Marc Thiessen: The Southern Poverty Law Center has lost all credibility
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
After years of smearing good people with false charges of bigotry, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has finally been held to account. A former Islamic radical named Maajid Nawaz sued the center for including him in its bogus "Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists," and this week the SPLC agreed to pay him a $3.375 million settlement and issued a public apology.
The SPLC is a once-storied organization that did important work filing civil rights lawsuits against the Ku Klux Klan in the 1970s. But it has become a caricature of itself, labeling virtually anyone who does not fall in line with its left-wing ideology an "extremist" or "hate group."
Nawaz is a case in point. Since abandoning Islamic radicalism, he has advised three British prime ministers and created the Quilliam Foundation, to fight extremism. He is not anti-Muslim. He is a Muslim and has argued that "Islam is a religion of peace."
So how did he end up in the SPLC's pseudo-guide to anti-Muslim bigots? His crime, apparently, is that he has become a leading critic of the radical Islamist ideology he once embraced. Thanks to his courage, the SPLC has been forced to pay a multimillion-dollar penalty and acknowledge in a statement that it was "wrong" and that Nawaz has "made valuable and important contributions to public discourse, including by promoting pluralism and condemning both anti-Muslim bigotry and Islamist extremism."
Let's hope this settlement is the first of many, because this is not the first time the SPLC has done this. In 2010, it placed the Family Research Council (FRC) -- a conservative Christian advocacy group that opposes abortion and same-sex marriage -- on its "hate map." Two years later, a gunman walked into the FRC headquarters with the intention to "kill as many as possible and smear the Chick-fil-A sandwiches in victims' faces." He told the FBI that he had used the SPLC website to pick his target.
In the aftermath, the FBI removed the SPLC from its list of legitimate resources on hate crimes.
Videos in article.
Discuss the topic of the seed in a respectful manner and do not attack the messengers. All off-topic and disrespectful comments will be flagged.
Tags
Who is online
120 visitors
Another wrongful target of the SPLC is Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who is a victim of Islamic radicalism:
Wow. That is hard to believe until you realize it's coming from the SPLC. There are few gentler people on the public scene than Ayaan Hirsi Ali. The SPLC has taken whatever remained of its moral compass and stomped all over it until it was just shattered pieces on the ground. How sad!
I fully agree. I cannot imagine the physical and emotional pain she endured as a child while being genitally mutilated by radical Islamists -- but SPLC accuses her of hatred and intolerance. In the link I posted in comment 2, radical Sharia Law leftie Linda Sarsour goes so far as to say that she wants to take Ayaan's vagina away.
A couple of months ago, I read several NewsTalkers members openly state that SPLC is a moral, upstanding organization. Imagine that.
Don't forget the forced marriage, and the murder of her partner by an Islamist terrorist - but still blame her for being critical of Islam.
This is good news
And they continue to support that despicable hate-mongering organization, as in the article I seeded a week ago:
It has now proven yet again, as it did in the case of Floyd Lee Corkins, how dangerous and damaging it is.
I'm sure that if the SPLC knew my real name they would put me on their hate map as well, and there are a number of NT members who would nominate me for that, but I don't give a shit. I don't hate Muslims as most are decent peaceful law-abiding citizens. I despise radical fundamentalists no matter WHAT their religion is, including those of the same religion as me. The problem is that there are so many radical fundamentalist Muslims who are terrorists, or who support them, or who incite killing the Jews if not all disbelievers, and the leftists and the mainstream media refuse to criticize them, but will demonize those who do.
Thanks for the link to your seed. I hadn't seen yours until reading your comment 4 this morning (up-voted several comments). If I had previously seen it, I wouldn't have seeded this one. Your one dissenter has a history of calling everything perceived as Center or slightly Right-or-Left-of-Center a "lie" even when unfamiliar with the topic.
It's a shame that some important topics (like SPLC hate-mongering) attract little interest on NT. It seems that fake/hate articles about Trump garner more comments.
A while ago there were a few articles critical of the SPLC that got a lot of comments. I had posted one when Nawaz originally sued. This major settlement vindicated my original article. The lefties all defend that organization.
I remember reading one a while ago but I don't remember who seeded it. That's where I remember several lefties saying that the SPLC is a truthful, noble organization.
As is proven in comment 5 .
Only a far right wing fascist could write an article like this. Thanks for reminding me to send a donation to SPLC.
They'll need it to pay for their crimes.
Off-topic. I gave the entire NT Community a warning in my introduction. Perhaps you need a 2nd warning:
Discuss the topic of the seed in a respectful manner and do not attack the messengers. All off-topic and disrespectful comments will be flagged.
You can do better, cjcold.