says discussing such a path is an act of hatred?

Conclusion

No longer is hate defined as, well, hatred. Anyone who finds the SPLC’s analogies faulty; their research selective; their concealing of inconvenient facts troubling; or their unproven, non-factual moral beliefs wrong, is now guilty of hatred.

The SPLC holds the unproven, non-factual belief that homosexuality is moral and arrogantly demands that all of society agree, or be silent, or be labeled a “hate group.” That strikes me as a strange manifestation of tolerance or respect for speech rights and diversity. Ironically, the SPLC has become the oppressor.

The SPLC hopes that their smear campaign will silence conservatives so that only the SPLC’s moral views will be heard in the public square. No one should allow the unprincipled bullying tactics and specious reasoning of the SPLC to intimidate them into silence. The SPLC’s ontological and moral beliefs about homosexuality are not facts, and dissent from the ethically impoverished SPLC’s beliefs does not constitute hatred.

Please take time to read this comprehensive indictment of the SPLC from the Social Contract Journal, which dedicated its spring 2010 issue to exposing the SPLC.

And if that’s not enough, click HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE.

The Gay Liberation Network's Bob Schwartz celebrated U. of Illinois' firing of Catholic professor Kenneth Howell (above) -- strange behavior for a group that crusades against "discrimination."

The homosexual hate group Gay Liberation Network (GLN) — whose co-leader Bob Schwartz celebrated the University of Illinois’ recent firing of Catholic professor Kenneth Howell — has announced that it will protest the AFTAH Truth Academy, which will be held Aug. 5-7 at the Christian Liberty Academy in Arlington Heights, Illinois.

GLN is a Marxist-oriented street protest group that attempts to equate Judeo-Christian opposition to homosexuality with “hate” — and which uses its protests to intimidate businesses from hosting pro-family events. For its extreme anti–Christian bigotry and hateful rhetoric — including vicious ad hominem attacks against pro-family critics (e.g., calling AFTAH President Peter LaBarbera “Satan’s Lover”)  – we label GLN a homosexual hate organization.

GLN, formerly the Chicago Anti-Bashing Network, once smeared the historic Moody Church in Chicago as a “House of Hate” because Moody’s revered pastor, Erwin Lutzer, wrote a book critical of “same-sex marriage.” GLN has repeatedly pilloried Chicago’s Catholic leaker Cardinal Francis George with similar accusations because George defends Catholic teachings on sex and marriage.

Beyond that, Schwartz once told LaBarbera — who was protesting a “gay youth” rally in downtown Chicago as then-executive director of Illinois Family Institute – that if it weren’t for the police standing nearby, he would push him into the busy street. (Schwartz has never denied making this comment after it was reported by IFI.) LaBarbera maintains that had such a veiled violent threat been made against a homosexual by a conservative or Christian, it could have been the basis for a criminal charge under Chicago’s ”hate crime” law.

Thus it is a great irony that the nasty GLN played a proud role in lobbying the leftist Southern Poverty Law Center to label AFTAH a “hate site.”

Here is an excerpt of GLN’s ludicrous attempt to distort the Truth Academny’s true purpose:

Youth should not be taught to hate their peers and thus fuel the cycle of self-loathing, depression and suicide which too many LGBTQ youth experience. Bigotry must be vocally and publicly opposed, especially when haters try to recruit young people.

Gay Liberation Network activists specialize in name-calling. Ironically, the Marxist-oriented, Christian-bashing hate group played a role in lobbying the Southern Poverty Law Center to label AFTAH a "hate" website.

Defending historic Judeo-Christian moral truths and the natural family is not “hate.” Teaching young people to revere biblical teachings and God’s natural design for the family — and how to answer GLBT misinformation in the public sphere – is not “bigotry.” However, GLN’s vicious name-calling and ugly condemnations of traditionalists as “haters” — and its regular lies about religious leaders who oppose homosexual practice – is a form of secular, anti-Christian bigotry. This neo-intolerance must be resisted at every turn by the avid participation of pro-family Americans at events like the Truth Academy.

Southern Poverty Law Center director Mark Potok sent AFTAH a snide message to point out a small factual error, yet for years the SPLC has confused AFTAH's Peter LaBarbera with Family Research Institute founder Paul Cameron on its website.

EDTIORS NOTE: After the publication of our article, the SPLC fixed the major error described below of (twice) confusing AFTAH President Peter LaBarbera for Family Research Institute founder Paul Cameron. However, the leftist group’s website retains one error, claiming that LaBarbera called for closing down all homosexual “establishments.” In actuality, LaBarbera called for closing down all “gay” sex clubs and bathhouses (where men go to have anonymous sexual encounters with other men) in the interest of protecting the public’s health.

By AFTAH Staff

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a left-wing organization under fire for expanding its “hate” designations beyond racist fringe groups to pro-family organizations like Americans For Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH) and the conservative Tea Party movement — has mistaken AFTAH President Peter LaBarbera for Family Research Institute researcher Paul Cameron in two longstanding “Intelligence Report” posts on its website.

The sophomoric error first appeared in a Spring 2005 SPLC “Intelligence Report,” “A Mighty Army,” about pro-family organizations opposed to homosexuality (see the section on Page 3 of Concerned Women for America). It was repeated in a Summer 2006 SPLC “Intelligence Report” article, “Passive Aggressive,” by Heidi Beirich. Both fallacious reports have been posted on the Southern Poverty Law Center website for years and have been repeated by sympathetic liberal activists on the web. The SPLC, which raises and spends millions of dollars annually for its “anti-hate” political and research activities, works with government and law enforcement authorities to provide research on alleged “hate” groups.

The above excerpt from the 2005 Southern Poverty Law Center report "A Mighty Army" mistakes Peter LaBarbera, founder of Americans For Truth, with Paul Cameron, founder of Family Research Institute. The typo in the first sentence (should be "In") appears in the original report.

Ironically, after the Southern Poverty Law Center outrageously designated Americans For Truth as a “hate” website — urged on by the pro-communist “Gay Liberation Network” — SPLC director Mark Potok sent Americans For Truth the following snide e-mail message to correct an inadvertent error in a column by (AFTAH Board Member) Matt Barber:

I know you all value accuracy above all things — I can tell that from the fine and incisive quality of your writing and research. Therefore, I\’m sure you\’ll want to let Matt know that we\’re based in Montgomery, Ala., not Atlanta, Ga. I know these places all seem the same to you — kind of like the unspeakable horrors of homosexuality — but hey, they\’re not. Of course, Matt does appear incapable of doing any actual reporting — his little attack piece is a compendium of ancient quotes he dredges from a 10-year-old Harper\’s magazine article.

Said AFTAH’s LaBarbera: “Perhaps Mr. Potok should redirect his derision toward his own staffers and writers, who appear to ‘value’ smearing Christian conservatives above accuracy. The SPLC’s credibility as a research organization is rapidly diminishing. Obviously, it is so consumed with its own animus toward religious conservatives that it cannot be trusted as an objective arbiter of ‘hate.’”

The above excerpt is reprinted from a 2006 SPLC "Intelligence Report" "Passive Aggressive," which repeats the confusion of LaBarbera with Cameron found in the 2005 SPLC report.

It should be noted that the confusion of two conservative, pro-family advocates is only the most blatant error found in the SPLC documents. We will let Paul Cameron and his Family Research Institute provide a full correction of the SPLC’s misinformation about him (see this FRI post on the APA expulsion claim). As to the descriptions about LaBarbera in the two reprinted SPLC excerpts above, here are the mischaracterizations:

• The Lambda Report on Homosexual Activism, the precursor and flagship print publication of Americans For Truth, was not “inflammatory” but reported using firsthand information gathered from homosexual activist groups and “gay” events. Besides, the SPLC, with its reckless and preposterous linkage of demented, racist fringe groups like the KKK to mainstream pro-family conservative groups such as AFTAH and pro-Constitution Tea Partiers — all under the rubric of alleged “hate” — is in no place to lecture anyone about being “inflammatory”;
• LaBarbera was never a member of the American Psychological Association and is not a scientist, hence he was never expelled; here the SPLC mistakes him with Cameron [Editor's Note: for years the Left has distorted the facts surrounding Cameron's association with the APA; see this PhD dissertation apology to Cameron];
• LaBarbera’s work has not been “denounced by the American Psychological Association”; again, here the SPLC writer, relying on the 2005 erroneous SPLC report, mistakes LaBarbera for Cameron.
• At the 2006 Vision America conference in question, “The War on Christians,” LaBarbera did not call homosexuality “disgusting” but referred to specific homosexual acts and their unhealthy consequences as such. He continues to believe that shame, not pride, should be associated with all homosexual conduct because it is immoral.
• At the same Vision America conference, LaBarbera did not call for the closing of all homosexual “establishments,” but for shutting down homosexual sex clubs and bathhouses as public health hazards. These sex businesses — which helped AIDS explode nationally in the eighties — facilitate anonymous homosexual sexual encounters and hyper-promiscuity, which spreads disease and harms both men who have sex with men and and the women who are in relationships with these men. (The latter often are unaware of their partners’ secret promiscuity.)

AFTAH repeats its challenge to Mark Potok, Southern Poverty Law Center’s director, to a public “Debate on Hate” regarding the SPLC’s politically-motivated “hate” designations.

________________________________

Two SPLC reports with errors (unfixed as of May 6, 2010):

• “‘A Mighty Army’: A dozen major groups help drive the religious right’s anti-gay crusade” (2005; see section on CWA, p. 3);
• “Passive Aggressive” (2006)

________________________________

Related AFTAH articles:

• SPLC Plays Politics with Hate, Smears Americans For Truth as ‘Hate Site’
• AFTAH’s LaBarbera Challenges SPLC’s Potok to a ‘Debate on Hate,’ Asks to Reverse ‘Hate’ Designation
• Barber: Southern Poverty Law Center Officially Declared ‘Left-Wing Hate Group’
• LISTEN – CWA: SPLC Takes ‘Hate Group’ Definition Too Far

“When you say that your organization is no more hateful than the Catholic church, we have a rare point of agreement. You are both haters.” — Bob Schwartz, Gay Liberation Network

The Catholic Church should also be on the "hate" list, says Bob Schwartz of the Gay Liberation Network.

Bob Schwartz, a leader of the Gay Liberation Network, a Marxist “direct action” group that reportedly lobbied the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) to mislabel Americans For Truth as a “hate” website, sent the e-mail below to AFTAH through our website. Schwartz describes himself as a Trotskyist (after Bolshevik Leon Trotsky, who advocated worldwide communist revolution before being assassinated by a Soviet agent in Mexico in 1940). Communists have such a long and storied history defending human rights and individual rights and dignity, you know.

Note that you don’t have to agree with the Catholic Church’s handing of its homosexual/pedophile crisis (most Catholics I know do not) to see the absurdity of labeling the church a “hater” because it defends traditional sexual morality and natural marriage between a man and a woman. The folly of the SPLC’s expanding “hate” dragnet is that it threatens to engulf all religious/moral opposition to homosexuality. Indeed, it would be revealing to query the top 25 “GLBT” activist across the nation and ask them if they would also label, as Matt Barber pokes fun HERE, the following as “hate groups”: Family Research Council, AFA, the Roman Catholic Church, Focus on the Family, the Southern Baptist Convention and ADF. (I posed the question to one young “gay” activist, Alex Blaze, HERE, and received no response.)

[Homosexual activists] Wayne Besen/Evan Hurst/Joe Jervis/Jeremy Hooper/Rea Carey/[insert GLBT activist here]: take up the challenge!

Yes, we’re all “haters” now (except the likes of Schwartz, despite his bully tactics and GLN’s ugly, anti-Christian bigotry). And just like ObamaCare is padding the rolls of the IRS to keep Americans in “compliance” with government “health” mandates, perhaps the SPLC needs an infusion of Obama stimulus funds to expand its already large staff and huge budget to accommodate its “reporting” on the ever-expanding “hate” network.

Note Schwartz’s reference to an article in the Naperville (Ill.) Sun, reprinted below.  The headline for the print edition of this story was changed from “Local anti-gay group rejects ‘hate site’ tag” to “Web site called hateful by civil rights group.” The task ahead, to demonstrate that the SPLC is more of a pro-homosexual, left-wing advocacy group than an honest “civil rights” organization, is a necessary but difficult one. — Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org

GLN’s Schwartz writes:

______________________________________________
From: [Bob Schwartz, Gay Liberation Network]
Sent: Saturday, March 27, 2010 1:26 PM
To: americansfortruth@comcast.net
Subject: Fwd: [GLN Organizers] LaBarbera Says Group “No More Hateful Than the Catholic Church”

When you say that your organization is no more hateful than the Catholic church, we have a rare point of agreement.  You are both haters.  Hopefully, Ratzinger’s cover-ups of criminal pedophiles will result in more people leaving the gay- and woman-hating Church of Rome.

Bob Schwartz

_______________________

Naperville Sun article:

Local anti-gay group rejects ‘hate site’ tag

March 27, 2010

By JENETTE STURGES  jsturges@stmedianetwork.com

Naperville-based Americans for Truth About Homosexuality describes itself as “dedicated to exposing the homosexual activist agenda.”

Others just describe the group as “hateful.”

The anti-gay group was called out by civil rights group Southern Poverty Law Center for operating a “hate site,” one of 670 identified by the SPLC in its latest issue of their publication, Intelligence Report.

President of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality Peter LaBarbera says he has “taken issue” with that, and is asking for a public apology from the organization and a debate with its president, Mark Potok. His organization, he says, while against homosexuality, is not a hate group. “You can disagree without being hateful,” LaBarbera said.

The Southern Poverty Law Center did not add Americans for Truth About Homosexuality to its yearly listing of hate groups, which this year includes 932 groups including the anti-gay Family Research Institute, chapters of the Ku Klux Klan and the Nation of Islam. Also included on this year’s list of hate groups is Downers Grove-based anti-gay Heterosexuals Organized for a Moral Environment.

But the content of AFTAH’s Web site did warrant the listing, according to Booth Gunther, public affairs coordinator at SPLC.

The AFTAH Web site, www.americansfortruth.com, is largely a collection of articles from across the Web focused on homosexuality that “defend historic Judeo-Christian moral norms,” according to the site.

The Chicago-based Gay Liberation Network, which contacted SPLC to have Americans for Truth About Sexuality added to the list, however, contends that the site, the group and its president spread inciting misinformation about homosexuality.

“Mr. LaBarbera has not only opposed marriage rights, he’s opposed equal employment and equal access. If that criterion were ever applied to other groups, the would be called a hate group,” said Andy Thayer, co-founder of the Gay Liberation Network.

Those who label the site as a “hate site” point to the repeated inclusion of research by Paul Cameron, psychologist at the Family Research Institute whose writings have claimed gays and lesbians are more likely to be child molesters and criminals, as well as the site’s association of homosexuality to everything from crystal meth to the North American Man/Boy Love Association.

Still, LaBarbera contends that his organization and its Web site are no more hateful than the Catholic Church.

As for a public apology or debate, the SPLC says there’s none coming.

“He can debate all he wants,” said Gunther. “We stand by our designation.”

http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/napervillesun/news/2125076,Local-anti-gay-group-hate-tag_NA032610.article

SPLC co-founder Morris Dees once fought the Klan. Now his group targets pro-family Christians opposed to homosexual activism. The SPLC, lobbied by a pro-Communist homosexual organization, labeled AFTAH a "hate site."

Click HERE to listen to an interview by Concerned Women for America’s Martha Kleder with Matt Barber, a Board Member of AFTAH and Liberty Council’s Director of Cultural Affairs. CWA writes (links added):

Reports surfaced this week about Democrat lawmakers receiving threatening phone calls following the vote on health care reform. Interestingly, those news reports mentioned the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which is noted for “tracking and exposing the activities of hate groups.” Also this week the SPLC named Americans for Truth about Homosexuality a hate group. With more on this overstep by SPLC and the wanton use of the term “hate” is Matt Barber, Director of Cultural Affairs for both the Liberty Counsel and Liberty Alliance Action.  Listen | Download

Pictured above is the 'hateful' and 'violence-prone' Matt Barber, Board Member of Americans For Truth, in his days as a professional boxer.

By J. Matt Barber

Though always left of center, the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) once had a reputation as a fairly objective civil rights group. Founded by direct-marketing millionaire Morris Dees and partner Joseph Levin Jr. in 1971, the SPLC made important and honorable contributions to many of the historic civil rights gains of the 20th Century. According to its own materials, the SPLC was “internationally known for tracking and exposing the activities of hate groups.”

Alas, “power corrupts,” as it goes, and the SPLC, having amassed tremendous power and wealth over the years, has regrettably become corrupt to its core. By way of an ever-escalating wave of “us-versus-them” money-grubbing schemes, Today’s SPLC has morphed into a far-left political activist outfit, famous for promoting a panoply of extreme liberal causes.

Ken Silverstein, writing for Harper’s Magazine, addressed this untoward metamorphosis in 2000:

“Today’s SPLC spends most of its time – and money – on a relentless fund-raising campaign, peddling memberships in the church of tolerance with all the zeal of a circuit rider passing the collection plate. ‘He’s the Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker of the civil rights movement,’ renowned anti-death-penalty lawyer Millard Farmer says of Dees, his former associate, ‘though I don’t mean to malign Jim and Tammy Faye.’

“The American Institute of Philanthropy gives the Center one of the worst ratings of any group it monitors,” continued Silverstein. “Morris Dees doesn’t need your financial support. The SPLC is already the wealthiest civil rights group in America, though [its fundraising literature] quite naturally omits that fact. … ‘Morris and I…shared the overriding purpose of making a pile of money,’ recalls Dees’ business partner, a lawyer named Millard Fuller (not to be confused with Millard Farmer). ‘We were not particular about how we did it; we just wanted to be independently rich.’” (You say Fuller. I say Farmer. The two Millards say “call the whole thing off.”)

So, what happens when a dragon slayer – paid per dragon head – runs out of real dragons to slay? Well, he invents new ones, of course. Gotta keep those sprinklers-a-sprinklin.’ (According to Harper’s, “Dees bought a 200-acre estate appointed with tennis courts, a pool, and stables.” SPLC’s 2008 Form-990 shows net assets of over 219 million at the beginning of that year. Yup, there’s a spate to be made in the hate trade.)

Silverstein explains:

“The Ku Klux Klan, the SPLC’s most lucrative nemesis, has shrunk from 4 million members in the 1920s to an estimated 2,000 today [year 2000], as many as 10 percent of whom are thought to be FBI informants. But news of a declining Klan does not make for inclining donations to Morris Dees and Co., which is why the SPLC honors nearly every nationally covered ‘hate crime’ with direct-mail alarums full of nightmarish invocations of ‘armed Klan paramilitary forces’ and ‘violent neo-Nazi extremists…’

Self-described Trotskyite and longtime AFTAH-basher Bob Schwartz of Gay Liberation Network lobbied the SPLC to name Americans For Truth a "hate" group.

But as the real dragons dry-up, new dragons emerge: “Tea Party” conservatives; Evangelical Christians; anti-abortion zealots and anti-gay bigots (read: pro-life and pro-family traditionalists); and, of course, gun-toting, knuckle-dragging 2nd Amendment rednecks. All bundled together – courtesy of the SPLC and Janet “the system worked” Napolitano – in that neat little pejorative package know as – Dun-Dun-Dun! – THE RIGHT-WING EXTREMIST! (You know, basically Middle America.)

So, sadly – shamefully, really – today’s SPLC has become nothing more than a “non-profit” extension of the black helicopter, Huffpo-wing of the Democratic Party – a gaggle of partisan hacks bent on lining their pockets, defaming good people (along with the bad) and filling DNC coffers. (SPLC Director Mark Potok even doubles as a Huffington Post columnist. Seriously. They make it that easy.)

The real problem lies in the fact, however, that the SPLC holds itself out as an objective monitor of potentially violent or subversive hate groups. It presents to municipal, state and federal law enforcement, regular “intelligence files” and an annual “Year in Hate” report. Ostensibly, these reports contain facts – even actionable intelligence – aimed at helping law enforcement officials prevent and/or monitor potentially violent criminal activity.

Then? Perhaps. Now? Not so much.

In recent years the SPLC reports have been utterly tainted – weaponized and used against the leftist group’s ideological and political adversaries. This is a despicable, bad faith abuse of others’ good will, and of the SPLC’s past reputation.

Case in point: Recently, the SPLC came under fire for comparing the “Tea Party” movement and other grassroots conservatives to “terrorists.” Potok slandered “Tea Party” goers, suggesting that “they are shot through with rich veins of radical ideas, conspiracy theories and racism,” and are widely linked to “hate” and “vigilante groups.” Of course there are always a few nuts in any movement, but clearly Potok’s intent was to defame tens of millions of patriotic “Tea Partiers,” simply because he disagrees with them.

It was earlier reported that Janet Napolitano and the Department of Homeland Security relied upon similar reports by the SPLC in preparing the DHS’ own slanderous – now infamous – “Right Wing Extremist” report. You may recall: it painted pretty much all conservatives with that broad, multi-colored brush of “domestic terrorism.” (The report was later pulled, and Napolitano forced to apologize in shame.)

Even more recently, the SPLC launched another in a series of politically motivated attacks against a well-respected Christian organization. The group arbitrarily tagged as an official “hate group” Americans for Truth about Homosexuality (AFTAH).

AFTAH promotes biblical morality, opposes the radical homosexual activist lobby and publicly decries both violence and hatred against homosexuals or anyone else. Although it has been in operation for a number of years, the SPLC only recently labeled AFTAH a “hate group” after being pressured by the Chicago-based “Gay Liberation Network” to do so.

GLN is a fringe group of self-described Marxists and sexual anarchists best known for disrupting peaceful Christian gatherings with raucous, bullhorn-laden protests. In a twist most ironic, GLN leader Bob Schwartz once threatened AFTAH founder Peter LaBarbera in front of witnesses, telling him that if the police weren’t present at a rally, he would have pushed LaBarbera into oncoming traffic. (“Hate crime, anyone?” Love that “tolerance” and “diversity.” Where’s the SPLC when you need them?)

You can only cry wolf so many times before people begin to ignore you. Today, the SPLC’s “hate group” reports have begun to resonate almost exclusively within a far-left echo chamber. Newsflash: Moveon.org wants Bush tried as a “war criminal,” Charlie Sheen thinks the U.S. government was behind 9/11 and, yes, the SPLC has once again awarded its now meaningless “hate group” distinction to yet another conservative organization with which it is admittedly – in every way – both politically and ideologically opposed. Who would’ve thunk it?

Don’t get me wrong. Again, in the past, the SPLC has actually done some good by identifying and monitoring real hate groups such as the KKK, neo-Nazis and Skin Heads.

But now, regrettably, the SPLC has traded in its limited usefulness for radical left-wing activism. It has become much like that which it previously sought to expose. Today it uses the very tactics employed by white nationalists and other bona fide hate groups to malign large groups of people whom the SPLC most decidedly “hates.”

It’s nauseatingly transparent. With empty, ad hominem attacks and pejorative “hate group” smears, the SPLC strives to politically marginalize its ideological opponents. It’s a cynical “guilt-by-false-association” scheme, through which the SPLC hopes – in the public mind’s eye – to equate Christians, “Tea Party” conservatives and other traditionalists to the KKK and neo-Nazis.

Still, in going after Americans for Truth, the GLN surprisingly betrayed its SPLC ally by publicly acknowledging SPLC’s nefarious tactics. GLN boasted that this was the strategy all along. The Gay Liberation Network’s stated goal in goading the SPLC to label AFTAH a “hate group” was to “help assist” in AFTAH’s “political marginalization.”

Of course, by kowtowing to an already deeply marginalized GLN; by so obviously abusing its once-respectable reputation; and by spending its last remaining political capital on such folly, the SPLC has only succeeded in further marginalizing itself.

But, as they say: What’s good for the goose… Let’s try it on for size. It’s a “hate group,” mudslinging good time! In exercise of the SPLC’s trademark “I-know-you-are-but-what-am-I” criterion for arbitrarily determining “hate group” status, I hereby declare the Southern Poverty Law Center an “anti-Christian, anti-conservative hate group.” There, it’s official. Try it. It’s fun!

But seriously, if AFTAH is a “hate group,” then so is Liberty Counsel, Focus on the Family, Family Research Council, American Family Association, the Southern Baptist Convention and the Roman Catholic Church. Any group that observes and defends traditional sexual morality would have to be labeled such.

Heck, for that matter, so would the U.S. Armed Forces, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the FDA. These groups publicly expose the undeniable medical and societal pitfalls associated with the homosexual lifestyle and, therefore, must be “hate groups,” right?

Of course, like any bully, the SPLC only goes after those it believes it can push around. But really, it confers a badge of honor upon every legitimate Christian and conservative organization it so disingenuously mislabels “hate group.” It’s a tacit admission by the SPLC that these groups represent a political threat; that their activities undermine the SPLC’s not-so-thinly-veiled, left-wing agenda. (Kind of like winning a conservative Grammy.)

Indeed, I can’t speak for the many conservative and Christian organizations and ministries with which I’m associated. And of course I hate absolutely no one. Nonetheless, I’d like to officially request that the SPLC add my name to its spurious “anti-gay hate list.” It’s good for one’s conservative and biblical bona fides.”

____________________________________

(Hater Matt Barber hatefully sits on the hate-filled board of the official SPLC “hate group” Americans for Truth.)

Matt Barber is an attorney concentrating in constitutional law. He serves as Director of Cultural Affairs with both Liberty Counsel and Liberty Alliance Action. Send comments to Matt at jmattbarber@comcast.net. (This information is provided for identification purposes only.)

Homosexual activist Wayne Besen screams with a bullhorn into the window of Boston's Park Street Church, which was hosting an "ex-gay" seminar last April. Will the SPLC investigate virulent anti-Christian activists like Besen in its ostensible campaign against "hate"? How would the SPLC react if right-wing conservatives were to terrorize a homosexual church in the same way?

Well, now I think I’ve seen it all. A Chicago-based Marxist “direct action” group, the Gay Liberation Network (GLN) — which smears Chicago’s historic Moody Church as a “House of Hate,” attacks Catholic Cardinal Francis George as a “homophobe,” and compares the Boy Scouts to racist fringe groups  — has successfully lobbied the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) to label AFTAH’s website a “hate site.” The GLN and its co-leader, Bob Schwartz, know a thing or two about hate: in 2005, Schwartz told me, as I was standing in opposition to a “gay youth” event in downtown Chicago, that he would have pushed me into the busy city street were it not for the presence nearby of my “friends,” the police. (Read my 2005 account as Executive Director for Illinois Family Institute HERE; imagine if I had made such a veiled, physical threat against Schwartz: I probably would have been arrested on “Hate Crime” charges right then and there.)

There are few things as sinister, and as cynical, as the Left’s manipulation of “hate” as a political weapon to malign Christians and patriotic, conservative Americans. Thankfully, it seems the only people taking the SPLC seriously anymore are the liberal media and hardened, ‘Move On’-types on the Left. The SPLC is a spent force when it comes to moral authority — and even some honest liberals are seeing through its disingenuous campaign to redefine morality as “hate” and “bigotry.” (Don’t look to the SPLC to investigate homosexual haters like Wayne Besen’s notoriously nasty “Truth Wins Out” anytime soon; Besen is shown at right screaming with a bullhorn into the window of Park Street Church in Boston; click here to read the MassResistance story on the shocking 2009 demonstration.)

GLN's Bob Schwartz knows about "hate" ....

The Left is so steeped in its own ideology and self-righteousness that it is oblivious to how out of step it is with everyday Americans. Sure, there are haters on the right like Fred (“God Hates Fags”) Phelps (who despicably pickets U.S. soldiers’ funerals, and whom AFTAH has repeatedly condemned). But there are far more haters on the Left, and they are much better organized and dangerous to American liberty than those on the opposite end of the political spectrum.

On behalf of Americans For Truth, I am gratified at the outpouring of support we have received from pro-family advocates across the country in response to the SPLC’s shenanigans. We’ll say it again: to defend historic Judeo-Christian moral norms is not “bigotry,” and to disagree with homosexual activists is not “hate.” You can contact the Southern Poverty Law Center HERE. God bless you. – Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org; e-mail us: americansfortruth@comcast.net>

Matt Barber’s statement on the SPLC follows the jump:

____________________________________

Statement by Matt Barber, Board Member, Americans For Truth, and Director of Cultural Affairs, Liberty Council:

Contact:  jmattbarber@comcast.net

Date: March 23, 2010

SPLC Fritters Away Last Traces of Credibility

LYNCHBURG, Va. – The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) – a far-left organization famous for promoting a panoply of extreme liberal causes – has launched yet another politically motivated attack against a well-respected conservative organization. The SPLC has arbitrarily tagged as a “hate group” Americans for Truth about Homosexuality (AFTAH). Most recently, the SPLC came under fire for comparing the “Tea Party” movement and other grassroots conservatives to “terrorists.”

AFTAH is a Christian organization that promotes biblical morality and publicly decries both violence and hatred  against homosexuals. Although it has been in operation for a number of years, the SPLC only recently labeled AFTAH a “hate group,” after being pressured by the Chicago-based “Gay Liberation Network.” (GLN is a fringe group of self-described Marxists and sexual anarchists best known for disrupting peaceful Christian gatherings with raucous, bullhorn laden protests.)

Matt Barber, Director of Cultural Affairs with Liberty Counsel, commented: “You can only cry wolf so many times before people begin to ignore you. Newsflash: Moveon.org wants Bush tried as a ‘war criminal,’ Charlie Sheen thinks the U.S. government is behind 9/11 and, yes, the SPLC has once again awarded its now meaningless ‘hate group’ distinction to another conservative organization with which it  is admittedly – in every way – both politically and ideologically opposed. Who would’ve thunk it?

“In the past, the SPLC has actually done some good,” continued Barber. “By identifying and monitoring  real   hate groups such as the KKK, neo-Nazis, and Skinheads, the SPLC once provided information to local law enforcement which was sometimes useful in preventing and investigating subversive and violent activity.

“Unfortunately, in recent years the SPLC has traded in its limited usefulness for radical left-wing activism. It has become exactly   MUCH LIKE [??]  that which it previously sought to expose. It now uses the very tactics employed by white nationalists and other bona fide hate groups to malign large groups of people  whom the SPLC most decidedly ‘hates.’

“It’s nauseatingly transparent ,” said Barber. With empty, ad hominem attacks and pejorative ‘hate group’  smears, the SPLC strives to politically marginalize its ideological opponents. It’s a cynical ‘guilt-by-false-association ‘ scheme, through which the SPLC hopes – in the public mind’s eye – to equate Christians, ‘tea party’ conservatives and other traditionalists to the KKK and neo-Nazis.

“Amazingly, in going after Americans For Truth, the GLN  betrayed its SPLC ally by publicly acknowledging its nefarious strategy. It publicly boasted that this was the strategy all along.  The Gay Liberation Network’s stated goal in  goading  the SPLC  to  label AFTAH a ‘hate group’ was to ‘help assist’ in AFTAH’s ‘political marginalization.’ Of course, by kowtowing to an already deeply marginalized GLN; by so obviously abusing its once-respectable reputation; and by spending its last remaining political capital  on such folly, the SPLC has only succeeded in further marginalizing itself.

“It’s a ‘hate group,’ mudslinging good time!” joked Barber.  ” Let’s try it on for size. In exercise of the SPLC’s trademark ‘I-know-you-are-but-what-am-I’ criteria for determining ‘hate group’ status, I hereby declare the Southern Pov Law Center an officeal  ‘anti-Christian, anti-conservative hate group.’ Try it, it’s fun.

“But seriously,” continued Barber, “If AFTAH is a ‘hate group,’ then so is  Liberty Counsel, Focus on the Family, Family Research Council,  American Family Association, the Southern Baptist Convention and the Roman Catholic Church. Any group that observes and defends traditional sexual morality would have to be  labeled such . Heck, for that matter, so would the U.S. Armed Forces, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the FDA. These groups publically expose the undeniable medical and societal pitfalls associated with the homosexual lifestyle and, therefore, must be ‘hate groups ,’  right?

“Of course, like any bully, the SPLC  only goes after those it believes it can push around. But really, it confers  an honor upon every legitimate Christian and conservative group  that it so disingenuously labels as a ‘hate group.’  This is a tacit admission by the SPLC that these groups represent a threat; that their activities undermine the SPLC’s not-so-thinly-veiled, left-wing agenda.

“I can’t speak for the organizations with which I’m a affiliated and, of course, I hate absolutely no one,” concluded Barber. “Nonetheless, I’d like to officially request that the SPLC add my name to its apurious ‘anti-gay hate list. ‘ It’s good for one’s biblical bona fides.”

(Matt Barber currently, and proudly, sits on the board of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality.)