Staver complained that GuideStar has gone from “a neutral entity” to a left-wing “political activist organization” under its president, Jacob Harold.
“Because of his liberal political activism, he decided to partner with the SPLC and slap these labels on [organizations],” Staver said. “You have to ask yourself, why did he do it? Why was he trying to do it? What was his motivation? It’s very clear what his motivation was. His motivation in terms of what he said, what they did, how they did it is to harm these nonprofits, to put, essentially, if you will, a Star of David on them like the Nazis did to the Jews. Wanted to isolate them, identify them, and ultimately economically boycott them.”
Staver’s insane rant of labeling the Liberty Counsel and other similar anti-LGBT organizations “hate groups” and comparing them to the persecution Jews faced in Nazi Germany, comes one month after a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit by them against GuideStar, a charity information website, after GuideStar began including information about groups that have been designated as “hate groups” by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Organizations listed as anti-LGBT hate groups “use dehumanizing language and pseudo-scientific falsehoods to portray LGBT people as, for example, sick, evil, perverted, and a danger to children and society — or to suggest that LGBT people are more likely to be pedophiles and sexual predators,” notes the SPLC’s website. “Some anti-LGBT hate groups support the criminalization of homosexuality in the United States and abroad, often marshaling the same debunked myths and demonizing claims in their efforts.” Simply opposing marriage equality or considering homosexuality a sin is not enough to merit a hate group label, the SPLC adds.
SPLC’s list of anti-LGBT hate groups includes the Family Research Council, American Family Association, Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, Mission: America, Mass Resistance, Alliance Defending Freedom, and many other familiar names. Liberty Counsel, besides being on the list itself, has provided legal representation to some of the other groups or their leaders, such as Scott Lively of Abiding Truth Ministries and Andrea Lafferty of the Traditional Values Coalition, in addition to representing antigay county clerk Kim Davis, anti–marriage equality judges, and practitioners of “ex-gay” therapy.
