SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER’S “HATE GROUP” LABEL IS FALSE PROPAGANDA
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Speaking to a friendly audience, Senior Fellow of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Mark Potok, spoke frankly about his group’s real purpose. It’s not what most in the media think. “Sometimes the press will describe us as monitoring hate crimes,” Potok told a luncheon crowd.
Potok then said, “I want to say plainly that our aim in life is to destroy these groups, to completely destroy them.”[1]
And the SPLC is highly selective in who it seeks to “destroy.” While the SPLC’s original focus was on racial hate groups that promote or engage in violence, it has now included nonviolent, peaceful individuals or groups based on ideological disagreement.. As Potok admitted in an interview, “Our criteria for a 'hate group,' first of all, have nothing to do with criminality or violence or any kind of guess we're making about 'this group could be dangerous.' It's strictly ideological."[2]
Based in Montgomery, Alabama, the SPLC is now the nation’s wealthiest civil rights group, with an endowment of more than $300 million, as of 2014. The SPLC publishes an annual “Hate Map,” which lists more than 900 groups nationwide. Dotted with swastikas, clenched fists, Klan hoods, and other hate group symbols, the map is an odd amalgam of the good, the bad, and the ugly. These days, it mixes Liberty Counsel and other nonviolent groups like the American College of Pediatricians, D. James Kennedy Ministries, Family Research Council, and the American Family Association with a motley assortment of KKK, neo-Nazi, skinhead, black separatist, and other fringe racist entities.
Lumping Christian social conservatives with groups like the Aryan Terror Brigade and the Confederate Hammerskins is false, defamatory, and dangerous.
Writing in the Washington Post, Dana Milbank, who is politically liberal, stated: “I disagree with the Family Research Council’s views on gays and lesbians. But it’s absurd to put the group, as the law center does, in the same category as Aryan Nations, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Stormfront and the Westboro Baptist Church.”[3]
The SPLC’s sham charge that Liberty Counsel, a Christian ministry, is a “hate group,” is equally absurd. It is, in fact, false, defamatory, and dangerous. We believe every person is created in the image of God and should be treated with dignity and respect. We believe that discourse should be civil and respectful. We condemn violence and do not support any person or group that advocates or promotes violence. The SPLC, with its far-Left political agenda, sharply disagrees with the religious and moral values of Liberty Counsel. But that disagreement provides no basis for the SPLC to falsely call Liberty Counsel a so-called “hate group.” Liberty Counsel is not a “hate group” and does not support or advocate “hate” of any kind.
Despite the SPLC’s obvious political agenda, some reporters blindly adopt the SPLC “hate” determinations at face value and uncritically retail them to the public. However, other observers, like Milbank rightly fault the SPLC for its methods and motives.
- Laird Wilcox, founder of the Wilcox Collection on Contemporary Political Movements at the University of Kansas's Kenneth Spencer Research Library and a leading expert on "extremist" organizations, says the SPLC has gone into "ideological overdrive and has developed many of the destructive traits that characterize moral crusaders, including the demonization of critics and dissenters." Mr. Wilcox stated that the "hate group" designations reflect a "kind of selective attention and biased reporting" that "simply illustrates [the SPLC's] unscrupulousness." Wilcox also noted that "[t]he dirty little secret behind the SPLC is that they actually need racial violence, growing 'hate groups,' and more racial crime to justify their existence and promote their agenda." (emphasis in original). Wilcox also called the SPLC “a very talented and articulate defamation machine."[4]
- Alexander Cockburn, a columnist for the liberal publication The Nation, charges that the SPLC represents nothing more than "hate-seekers scour[ing] the landscape for hate like the arms manufacturers inventing new threats, and for the same reason: it's their staple."[5]
- The Weekly Standard identified a "serious objection to the SPLC's hate list" because of "the loosey-goosey criteria by which the [SPLC] decides which organizations qualify as hate groups." The SPLC has been charged with "being willing to slap the hate label on groups that may merely interpret data differently from the SPLC."[6]
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Foreign Policy magazine has been harshly critical of SPLC's "hate group" label, noting, "The problem is that the SPLC and the ADL (Anti-Defamation League) are not objective purveyors of data. They're anti-hate activists." Foreign Policyconcluded that the methodology used by the SPLC is fundamentally flawed, and that "[i]f there is any lesson in all of this [hate group labeling], it's that the study of domestic American extremism shouldn't be the exclusive province of activists."[7]
- Another commentator noted that "[w]hen an organization as prominent and powerful as the SPLC turns its guns on you, it can cost you your job, your livelihood - even your standing in the community. Not because you have done anything wrong. Not because what they say about you is true, but because a focused vilification campaign forces others to avoid you out of fear. You become what they call 'radioactive.'"[8]
- The Philanthropy Roundtable has noted the SPLC's "hate group" designation is "not a Consumer Reports Guide. It's a political tool." The Philanthropy Roundtable also noted that the SPLC is a "notoriously partisan attack group" and that its "hate group" designations are intended solely as a fundraising tool and that the "hate group" designations "spread stigmas just by innuendo." It also concluded that the SPLC is a "bullying organization that aims to intimidate and even criminalize philosophical opponents" and that "the SPLC's tactics lead directly to hate and violence."[9]
Placing Lives in Danger
This false labeling of nonviolent, Christian, pro-family, conservative organizations is not only defamatory, it is dangerous. The SPLC’s false “hate group” label motivated Floyd Corkins II to attempt mass murder on August 15, 2012, at the Washington, DC office of Family Research Council (FRC). Corkins is now serving a 25-year federal sentence for domestic terrorism after he walked into FRC’s headquarters with the intent to gun down staffers and rub Chick-fil-A sandwiches in the faces of the dead corpses. A brave and alert security guard stopped him in the building lobby but not before 28-year-old Corkins declared words to the effect, “I don’t like your politics,” and then shot and seriously wounded the guard. The shooter’s backpack contained almost 100 rounds of ammunition
Corkins targeted FRC because of its position on marriage and picked the pro-family group, he told the FBI, using the SPLC’s online hate listing: “It was a, uh, Southern Poverty Law, lists, uh, anti-gay groups. I found them online. I did a little bit of research, went to the website, stuff like that.”[10]
In early 2014, the FBI deleted the SPLC as a resource listed on its Hate Crime web page. It acted after 15 pro-family groups, including Liberty Counsel, notified Attorney General Eric Holder and FBI Director James Comey of the SPLC’s role in facilitating an act of domestic terrorism and urged them to distance the FBI from the group.
In 2016, the U.S. Department of Justice, under President Obama, sharply rebuked and reprimanded attorneys representing the SPLC and its allies for employing the SPLC's "hate group" label to denigrate a conservative advocacy group. A letter from the Justice Department’s Office of General Counsel concluded that employing the label against groups with which it disagrees "overstepped the bounds of zealous advocacy and was unprofessional." It continued that such behavior is "uncivil" and "constitutes frivolous behavior and does not aid the administration of justice."[11]
In addition to Corkins, James Hodgkinson, the D.C. shooter who gunned down Rep. Steve Scalise, two congressional staff members and two U.S. Capitol Police officers, "liked" the SPLC on Facebook. In 2015, the SPLC published an article pushing the idea that Rep. Scalise promoted white supremacy and supported a “hate group” founded by former KKK member David Duke. The SPLC article clearly tries to infer that Rep. Scalise is a so-called “hater” and supporter of a “hate group.”[12]
Calling Names and Raising Cash
“When you get right down to it, all the SPLC does is call people names,” says Laird Wilcox, a researcher of political fringe groups and co-author of American Extremists: Militias, Supremacists, Klansmen, Communists & Others.
He says the SPLC has...
specialized a highly developed and ritualized form of defamation ... a way of harming and isolating people by denying their humanity and trying to convert them into something that deserves to be hated and eliminated. They accuse others of this but utilize their enormous resources to practice it on a mass scale themselves.[13]
Very good at lodging venomous accusations of hate, the SPLC under Dees is even better at raising money. Left-wing journalist Alexander Cockburn called Dees the “arch-salesman of hate mongering.” Cockburn complained in 2009 that, “Ever since 1971, U.S. Postal Service mailbags have bulged with his fundraising letters, scaring dollars out of the pockets of trembling liberals aghast at his lurid depictions of hate-sodden America, in dire need of legal confrontation by the SPLC.”[14]
Dees’ prowess for extracting dollars from alarmed liberals has made Southern Poverty Law Center the richest civil liberties legal group in the nation. The SPLC’s 2014 tax filing reports a whopping $315 million in net assets. The group took in $54 million in 2014, $10 million of which was investment income. But even with that hoard at its disposal, the SPLC, with 287 employees, including some 40 lawyers, spent just $27 million on programs to advance its mission.[15]
Inflate the Hate
“No one has been more assiduous in inflating the profile of [hate] groups than millionaire huckster, Morris Dees,” says JoAnn Wypijewski, a writer for the leftist Nation magazine. “Dees would have his donors believe” that “militia nuts” are “lurking around every corner.”[16] And one tool to project that false image is the SPLC’s “Hate Map,” an annual listing of “active hate groups in the United States.” The 2014 map lists 784 hate groups, down almost 20 percent from the year before—but still well up from the 537 groups said to be menacing America in 1998.
The SPLC Hate Map distorts reality by counting each individual chapter of a hate group, rather than just the collective organization, a practice first implemented in 1997 and which sends the tally upwards. The National Socialist Movement, for example, is listed 49 times in the SPLC’s 2015 Hate Map, rather than just once since the count includes each one of the NSM’s individual chapters.
“The Southern Poverty Law Center’s list is wildly inflated,” declared Mark Pitcavage, director of investigative research at the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). He says the SPLC exaggerates the hate by counting single individuals as a group or chapter.[17] The result is a count utterly inconsistent with Federal Bureau of Investigation statistics. Hate crimes plummeted 24% between 1998 and 2013, according to the FBI. Yet the SPLC claims the number of hate groups in the U.S. shot up by 75% during this same period.[18]
Grinding a Partisan Ax
And the “haters” on SPLC’s list are almost entirely on the right. “I think there’s a common misunderstanding about the way you get on our Hate List,” said Heidi Beirich, Intelligence Project director at SPLC. “We post groups on the basis of ideology, not whether they’re violent or not.”[19] That gives the SPLC wiggle room to pick and choose its targets – and helps explain why almost none are liberal or leftist organizations.
Jack Feldman, a Jewish retired professor of psychology at the Georgia Institute of Technology, has faced anti-Semitic threats, including one KKK death threat. He appreciated the SPLC’s work and gave for several years until he began to see that “all the nasties seemed to come from the ‘Far Right.’”[20] He observed, for example, that “Occupy Wall Street” doesn’t appear in the SPLC’s Intelligence Report or the SPLC Hate Map – even though five men linked to Occupy Wall Street were arrested in 2012 for plotting to blow up a bridge near Cleveland. Somehow, that wasn’t enough to trigger SPLC interest. “We’re not really set up to cover the extreme Left,” a man at the SPLC told a National Review reporter.”[21]
Nor do radical Muslim groups show up on the SPLC Hate Map. Not listed, for instance, is Jumaat al-Fuqra, a group linked, the SPLC acknowledges, to “17 homicides and 13 fire bombings in the United States.”[22] They’re not a hate group in the eyes of America’s premier arbiter of hate.
The SPLC’s fixation on the right stems from the group’s ideological bias. “It’s pretty hard for them to deny that the SPLC is a political operation that is trying to tar right-wingers and conservative Republicans with a racist and extremist smear,” says Laird Wilcox. “Privately, they will admit this and leftist groups cheer them on.”[23]
And the SPLC has a broader political ambition, says Potok, to take the American public leftward. “That’s very much what we want to do is to, in a sense, drag the middle—which seems to me over the last 30 years has moved consistently to the right—back to somewhere closer to where we think it ought to be.”[24]
Calling names, making millions, and dragging America down. That’s what the SPLC is all about—and why Liberty Counsel is exposing the SPLC’s false and dangerous agenda. Disagreement on Judeo-Christian values alone does not a “hate group” make. To hold otherwise is irresponsible and dangerous. The SPLC must stop fueling the fires of hate.
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“These days, it mixes Liberty Counsel and other nonviolent groups like the American College of Pediatricians, D. James Kennedy Ministries, Family Research Council, and the American Family Association with a motley assortment of KKK, neo-Nazi, skinhead, black separatist, and other fringe racist entities.
Lumping Christian social conservatives with groups like the Aryan Terror Brigade and the Confederate Hammerskins is false, defamatory, and dangerous.
Writing in the Washington Post, Dana Milbank, who is politically liberal, stated: “I disagree with the Family Research Council’s views on gays and lesbians. But it’s absurd to put the group, as the law center does, in the same category as Aryan Nations, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Stormfront and the Westboro Baptist Church.”[3]
The SPLC’s sham charge that Liberty Counsel, a Christian ministry, is a “hate group,” is equally absurd. It is, in fact, false, defamatory, and dangerous. We believe every person is created in the image of God and should be treated with dignity and respect. We believe that discourse should be civil and respectful. We condemn violence and do not support any person or group that advocates or promotes violence. The SPLC, with its far-Left political agenda, sharply disagrees with the religious and moral values of Liberty Counsel. But that disagreement provides no basis for the SPLC to falsely call Liberty Counsel a so-called “hate group.” Liberty Counsel is not a “hate group” and does not support or advocate “hate” of any kind.
Despite the SPLC’s obvious political agenda, some reporters blindly adopt the SPLC “hate” determinations at face value and uncritically retail them to the public. However, other observers, like Milbank rightly fault the SPLC for its methods and motives.”
The fact that they failed to list themselves as a Hate Group proves they a full of Shit.
Indeed. You are correct. They openly admit that they label ideological opposition as hate groups with the intent to destroy them. One of their own leaders openly said that to his own supporters. The Washington Post and liberal Dana Milbank lambasted the SPLC for comparing peaceful social conservative Christians to hate groups like the kkk, Aryan Nation, and other white supremist groups. The far left The Nation magazine was also critical of that false labeling. Soon the SPLC and every media organization of any kind that uses that defamatory labeling will be seeing the inside of a courtroom and in my opinion we should spare no one any where who in any way uses the SPLC terrorist inspiring hate groups hate labeling.
On Tuesday, O'Neil reported that at least 60 organizations are considering legal action against the SPLC following its defamation settlement with Nawaz.
"We haven't filed anything against the SPLC, but I think a number of organizations have been considering filing lawsuits against the SPLC because they have been doing to a lot of organizations exactly what they did to Maajid Nawaz," Liberty Counsel founder and chair Mat Staver told PJ Media on Tuesday. "There are probably about 60 organizations that we're talking to — there's at least 60," he said, describing the Nawaz settlement as "significant" because "the allegations that were at issue here were very similar to the allegations against the other groups."
"The SPLC promotes false propaganda, demonizes and labels groups they disagree with, and that labeling has economic as well as physical consequences," said Staver.
In his report on the joint statement Wednesday, O'Neil underscored that companies would be best advised to take these legal threats seriously because "the left-wing group has a documented malice against these groups":
As for the accusation that the SPLC's has demonstrated "malice" against conservative groups, the overtly partisan nature of the organization's actions have grown glaring enough to be called out by even left-leaning Politico, which published a piece in the summer of 2017 about how the former "civil rights stalwart" seems to have "lost its way." Among the examples provided in the piece of the SPLC's transformation into "more of a progressive hit operation than a civil rights watchdog," the author included the group's treatment of Nawaz, the Family Research Council, the Center for Immigration Studies, Charles Murray, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Sen. Rand Paul, and Dr. Ben Carson (formatting adjusted):
Newman's Own supported the SPLC? I wish I had known that when I used to buy their salad dressing - to think that I had through buying those products paid even a dime towards supporting that organization make me want to vomit. I thinks a list of SPLC supporters should be made public to all members of the 60 organizations that are considering suing SPLC.
So hate groups target an anti hate group. Whooda thunk it?
I'll be donating to SPLC.
IMO your lovely anti-hate group is a worse hate group than a lot of what it targets. It should have just stuck with the KKK and the Nazis, and maybe the FBI wouldn't have dropped it like a hot potato. If those who donate to it are boycotted then maybe their multi-millions will diminish somewhat. After all, have they named BLM, that supports BDS? I'll bet not. That means boycotting is an okay thing to do, right? What's good for the goose.....
And I’ll be joining the actually non hate groups that they target.
I favor debilitating to bankrupting every company and organization of any kind that uses the SPLC’s hate list of non violent groups over their ideological differences. It’s one thing to target the KKK, neo nazis and white supremacy groups. It’s another for them to admit to trying to destroy groups they disagree with over religious or ideological differences. Since they want to destroy groups like Alliance Defending Freedom, Family Research Council and the like there should be no problem with rooting for the destruction of the SPLC terrorist hate group and every single organization that uses their hate ratings as their own.
Be careful, xx, anyone who criticizes the SPLC becomes a target of the left-wing members of this site. It doesn't matter if you're correct, or that the article you posted above is correct, or if the SPLC gets its ass sued off because it makes mistakes (Nawaz), it is championed by those who cannot tolerate anything to the right of centre.
You make good points. I stand proudly as a sworn enemy of the SPLC and what it has evolved into in recent times. They’ve long since abandoned their original mission. A lot of conservatives who were living in the days of the civil rights movement went to the south to stand with Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement and no this so called group dares to label them or their offspring as hate groups. Simply ridiculous and deserving of public humiliation and ridicule.
Also Buzz, I’ve been a target of the far left progressives here since I arrived here and I wear that 🎯 on my back as a personal badge of honor.
The Liberty Counsel is an anti-LGBT hate group.
“And the “haters” on SPLC’s list are almost entirely on the right. “I think there’s a common misunderstanding about the way you get on our Hate List,” said Heidi Beirich, Intelligence Project director at SPLC. “We post groups on the basis of ideology, not whether they’re violent or not.”[19] That gives the SPLC wiggle room to pick and choose its targets – and helps explain why almost none are liberal or leftist organizations.
Jack Feldman, a Jewish retired professor of psychology at the Georgia Institute of Technology, has faced anti-Semitic threats, including one KKK death threat. He appreciated the SPLC’s work and gave for several years until he began to see that “all the nasties seemed to come from the ‘Far Right.’”[20] He observed, for example, that “Occupy Wall Street” doesn’t appear in the SPLC’s Intelligence Report or the SPLC Hate Map – even though five men linked to Occupy Wall Street were arrested in 2012 for plotting to blow up a bridge near Cleveland. Somehow, that wasn’t enough to trigger SPLC interest. “We’re not really set up to cover the extreme Left,” a man at the SPLC told a National Review reporter.”[21]
Nor do radical Muslim groups show up on the SPLC Hate Map. Not listed, for instance, is Jumaat al-Fuqra, a group linked, the SPLC acknowledges, to “17 homicides and 13 fire bombings in the United States.”[22] They’re not a hate group in the eyes of America’s premier arbiter of hate.
The SPLC’s fixation on the right stems from the group’s ideological bias. “It’s pretty hard for them to deny that the SPLC is a political operation that is trying to tar right-wingers and conservative Republicans with a racist and extremist smear,” says Laird Wilcox. “Privately, they will admit this and leftist groups cheer them on.”[23]”
You're deflecting Xx. My comment is supported by the Liberty Counsel's own words and actions.
The SPLC is a dishonest organization that feeds its trolls whatever they need to hear.
Well I went over there to see what they told the trolls about the Liberty Counsel and it starts this way:
SPLC also had the audacity to QUOTE, in FULL quite a few statements by the Liberty Counsel's Chairman. Here's one:
Note that the quotes are NOT taken out of context.
That is the Biblical position on the subject. There is no hatred there directed at anyone. Disagreeing with a lifestyle and expressing potential consequences of it is not hate toward any individual or group who chose to participate in it anyway despite the risks involved.
The left does not permit anyone to criticize what they hold dear. When I am critical of Islamic terrorist acts, or supportive of those who report it as a warning, I'm criticized as being an Islamophobe. I am supportive of Reformist Muslims such as Dr. Jasser or others who are critical of the primitive behaviour of Muslims, such as FGM, or forced marriage of pre-teen girls, or enslavement of Yazdi or Nigerian girls, like Ayaan Ali Hirsi is fighting, or Palestinians who advocate for normalization with Israel, or Majid Rafizadeh who asks why he can't criticize his religion, then those who criticize me all of a sudden go blind, or do their damndest to find something wrong with the Muslims I support.
Did I not bitch about Trump cutting off the funds for normalization and co-existence programs?
Those who say I support Trump and his policies in their entirety go blind when I post something that criticizes Trump or his policies.
Really Xx? Please cite the Chapter and Verse from the Bible that states that there is a lack of evidence that people are born gay or that they can change.
BULLSHIT Xx. The Liberty Counsel promulgates LIES about gay people. They spew JUNK science to bolster their LIES.
Describing a group as immoral, unnatural, self-destructive and sexual perverts is hateful. PERIOD. Full stop.
1 Corinthians 6:9-17 New International Version (NIV)
9 Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men[a] 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
Sexual Immorality
12 “I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but I will not be mastered by anything. 13 You say, “Food for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will destroy them both.” The body, however, is not meant for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. 14 By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also. 15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself?Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! 16 Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.”[b] 17 But whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit.[c]
Footnotes:
Please highlight WHERE in 1 Corinthians 6:9-17 it states that 'there is a lack of evidence that people are born gay or that they can change'.
Please reply to my SPECIFC request and refrain from posting irrelevant proselytization.
Because God loves all mankind He doesn’t create anyone to live in sinful rebellion against Him. This is the result of personal choice.
“Throughout human history the fingerprints of God were upon them, yet they refused to honor him as God or even be thankful for his kindness. Instead, they entertained corrupt and foolish thoughts about what God was like. This left them with nothing but misguided hearts, steeped in moral darkness. Although claiming to be super-intelligent, they were in fact shallow fools. For only a fool would trade the unfading splendor of the immortal God to worship the fading image of other humans, idols made to look like people, animals, birds, and even creeping reptiles! This is why God lifted off his restraining hand and let them have full expression of their sinful and shameful desires. They were given over to moral depravity, dishonoring their bodies by sexual perversion among themselves— all because they traded the truth of God for a lie. They worshiped and served the things God made rather than the God who made all things—glory and praises to him for eternity of eternities! Amen! For this reason God gave them over to their own disgraceful and vile passions. Enflamed with lust for one another, men and women ignored the natural order and exchanged normal sexual relations for homosexuality. Women engaged in lesbian conduct, and men committed shameful acts with men, receiving in themselves the due penalty for their deviation. And because they thought it was worthless to embrace the true knowledge of God, God gave them over to a worthless mind-set, to break all rules of proper conduct.” Romans 1:21-26,28
It’s clearly obvious. Homosexuality is one of the sins listed that clearly will keep one from ever entering Heaven in v. 9. In v. 11 it clearly states that among the saved he was talking to and writing about were people who once were all of those things. They were washed, sanctified, forgiven and now believers. Homosexuality is not more powerful a sin than any other sin listed above and God has the power over that one like all the others to cause and effect change in any person seeking it. People who have weakness with regard to participating in any sin can change. Homosexuality is no exception. There is no sin that God can’t help people who turn to him overcome. God is love.
Obeying Jesus is our first responsibility as Christians and He has clearly stated as I noted that sexual immorality is rebellion against Him
“Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine but the Father’s who sent Me.”
John 14:23-24
And the writings of Paul likewise are a reflection of the words/commandments of Jesus
“If anyone thinks himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things which I write to you are the commandments of the Lord.” 1 Corinthians 14:37
and in John’s letters
“For all who obey his commands find their lives joined in union with him, and he lives and flourishes in them. We know and have proof that he constantly lives and flourishes in us, by the Spirit that he has given us.”
1 John 3:24
As Jesus spoke to John in the Revelation
Blessed are those who do His commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into the city. But outside are dogs and sorcerers and sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and whoever loves and practices a lie. “I, Jesus, have sent My angel to testify to you these things in the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, the Bright and Morning Star.” Revelation 22:14-16
The Greek word here for sexually immoral is porneia which for Jews and the Christian Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15 includes ALL sex outside of the marriage of a man and a woman
“For it pleases the Holy Spirit and us that we not place any unnecessary burden on you, except for the following restrictions: Stay away from anything sacrificed to a pagan idol, from eating what is strangled or with any blood, and from any form of sexual immorality. You will be beautiful believers if you keep your souls from these things, and you will be true and faithful to our Lord Jesus. May God bless you!”
Acts 15:28-29
Your comment isn't relevant to this thread.
Please refrain from proselytize to me EVER again.
E.A Who was Making this PLEA for information?
" Please highlight WHERE in 1 Corinthians 6:9-17 "
What is the word to explain a person that makes a " Please " for information then Screams >>>>>>> from proselytize to me EVER again.
You seem to have trouble with words
responding to your question to xxjefferson in no way was an attempt to proselytize
nothing I stated in any way was an attempt to convert you
Great post! It is most welcome here. It too shows that God loves all sinners and that there is no exception . No sin including homosexuality that He can’t overcome and bring change in the repentant person.
E.A Correction EX Sinners see Romans about those willingly sinning!
True that there will come a time that the patience will run out for the Willful and unrepentant sinner who persists in it despite all pleas and promptings to repent and accept HIS change and that includes the sin of all sexual relationships of any kind outside a man and woman in a marriage relationship.
If it's so fucking obvious Xx, why can't you cite the chapter and verse?
You clearly stated that what the Liberty Counsel said was 'the Biblical position on the subject'. You cited 1 Corinthians 6:9-17, now you're vacillating.
I asked you for SPECIFIC information. If you have no answer, JUST SAY SO. But DO NOT try to get a pass for the weak shit you've posted so far.
Do you see ANYTHING in LFOD's post that 'highlight WHERE in 1 Corinthians 6:9-17 it states that 'there is a lack of evidence that people are born gay or that they can change'?
IN fact LFOD didn't even cite the SPECIFIC Chapter and verse that I asked about. Instead he spewed a bunch of irrelevant babble.
BOTH he and you should READ MORE CAREFULLY.
Oh and BTFW, YOU are the one that screamed, my post was calm and cogent.
Actually YOU are the one that is having 'trouble with words'.
First of all, I didn't ask Xx a question.
READ MORE CAREFULLY.
Secondly, you failed to address the SPECIFIC Chapter and verse I asked Xx to highlight. Your comment was a deflection.
It sure as hell was:
proselytize: advocate or promote (a belief or course of action).
Wrong. You challenged the Christian stand that He Bible says homosexuality is not genetic and I provided a refutation
the common understanding by most people is that proselytizing is an attempt to persuade someone to join that particular faith.
individuals like yourself instead use it as a broad attack to insist Christians cannot even defend the why’s of a Christian viewpoint
That is FALSE.
First of all, genetics may not have anything to do with being 'born gay'. That is YOUR construct.
Secondly, NOTHING in ANY of the babble you posted addressed 'genetics' or being 'born gay'.
So not only didn't you address the SPECIFIC topic, you didn't address the SPECIFIC Chapter and verse that Xx cited.
Words have multiple meanings.
Your victim card is getting worn out.
Has nothing to do with being a “victim”. It’s about real debate and common understanding of words and terms
It sure as hell sounds like it does.
A 'read debate' doesn't include comments like yours that fails to address the stated topic, which I remind you, was 1 Corinthians 6:9-17.
So where the hell do you suggest that we garner a 'common understanding of words and terms' if NOT from the dictionary?
Until y'all recognize that you just described Trump, a man that y'all idolize, you'll never regain the 'high ground'. Trump admitted to being unrepentant. Y'all STILL elected him and/or support him.
The NERVE of that organization to use the equal-weight scales of justice as its symbol. What it SHOULD use is this:
The similarity in destroying ALL of the aristocracy, a class that was different than Robespierre and his people, is IMO no different than a left-wing organization that has the stated intent of destroying anything to the right of it is ironic.
If it was just them saying what they want it would be one thing and possibly protected speech. But being who they are and what they admit they are trying to do makes it a different case and their labeling is not protected as that Muslim reformer gentleman has recently proved. Listing a group a certain way simply because the SPLC says so is legally indefensible. That group that rates charities for another agency has found that out and stopped doing it.
The SPLC is no better than some of the real hate groups they somehow managed to include on their list, and far worse than some of the organizations they listed because of politics.
And that is the point. The terrorist inspiring hate group SPLC has wrongly defamed and slandered many socially conservative Christian groups with the hate label that they themselves should have to bear. This article is a refutation of and defense against that ridiculous libel and destroys the SPLC allegation point by point.
.......“This ‘hate group’ label is false, defamatory, and dangerous,” he said. “There are unstable people who have listened to this reckless rhetoric and used it to justify physical harm and even attempted murder because of these false, politically motivated labels. GuideStar is playing with fire, and other innocent lives will be hurt by its reckless allegations. Liberty Counsel is not a ‘hate group’ and opposes violence.”
Liberty Counsel explained what SPLC senior fellow Mark Potock previously said about his group’s labels.
“Our criteria for a ‘hate group,’ first of all, have nothing to do with criminality or violence or any kind of guess we’re making about ‘this group could be dangerous.’ It’s strictly ideological,” Potock said.
He continued: “Sometimes the press will describe us as monitoring hate crimes and so on. I want to say plainly that our aim in life is to destroy these groups, to completely destroy them.”
SPLC’s rhetoric has gotten it into trouble before.
Liberty Counsel noted that in 2016, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Disciplinary Counsel for the Executive Office for Immigration Review “sharply rebuked and reprimanded attorneys representing the SPLC and its allies for employing the SPLC’s ‘hate group’ label to denigrate a conservative advocacy group.”
“It concluded that employing the label against groups with which it disagrees ‘overstepped the bounds of zealous advocacy and was unprofessional.’ It continued that such behavior is ‘uncivil’ and ‘constitutes frivolous behavior and does not aid the administration of justice,'” Liberty Counsel said.
Staver said GuideStar and its political ally, SPLC, are intent on destroying pro-family organizations.
“The ‘hate group’ label is false and dangerous,” said Staver.
The Liberty Counsel brief said GuideStar’s CEO, Jacob Harold, is “using GuideStar as a weapon to defame, harm, and promote his liberal agenda by using the SPLC to falsely label good nonprofit organizations as ‘hate groups.'”
“The only purpose of providing the SPLC false and dangerous ‘hate group’ label is to inflict reputational and financial harm to Liberty Counsel. GuideStar has lost all credibility. GuideStar will now have to answer for its reckless, defamatory, and harmful political labeling.”
The Liberty Counsel brief said: “The threat of violence, however, is not the only injury. As a nonprofit entity, Liberty Counsel relies on its good reputation to attract and receive charitable donations from individuals, groups, churches, organizations, foundations, and others … Liberty Counsel’s reputation is important to its mission and to its donors or prospective donors, and its long-standing relationships with its donors is made possible by its good name and reputation.
“As a result of GuideStar’s false, misleading, and defamatory statements, Liberty Counsel has suffered actual damage to its reputation and goodwill in the community of nonprofits.
“Neither do standard court procedures allow the dismissal at this point, the filing explains: “A district court cannot dismiss a complaint under Rule 12(b)(6) ‘unless after accepting all well-pleaded allegations in the plaintiff’s complaint as true and drawing all reasonable factual inferences from those facts in the plaintiff’s favor, it appears certain that the plaintiff cannot prove any set of facts in support of his claim entitling him to relief.'”
WND reported last month when SPLC’s president, Richard Cohen, defended his group’s attacks on Christians.
He wrote in a Huffington Post commentary that Christians deserve the designation because they “sow the seeds of hate” for, among other things, adhering to a biblical perspective on homosexuality.
The Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability warned GuideStar its use of false SPLC claims to undermine Christian organizations was damaging its credibility.
SPLC sits in judgment of Christians and others, labeling as “haters” those who disagree with its pro-homosexual and open-borders agendas. In fact, SPLC put Dr. Ben Carson in that category before facing a backlash and abruptly backtracking.
Paul Bedard documented in his Washington Secrets column that some of the groups targeted by SPLC now are unleashing a public counteroffensive, accusing the organization of “fueling hate, killing free speech and even encouraging terrorist-style attacks on those it doesn’t agree with.”
The Alliance Defending Freedom demanded an apology from ABC News for quoting SPLC in a slam of ADF.
Bedard explained the new effort led by the Family Research Council targets of SPLC includes a video and a tweet-storm that took aim at SPLC’s so-called “hate map,” which identifies groups it says promotes hate and extremism.
SPLC lumps together groups such as the Ku Klux Klan with conservative nonprofits that promote traditional marriage, enforcement of immigration laws and other policies to which it objects.
SPLC was linked to the attempted mass murder in 2012 at FRC’s Washington, D.C., office. Floyd Corkins II confessed to the FBI he was motivated by the so-called “Hate Map” on the SPLC website that listed FRC as a “hate group.”
WND reported a video showed Corkins entering the FRC offices and confronting Leo Johnson.
FRC repeatedly has explained it adheres to a biblical perspective on homosexuality but is not “anti-gay.”
SPLC also was linked to the June attack on congressional Republicans at a baseball practice before a charity game. SPLC admitted the shooter, James Hodgkinson, “liked” SPLC on Facebook, Liberty Counsel said........https://mobile.wnd.com/2017/08/death-threats-result-from-leftist-hate-labels/
World Nut Daily and Koch far right wing propaganda is a sick worldview. Selling hate is the worst form of capitalism.
Then the SPLC and MBFC should stop selling their hate. But then again, that’s all they have left to sell.
I noticed Liberty Counsel hadn't been rated by MBFC yet. I submitted them to be rated because of their anti-choice religious bigotry. Hopefully they're hiding under the umbrella of some other dominionist evangelical media source and it's a short process to have their BS banned from NT.
All the proof one needs to know that this whole MBFC thing is about content control and censorship on the part of the intolerant toward views and those who hold them that they don’t like. As to your other point, the umbrella thing is already happening as less negatively rated sites by that bigot DAVE VAN ZANDT are taking on writers from other sites for new articles on theirs and taking their articles as if sourced from their own. We will beat the internet censors or cause them to sensor ALL conservative political sites and thought and ALL evangelical Christians sites and thought. We on the right will not comply with censors from SLPC or MBFC and will work non stop to confound, frustrate, and defy them.
Are you sure that MBFC wants the legal headaches of following the SPLC on this matter. Groups like Liberty Council and Alliance Defending Freedom and Family Research Council among many others of my political and religious friends, allies, associates are filing lawsuits against 3rd party groups who use or promote the SPLC group hate ratings. If MBFC does rate LC a hate or questionable group, I will e mail the legal departments of those groups to put MBFC on their lawsuit radar if they aren’t there already as I hope and pray that they are.
Yet you don't seem to have a problem with SPLC being labeled as a hate group ad nauseam right here in your seed.
It drips with hypocrisy.
When they stop labeling non hate groups as hate just because they disagree on religious or ideological grounds and go back to targeting actual and quite real hate groups like the kkk, Aryan groups, white and other racial/ethnic supreme state groups, white pride, skinheads,and various gangs, etc. then we on the right will stop calling them a terrorist enabling hate group.
I don't really think there is any redemption for the SPLC. They have smeared so many decent people that they have become at least as bad as what they set out to oppose. I think history will condemn the organization for what it is - A hate group.
When the Liberty Counsel stops labeling gay people immoral and unnatural just because they think that their religious ideology says so, we will stop labeling them a hate group.
Gay people are people. When they act on their inclination toward that particular sin they are then acting immorally. Just like if one has a proclivity to steal and they are tempted to but don’t act on it,they haven’t sinned, one with homosexual inclinations who doesn’t act on them hasn’t sinned.
God created a perfect Adam and Eve in His image. He did not create sin or it’s rebellion against him. Homosexuality is one of many sins in Satan’s rebellion against God that humanity followed after. All the ceremonial laws relating to Gods people coming out of Egypt to the time of the cross were nailed to it when Jesus died for all of our sins that we confess. Gods eternal law existed always and forever and was not nailed there.
Not everyone in this world believes in YOUR God or any god so that point is MOOT
The gay people I know have NOT sinned and are NOT of satan.
Stop proselytizing
Homosexuals are possessed by Satan?
Does that include homosexual animals? If two ganders live their lives together is this a result of demonic possession? You entirely dismiss the possibility that homosexual individuals were born with their sexual orientation much like some are born left handed?
And people wonders what motivates some of us to dissuade people from letting ancient human beings do their thinking for them.
The seeder's views are soooo skewed it's disturbing.
If I were a web site I’d be banned here by MBFC and the SPLC and proudly so.
No one said homosexuals are possessed by Satan. That’s ridiculous. They are no more possessed by him over that sin than I am for any sin I committed. People can give their lives over to him by holding on to and cherishing any sin or sins. Humanity surrendered dominion over the earth to Satan when Adam and Eve sinned and gave up theirs. Jesus Took it back at the cross and will reclaim possession on behalf of the saved at the 2nd coming.
You know, if a person stops to think about it, the concept of original sin makes God out to be nothing but an evil sadist. There is nothing loving (or sane for that matter) about punishing every innocent descendant of Adam and Eve, and animals too, for something that God knew was going to happen in the first place (being omniscient), or for flaws in his supposed creations that he simply didn't have to put there (being omnipotent).
Here's a whole list of absurdities about original sin.
I've never understood how that's supposed to work, either. How is God, in the form of Jesus or something, pretending to die for three days and then getting up and going back to Heaven unscathed supposed to accomplish anything? He's God, right? If he really wanted people to be non-sinners, then he could just make them that way. How does this story make any sense?
We would not have free will if he did as you suggest. One can’t love if we are compelled to obedience only by having no choice but to do so. Jesus is not unscathed. The marks of the crucifixion are permanent. He’s also in our form now forever more. He satisfied Gods law regarding sin and His death and separation from God covers all the sins that humanity committed and repent of. Those who don’t repent will be lost and will die for their own sins themselves and suffer eternal separation from God.
Good to hear. So when you wrote:
... what are you trying to say? If you are saying that Satan created the 'sin' of homosexuality then how are you not implying that homosexuals are succumbing to the influence of Satan?
Think a little bit about this. Is homosexuality 'satanic'? Are homosexuals following Satan and going against God? What, specifically, are you trying to convey? You certainly have done a fine job of associating Satan and homosexuality - if that is not what you meant then be clear.
Omniscience means free will is impossible. If it is possible (for any entity) to know the future then the future is deterministic and free will is simply an illusion.
Claiming God is omniscient means the future is deterministic and free will is impossible.
Did you know that not only is homosexuality not a sin, but a test for the rest - how will they be treated by others? Evangelicals are failing that test. I mean really, they (some) think Trump is the second coming, literally. I'm not sure the Bible crowd knows much about godliness except how to make a buck off it.
Let’s get the seed back on topic which is the SPLC and it’s malicious defamation of social conservative religious groups as so called hate groups over disagreeing on political issues and their intent to use their power to censor, censure, and destroy groups which they disagree with.
I thought I made it clear that those groups you defend ARE often related to hate groups, at least with their goals of thwarting certain groups of people they don't want to have a voice or power. So they need to clean up their acts. Bigotry and racism aren't rights when they interfere with the lives of others. Why are you defending their behavior? These groups are the ones who want to usurp the rights of others.
So you're not a believer in that whole Biblical 'lust in your heart' thingy.
Cafeteria Christianity.
No, he said just the opposite
Nope, Xx said that you can have sinful inclinations but as long as you don't act on them, you haven't sinned.
So according to Xx's 'Biblical position' I can have a life long fantasy of 'sexual perversion' but as long as I don't act on it, I'm good with God.
How do you interpret this from Xx:?
Satan introduced homosexuality to tempt people to sin? Homosexuality is succumbing to Satan?
Stop calling social conservative Christians hate groups then. If the terrorist enabling hate group SPLC had not resorted to labeling its ideological opposition as hate groups in the same category as he kkk, aryans, nazis, and the like. Don’t expect to attack our beliefs without a response. You can’t expect to attack everything we believe in and then try to shut us up when we respond in defense of beliefs by labeling it as proselytism.
[Removed]
All sin is a breaking of Gods law. It is a perversion of the perfection that God is. It doesn’t matter what the sin is. God has labeled homosexuality as an abomination to Him. It is a perversion of the institution of marriage He established between Adam and Eve at creation. Homosexuality is but one of many sins and the role of the church is to provide healing for all sinners seeking forgiveness. It is not a place where sinners can come and continue to live in any sin, not even homosexuality.
Yeah, Leviticus 20:13. But I asked you about your Satan comment and you are off preaching OT Hebrew rules. I asked you about this:
Not about Yahweh; about Satan.
So much more productive when people answer clear and direct questions rather than deflect.
Have homosexuals succumbed to Satan?
You have said that more than once and it isn't true. SPLC designates the kkk, aryans and nazis under 'hate and extremism' and LC under 'anti-LGBT'. Those are TWO DIFFERENT CATEGORIES.
So since SPLC already does what you demand, you're all good now right?
so God took the form of a human named Jesus just to fulfill his own Law that he created and condemned humanity to ? what was the need and point of the sacrifice of himself if he created the law to begin with ? couldn't he just change the law the he created himself to begin with instead of going through the charade of impregnating one of his own creations to give birth to another lesser version of himself and then die ?
But not really, because, you know, a few days later he got up and went home. Or so the story goes.
You can't have free will if God is omnipotent and omniscient, so which is it?
Jesus is a separate entity, a separate being? Doesn't really sound like monotheism. Actually, that whole Trinity thing makes it sound more like tritheism, but isn't having more than one god supposed to be a no-no?
Being anti the political agenda of the LGBTQ community is not hate and only bigots would call it that or see it that way. Particularly when that community is persececuting believers who believe that their lifestyle is sin and that no one should be compelled against their will to participate in it or it’s ceremonies in any way shape or form.
Oh DO tell Xx. What EXACTLY is the 'political agenda of the LGBTQ community'. Please share your deep knowledge of the subject...
I'll will say that I have a copy of it but I want to see if yours matches...
VICTIM CARD ALERT!
What 'lifestyle' is that Xx? Please describe how their lifestyle differs from yours.
Now I REALLY gotta hear this. Please DO post a link where someone was compelled against their will to participate in the 'gay lifestyle'. I can not wait...
Really? They have special 'gay lifestyle ceremonies' too? This is getting more and more intriguing. I know about the Pride Parade but Mardi Gras kinda balances that out don't you think?
Can you describe one of these 'gay lifestyle ceremonies' or post a video?
Or would you consider that participating in one against your will?
Dwelling on the temptation and fantasizing on it would be sinning in ones heart. I was not addressing that as it’s obviously committing sin in ones heart and mind. Simply being tempted by the devil to do something and rejecting that act is overcoming that particular temptation and what I obviously was referring to. God gives us the power by faith to overcome such temptation no matter the sin.
I want to say plainly that our aim in life is to destroy these groups, to completely destroy them
And the problem with that is?
You want to hate something, start with celery it's the only thing I can muster any hate for.
Try celery with Cheese Whiz or peanut butter down the trough. I think of celery as just a medium/carrier.
Celery adds a bit of good flavour to chicken soup (along with onions and carrots).
Again everyone, this seed is not about religion per se. It is about the terrorist enabling liberal hate group SPLC labeling Conservative Christian groups as hate groups because they live by and express their Biblical religious beliefs.
Hilarious
No one should take the SPLC and its hate list seriously.
It is a joke, and a bad one at that.
It is and all groups who use their list are as well. The FBI disassociated itself from that list due to their bigoted bias.
When exactly would that be? February of 2017? They were removed from the FBI website, but apparently The FBI isn't a political or partisan organization and will accept all help and information to protect the nation...
And the SPLC still offers training for Law Enforcement...and honors all LEOs killed by domestic terrorist since the Oklahoma City Bombing.
It is the SPLC that is a terrorist enabling hate group. A domestic terrorist attacked the Family Research Council HQ to attempt a mass murder and cramming Chick Fil A sandwiches in the mouths of his victim corpses all because the SPLC wrongly labeled them a hate group over ideological and religious opinion differences. FRC material should be welcome here while the SPLC is the one that should be banned here for its fraudulent hate filled bigotry.
It's not about religion 'per se', it's about the expression of Biblical beliefs.
it’s about the right of people to believe as they see fit including following literal interpretations of the Bible and following it as they understand it without being labeled, slandered, and defamed as a hate group like has happened to Alliance Defending Freedom, Family Research Council among others. All groups, agencies, and companies who call these groups hate groups deserve to be sued by them for every Penny they have until they are bankrupt and their owners homeless in the streets.
Please STOP pretending that this is about 'belief'.
This is about people pushing an ideological agenda in the courts, in legislatures and from the pulpit to force EVERYONE to live by their dogma.
BTFW, it's pretty hypocritical for YOU to decry labeling people in a derogatory way because of their beliefs. Almost every one of your seeds do so.
Go for it. It hasn't done them much good so far. It's pretty hard to sue someone for QUOTING you...
We shall see. There is nothing about Alliance Defending Freedom, Family Research Council, Liberty 🗽 Council or any other similar group that is hate and it is a defamation, libel, and slander of those respectable upstanding honorable groups that are the best of the best. I stand with them all against the sheer hate they are experiencing from secular progressive bigots.
I stand with those who they would disenfranchise from their rightful place in American society.
They disenfranchised no one nor would they. They protect religious freedom and religious liberty from bigots like the useless haters at SPLC who are terrorist enablers who make sweeping generalizations of no value against people honorable enough to disagree with their bigoted hate filled trash.
BULLSHIT! That is a LIE.
The Liberty Counsel, Alliance Defending Freedom and Family Research Council work to overturn Obergefell and they'd LOVE to overturn Lawrence. In short, the want to reverse the recognition of same sex marriages and criminalize homosexuality.
ANYONE that knows ANYTHING about the history of those 'organizations' knows that is a FACT.
All who would label other legitimate religious and social conservative groups the way the SPLC and MBFC do because of their religious beliefs deserve to be disenfranchised.