WSJ: The Insidious Influence of the SPLC

Can really consider the SPLC a nonpartisan source when it comes to identifying hate groups? People have hesitated to call SPLC on the carpet for fear of being labeled a hate group themselves. But the Wall Street Journal went for it anyway. 

The Washington-based Family Research Council “advances faith, family and freedom in government and culture from a Christian worldview,” according to its profile on the website of GuideStar, the nation’s premier philanthropic rating agency. GuideStar gives the FRC a “silver” rating for demonstrating a “commitment to transparency.” But the top of the profile page also declares: “This organization was flagged as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.”

Aided by a veneer of objectivity, the SPLC has for years served as the media’s expert witness for evaluating “extremism” and “hatred.” But while the SPLC rightly condemns groups like the Ku Klux Klan, Westboro Baptist Church and New Black Panther Party, it has managed to blur the lines, besmirching mainstream groups like the FRC, as well as people such as social scientist Charles Murray and Somali-born Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a critic of Islamic extremism.

But here’s a classic example: calling a libertarian a member of a hate group. They just labeled the entire founding fathers of the US as a collective hate group! 

A clear illustration of the SPLC’s pervasive and insidious influence is the March riot at Middlebury College, where Mr. Murray had been invited to speak. “The SPLC is the primary source for the protesters at my events,” Mr. Murray told me. “It is quotes from the SPLC, assertions by the SPLC that drive the whole thing.”

Mr. Murray’s politics are libertarian, but the SPLC labels him a “white nationalist.” In reporting on the Middlebury fracas, numerous news organizations repeated the SPLC’s characterization without noting it was false. The AP even put it in a headline: “College Students Protest Speaker Branded White Nationalist.”

Right-Mind