The anti-LGBT hate group the Liberty Counsel filed a federal lawsuit against GuideStar over what they say is “the false and defamatory” hate group label it placed on GuideStar’s Liberty Counsel page. The lawsuit charges GuideStar with violating the federal Lanham Act, along with state law violations of Interference with Business Expectancy and Defamation. The suit seeks a permanent injunction, damages, and attorney’s fees and costs. The case of Liberty Counsel, Inc. v. GuideStar USA, Inc. was filed in the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in the Newport News Division.
“GuideStar and its political ally, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), are intent on destroying pro-family organizations. The ‘hate group’ label is false and dangerous,” said Mat Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel. “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.”
What Staver doesn’t mention is that he and the Liberty Council have their own legal problems. A federal judge’s ruling dated 3/20/17 added Staver, the Liberty Counsel and Liberty University as defendants in a RICO lawsuit having to deal with the kidnapping of 7 year-old Isabella Miller from her lesbian mother.
Staver had described homosexuality as a “destructive lifestyle” that put children at risk. Elsewhere, Staver called the newly gay-friendly Boy Scouts a “playground for pedophiles,” described “the homosexual agenda” as “a direct assault on our religious freedom,” worked to criminalize gay sex, and defended Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore after Moore unsuccessfully defied a federal court order legalizing same-sex marriage.
Hate group? You be the judge.