Tag Archives: The Southern Poverty Law Center

Alabama Man Challenges Gay Marriage Recognition Ban After Husband Killed In Car Crash

Paul Hand Alabama

Paul Hard of Montgomery Alabama whose partner was killed in a car accident has filed a federal lawsuit challenging Alabama laws that bar the recognition of his marriage, which took place in Massachusetts.

The lawsuit, filed in Montgomery federal court, seeks to force Alabama to recognize same-sex marriages performed in states that allow them. Lawyers said the bans are unconstitutional and treat Alabama gays and lesbians as second-class citizens.

“The sanctity laws silence and demean lesbian and gay Alabamians by sending a clear message: You are less than other citizens and your relationships mean nothing here,” said Samuel E. Wolfe, a lawyer with the Southern Poverty Law Center, which is representing the plaintiff.

Notice of the lawsuit has been delivered to Alabama’s governor and attorney general.

Hard says he was treated cruelly after the death of his husband, David Fancher and was virtually ignored at the Alabama hospital where Fancher was taken after the accident.

Hard said he is also fighting to be considered as the surviving spouse in ongoing litigation over Fancher’s death.

Fancher,  died within moments of the crash, but Hard said hospital staff refused to give him any information about his condition because the two weren’t considered legally related. An orderly later passed on the news that Fancher had died, Hard said. And even though Paul hard begged with the hospital the pain was compounded when the death certificate listed Fancher as never married and refused to change it.

“If I can let people know how this law unjustly and cruelly affects people, I will do it. Ultimately, I hope these laws are overturned so it no longer gives folks permission to treat Americans as second-class citizens,” Hard said.

That vote proved that the state’s residents believe “marriage in our state exists only between a man and a woman,” said Alabama Speaker of the House Mike Hubbard in a statement criticizing the lawsuit.”This lawsuit is part of a coordinated liberal agenda that is designed to erode the conservative Alabama values that the citizens of our state hold close to their hearts,” Hubbard said.

Couples in Louisiana and Missouri filed similar challenges this week.

Southern Poverty Law Center David Dinielli said the lawsuit relies on the precedent set by the case that overturned the federal Defense of Marriage Act. He said he hopes the case will continue a trend of federal judges finding the state bans unconstitutional.

Like recent challenges in other states, the lawsuit asserts that the Alabama laws violate the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution by treating gays and lesbians differently than heterosexual couples.

Video – Peter Sprig of the Family Research Council Hate Group: Just Because We Hate Gays It Doesn’t Make Us A Hate Group

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The Family Research Council is one of the most heinous anti-gay groups of the 21st century.  And Peter Spigg, one of FRC’s most outspoken and hateful leaders who has in the past advocated for both criminalization of homosexuality and the mass exportation of gays from the United States, has the nerve and stupidity to complain about last year’s addition of the Family Research Council to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s list of officially recognized hate groups.

Guess what Peter Sprigg, and the FRC, it DOES make you a Hate Group.

Words have power and when you wield those words to denounce someone else it will then cause others to look at said group with disdain & disrespect where it’s obviously not justified. This includes the attention of people with a few short circuits in their brains who will thus take violent actions – no thanks to what started with YOUR WORDS. The divisive, ignorant views you hold against the LGBT community are incredibly sad and your hypocrisy even worse.

As for Bishop Harry Jackson.  Bigotry is Bigotry, no matter what color, race, or creed.  And there is NOTHING sadder and more hypocritical and ignorant in the world than one minority stepping upon and fighting against the rights of another.

Family Research Council’s Hate Group Designation Rightfully Deserved – L.A. Times Op-Ed by Pulitzer Prize Winner Tim Rutten

Hate under cloak of religion
timothy.rutten@latimes.com
*Reprinted from the Los Angeles Times because its just so damn good!

The Southern Poverty Law Center is an organization with deep roots in the civil rights movement. Its ingenious lawsuits helped break the back of the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist factions, and in recent years, it has joined the Anti-Defamation League as a reliable monitor of hate groups.

The Family Research Council is an influential Washington-based advocacy group with deep roots in the religious right. Its annual political forum, the Values Voter Summit, has become a nearly obligatory stop for ambitious Republican office-seekers hoping to win the support of so-called values voters. In recent years, the council has given an increasing share of its attention to opposing marriage equality and open military service by gays and lesbians.

Now, the two groups are locked in a sharp confrontation that raises crucial questions about where the expression of religiously based views on social issues ends and hate speech begin.

Last week, the law center added the Family Research Council to its list of more than 930 active hate groups, citing the anti-gay rhetoric of its leaders and researchers, which have included calls to re-criminalize consensual sex between individuals of the same gender. The Southern Poverty Law Center defines a hate group as one with “beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics.”

The council’s president, former Louisiana lawmaker Tony Perkins, reacted angrily to the designation, calling it “slanderous” and demanding an apology. “The left is losing the debate over ideas and the direction of public policy, so all that is left for them is character assassination,” Perkins said, insisting that his group “will continue to champion marriage and family as the foundation of our society and will not acquiesce to those seeking to silence the Judeo-Christian views held by millions of Americans.”

Other conservative commentators also have assailed listing the council as a hate group, calling it an affront to protected speech. That is a superficially compelling argument, but it won’t withstand scrutiny. It is perfectly possible for a church or an organization associated with a denomination or religious tendency — as the Family Research Council is with evangelical Protestantism — to oppose, say, marriage equality as a departure from tradition and traditional notions of civic virtue without defaming gays and lesbians as a group.

But the council goes well beyond that. Over the years, it has published statistical compendiums purporting to quantify the “evils” of homosexuality. One of its pamphlets is entitled, “Dark Obsession: The Tragedy and Threat of the Homosexual Lifestyle.” At various times, its spokesmen have spuriously alleged that the gay rights movement’s goal “is to go after children” and that child molestation is more likely to occur in households with gay parents. Last week, one of its senior fellows, Peter Sprigg, told reporters on a conference call concerning repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that “homosexuals in the military are three times more likely to commit sexual assaults than heterosexuals are relative to their numbers.”

Such rhetoric is eerily reminiscent of that with which religiously affiliated opponents of African American equality once defended segregation. It wasn’t all that long ago that some of them argued against school integration because, they alleged, black adolescents were uniquely unable to control sexual impulses and, therefore, would assault white schoolgirls. Exhortations against “race mixing” were commonplace pulpit messages short decades ago, though we now recognize them as hate speech. It’s past time to do the same with rhetoric that denigrates gays and lesbians.

So long as even the most objectionable religious dogma stays under the church roof, it’s a constitutionally protected view. People’s religious beliefs — even when noxious — are a private matter. Our churches are free to order their internal affairs as they will — to set the terms of sacramental marriage as they see fit, to discriminate in the selection of their clergy, to racially segregate their membership or to separate the sexes in their schools or places of worship

However, when a group sets out to impose its views on the rest of society by lobbying for public policies or laws, it can no longer claim special protections or an exemption from the norms of civil discourse simply because its views are formed by religious beliefs. This is precisely the dodge the Family Research Council has been running.

*Source – The Los Angeles Times.

Concerned Women Of America’s Penny Nance Defends Hate Groups

Concerned Women of America’s President Penny Nance has released a statement defending officially recognized hate groups and slandering the highly regarded Southern Law Poverty Center the group which has been in charge of such designations for over the past 50 years.

“The SPLC began as a civil rights organization in the 1960s, but has been marginalized by ‘gay rights’ organizations. They no longer simply focus on the noble cause of fighting racism and have, instead, become another tool for the left. This time, the SPLC has taken their liberal propaganda too far. By demonizing traditional family groups that support traditional marriage, they just put a huge portion of the African-American community in California in the same category with the rest us so-called bigots.

“According to an Associated Press exit poll, 70 percent of African-Americans in California (virtually all of whom voted for Barack Obama) also voted for Prop 8 and in support of traditional marriage in 2008. The very people the SPLC supposedly seeks to protect from bigotry and ‘hate crimes’ are heavily in favor of the very institution that the SPLC is fighting against.”

Good As You’s Jeremy Hooper points out the CWA has actually not been added to the list of hate groups by the SPLC, they are merely listed as “anti-gay.” which they are and make no apologies about.  Hooper also notes that merely being opposed to marriage equality is not, by the SPLC’s standards, enough to be considered a hate group.  It seems that Nance, and other anti-gay groups are aligning with the AFA and FRC which are now officially designated as United states hate groups to pretend that its about gay marriage which has nothing to do with the SLPC criteria for breing deemed a hate group. What does matter in designation for a group or organization to be known as a hate group is that it requires that the group spread discredited and slanderous propaganda.  BOTH of which the AFA and FRC has been well documented in doing.

As for CWA and Penny Nance. It’s intersting that you are pulling the race card on something has has absoultely nothing to do with race or gay marriage/  You should heed the above rule, because CWA is getting awfully close.

The list of “Official Anti-Gay Hate Group” now in the United States:
1. Abiding Truth Ministries [Scott Lively]2. American Family Association
3. Americans for Truth About Homosexuality [Peter LaBarbera]4. American Vision
5. Chalcedon Foundation
6. Dove World Outreach Center [Terry Jones]7. Faithful Word Baptist Church [Steven Anderson]8. Family Research Council
9. Family Research Institute [Paul Cameron]10. Heterosexuals Organized for a Moral Environment
11. Illinois Family Institute
12. MassResistance
13. Traditional Values Coalition

Family Research Council Demands SLPC Apologize For "slanderous attack and attempted character assassination." After Being Labled A Hate Group

Well  the FRC after having had time to talk with the other anti-gay hate groups and figure out how to respond to the recent  listing of being categorized as a “hate group” in The Southern Poverty Law Center’s report this week on rabidly anti-gay organizations has finally released a statement. 
FRC President, and ginger haired closet case Tony Perkins says the list is part of “the left’s smear campaign of conservatives and demands that the Southern Poverty Law Center  apologize for it’s “slanderous attack and attempted character assassination”

“Family Research Council has, for nearly 30 years, advanced faith, family, and freedom in public discourse. We do so with civility and compassion. We hold to the indisputable fact that the family – a Dad, a Mom, and children – is the best building block of a good society, which is why we oppose efforts to transform it based on personal sexual preference.

“The Southern Poverty Law Center is a massively funded liberal organization that operates under a veneer of public justice when, in fact, they seem more interested in fundraising ploys than fighting wrongdoing.

“This is a deliberately timed smear campaign by the SPLC. The Left is losing the debate over ideas and the direction of public policy so all that is left for them is character assassination. It’s a sad day in America when we can not, with integrity, have a legitimate discussion over policy issues that are being considered by Congress, legislatures, and the courts without resorting to juvenile tactics of name calling.

“The Left’s smear campaigns of conservatives is also being driven by the clear evidence that the American public is losing patience with their radical policy agenda as seen in the recent election and in the fact that every state, currently more than thirty, that has had the opportunity to defend the natural definition of marriage has done so. Earlier this month, voters in Iowa sent a powerful message when they removed three Supreme Court justices who imposed same-sex marriage on the state. Would the SPLC also smear the good people of Iowa?

“Family Research Council will continue to champion marriage and family as the foundation of our society and will not acquiesce to those seeking to silence the Judeo-Christian views held by millions of Americans. We call on the Southern Poverty Law Center to apologize for this slanderous attack and attempted character assassination.”

Well lets see.  Other than the fact that the SLPC is NOT a massively funded liberal organization and the fact that FRC after all these years are FINALLY being labeled the hate group is poetic justice.

The above statement by Perkins plays off that this is about the the FRC being anti-gay marriage.  Its not.  It’s because the FRC is anti-gay EVERYTHING much like the KKK was anti-black EVERYTHING

Examples of this rabid gay hatred are too long to list but FRC senior research fellows Tim Dailey and Peter Sprigg “have constantly pushed false accusations linking gay men to pedophilia,”  In a conversation about immigration rights for gay couples, Sprigg told Chris Matthews, “I would much prefer to export homosexuals from the United States than to import them.” He later apologized for that statement, but went on to argue that there should be “criminal sanctions” against “homosexual behavior.” Sprigg also “claimed that allowing gay people to serve openly in the military would lead to an increase in gay-on-straight sexual assaults,”

That sure sounds like hate to me!

Somebody call Perkins a waaaaaaaaaambulance and a rentboy.  He’s having a rough Thanksgiving and its only going to get worse from here on if I have anything to do with it.

Family Research Council & American Family Association FINALLY Take Their Places As "Recognized" Anti-Gay Hate Groups.

The nation’s leading watchdog of hate organizations, The Southern Law Poverty Center  has finally added the Family Research Council and American Family Association to its list of “official” anti-gay hate groups.

The AFA expresses public concern over what it refers to as the “homosexual agenda.” They claim that the Bible “declares that homosexuality is unnatural and sinful.” The AFA actively lobbies against the social acceptance of homosexual behavior (“We oppose the homosexual movement’s efforts to convince our society that their behavior is normal“)

And as for the FRC.  Well, the Family Research Council, run by ginger haired closet case Tony Perkins describes itself as “champions of marriage and family as the foundation of civilization, the seedbed of virtue, and the wellspring of society. FRC shapes public debate and formulates public policy that values human life and upholds the institutions of marriage and the family. Believing that God is the author of life, liberty, and the family, FRC promotes the Judeo-Christian worldview as the basis for a just, free, and stable society.”  YAK! 

In other words its a group of small minded homophobic bigot haters who are funded and backed by extreme right wing republicans, feebs, and bigots like themselves and they hide behind religion to persecute the LGBT community.

Countdown until Tony “Princess Tiny Meat” Perkin’s first outraged Press Release?

3……..2……..1……

Watch The Trailer For "Bullied" – A Documentary by The Southern Poverty Law Center and Narrarted by Jane Lynch

Narrated by Jane Lynch, the Southern Poverty Law Center presents the documentary “Bullied” which tells the story of of Wisconsin’s Jamie Nabozny, whose middle and high school years were spent in HELL verbally and physically abused by classmates because he’s gay. Multiple suicide attempts and running away from home preceded a 1990s lawsuit that resulted in the first court ruling holding a school accountable for not preventing a student’s victimization

The The SPLC is making the film and teaching kit available – free of charge – to every school in the country. Educators have already ordered more than 17,000 kits

*PLEASE PASS THIS ALONG AND REPOST THIS AND CONTACT A SCHOOL IN YOUR AREA ABOUT SHOWING THIS DOCUMENTARY.