What Is A Hate Group?

In mid-December, civil rights organization Southern Poverty Law Center released a list of 18 organizations that engage in anti-gay propaganda. Of those 18, SPLC identified 13 of those groups as “hate groups.”

The groups listed have to fit the foliowing criteria to qualify as a hate group:

We detailed clearly the criteria we used for identifying an organization as an anti-gay hate group: “[T]heir propagation of known falsehoods – claims about LGBT people that have been thoroughly discredited by scientific authorities – and repeated, groundless name-calling.” By “known falsehoods,” we mean such things as asserting that homosexuals are more disposed to molesting children than heterosexuals – which the overwhelming weight of credible scientific research has determined is patently untrue.  Nowhere in our report do we equate taking a position against same-sex marriage with hate speech.

The 18 anti-gay organizations identified are listed below.. The groups identified as hate groups are shown in bold.

The Tea Party Nation and its controversial founder Judson Phillips decided to list its own “hate groups.” They don’t give their criteria but it seems to be a list that TPN has a personal beef with:

“The SPLC smeared as hate groups, respectable groups such as the Family Research Center, American Family Association, Concerned Women for America, Liberty Counsel and others as hate groups for opposing repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and Homosexual Marriage. That makes the SPLC our number one liberal hate group,” Phillips writes.

The number two spot went to the DHS for taking part in “silly political posturing from the most corrupt regime in the history of this country.” Referring to Secretary Janet Napolitano as “the DHS Clown in Chief,” the list says that the “DHS will not enforce border security. It makes Americans go through a joke of a security system when they want to fly. It invades their privacy while not going after terrorists.”

The ACLU landed at three for being “a hate group with a law license. A lot of law licenses. If you hate America, the ACLU loves you and if you love America, the ACLU hates you.” And four is the SEIU, which “has not been shy in using violence against companies who refused their efforts to unionize and have not been shy about using violence against Tea Party members.”

And, finally, number five is the NAACP, who had unanimously passed a resolution this year calling on the Tea Party to “repudiate the racist elements and activities” from its members in the past. Tea Party leaders defended themselves by calling the NAACP itself racist, and the Tea Party Nation now refers to the report on the Tea Party “hilariously inaccurate.”

So, liberal hate groups are the right’s traditional boogie men – the ACLU, unions and civil rights groups. (Way to prove you’re not racists guys!) The addition of DHS is a bit of a headscratcher but if your criteria is that you don’t like the group, I guess it makes sense.