09/14/2017 / By JD Heyes
One of the things the Southern Poverty Law Center is most known for is its so-called “hate map,” in which it lists hundreds of organizations across the United States that it alone has designated as — what else? — hate groups.
The trouble is, not all of the SPLC’s designations are accurate. In fact, some of them are slanderous. And a few of their most slanderous and false designations in the past have led to deadly violence.
That’s why conservatives are pressuring the legacy media to stop using the SPLC’s hate map as a bona fide source of information, as reported by Truth Revolt:
The leaders, composed of the Family Research Council and signed by Media Research Center President Brent Bozell, published an open letter to the news media explaining why they should cease referencing the leftist SPLC’s biased propaganda in their reporting.
“The SPLC is a discredited, left-wing, political activist organization that seeks to silence its political opponents with a ‘hate group’ label of its own invention and application that is not only false and defamatory, but that also endangers the lives of those targeted with it,” the letter stated.
The groups pointed to the case of Floyd Lee Corkins II, who went into the Family Research Council’s headquarters about five years ago armed with a gun and the intent to kill everyone in there. A subsequent police investigation revealed that Corkins selected the FRC specifically because it was listed as a hate group on the SPLC map.
“Corkins intended to kill everyone in the building, then go on to terrorize additional organizations,” said the letter. “The U.S. attorney stated in federal court that Corkins targeted FRC and additional targets by using the SPLC website’s ‘Hate Map.’”
As media watchdogs noted, the legacy media and news networks ignored the role the SPLC’s map played in the Corkins incident. But since then Hollywood types and the reliably Left-wing “mainstream” media continue to cite the SPLC as a legitimate source, and unquestioningly so.
Now, in the wake of the Left-wing terrorist Antifa-on-white-supremacist violence at Charlottesville, Va., last month, the SPLC has only gained in notoriety, now attracting big-name donors — including actor George Clooney, who just donated $1 million to a real hate group, as NewsTarget reported:
A statement released on behalf of the couple said that they wanted to help in “the ongoing fight for equality” in the aftermath of the violent protests that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia, but their choice of recipient is raising more than a few eyebrows.
This is the same SPLC, mind you, that routinely designates pro-life and pro-Christian organizations as hate groups, just for having traditional views about marriage and for defending the unborn. (Related: This family-oriented non-profit lost its payment processing vendor after SPLC designated it a ‘hate group.’)
“Whether it’s shady money transfers or being discredited for decades by investigative journalists and charity watchdogs as a ‘direct mail scam,’ the Southern Poverty Law Center lost its way a long time ago,” said Kerri Kupec with Alliance Defending Freedom.
In their letter to various media, the groups noted that if outlets didn’t cut off ties to the SPLC, they were likely to help create “another Corkins.”
“We believe the media outlets that have cited the SPLC in recent days have not intended to target mainstream political groups for violent attack, but by recklessly linking the Charlottesville melee to the mainstream groups named on the SPLC website, we are left to wonder if another Floyd Lee Corkins will soon be incited to violence.”
And on that note, it is primarily angry Left-wing Americans who are committing the worst political violence. In addition to the Corkins incident a few years ago, another far-Left progressive and virulent supporter of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential bid shot and wounded a number of Republican aides and House Majority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana at an early morning softball practice in June.
“Given the above points, and most alarmingly that the SPLC’s ‘hate group’ propaganda has been linked to two terrorist shootings in the D.C. area,” the letter noted, “we respectfully request that you cease using the SPLC’s data and its various lists and maps in your reporting.”
J.D. Heyes is a senior writer for NaturalNews.com and NewsTarget.com, as well as editor of The National Sentinel.
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Tagged Under: Conservative, hate crime, hate group, hate map, Leftists, mainstream media, Southern Poverty Law Center, SPLC