Who’s Who of Nonprofits Blast Reporting Group for False ‘Hate’ Claims

A coalition that is virtually a who’s who of nonprofits is demanding that the CEO of Guidestar — a company that posts the financial reports of nonprofit organizations — stop a new program of “ostracism and dehumanization” on its site that already has led to violence.

WND reported Guidestar, a “public charity” that purports to be “neutral” and provide online “nonprofit information to a broad audience at no cost to those users,” began slamming Christian and other conservative organizations based on the recommendations of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which itself has been linked to domestic terror and once put Ben Carson on its list of “haters.”

Guidestar has been flagging the pages of nonprofit organizations that disagree with SPLC’s pro-abortion and pro-homosexual agenda, identifying them as “hate” organizations.

Guidestar posts a notice saying, “This organization was flagged as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.”

It also provides a link to the far-left SPLC, accompanied by the group’s logo.

“We, the undersigned organizations and individuals, write to express our strong disagreement with Guidestar’s newly implemented policy that labels 46 American organizations as ‘hate groups.’ Your designations are based on determinations made by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a hard-left activist group. As such, SPLC’s aggressive political agenda pervades the construction of its ‘hate group’ listings,” the letter to Jacob Harold states.

However, the leaders point out SPLC “has no bona fides to make such determinations.”

“It is not a governmental organization using a rigorous criteria to create its lists, and it is not a scientifically oriented organization. The SPLC is merely another ‘progressive’ political organization.”

The letter is signed by representatives of Eagle Forum, the American Freedom Defense Initiative, American College of Pediatricians, Wallbuilders, Liberty Counsel, Family Research Council, National Organization for Marriage, London Center for Policy Research, Center for Security Policy, American Family Association, ACT for America, Secure America Now, Alliance Defending Freedom, Judicial Watch, the Heritage Foundation and many other groups.

“The ‘hate group’ list is nothing more than a political weapon targeting people it deems to be its political enemies,” the letter states.

“The list is ad hoc, partisan, and agenda-driven. The SPLC doesn’t even pretend to identify groups on the political left that engage in ‘hate.’ Mosques or Islamist groups that promote radical speech inciting anti-Semitism and actual violence are not listed by the SPLC even though many have been publicly identified after terrorist attacks.

“Radical, violent leftist environmentalists or speech suppressing thugs – like the rioting ‘antifa’ movement – receive no mention from the SPLC.”

The letter warned that violence has been provoked by the lists promoted by the SPLC.

“Despite its denials to the contrary, this highly refined method of ostracism and dehumanization practiced by the SPLC isn’t just about verbal debate – it can foreseeably lead to violence,” the letter said. “Can it be of any surprise then that SPLC’s hate map was used by a political activist and domestic terrorist to perpetrate the very sort of hate crimes SPLC claims to oppose? In 2012, a shooter entered the Family Research Council headquarters in Washington, D.C., to ‘kill as many as possible’ because SPLC had identified FRC as a ‘hate group,’ and the killer-to-be relied on SPLC’s website to identify targets, according to his sworn testimony.

“The SPLC continues to list on its website people such as House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, who was recently shot by James T. Hodgkinson, who ‘liked’ SPLC’s Facebook page. Does it not concern you that within the past five years, the SPLC has been linked to gunmen who carried out two terrorist shootings in the DC area?”

The letter pointed out that SPLC’s Mark Potok stated: “Sometimes the press will describe us an monitoring hate crimes and so on. … I want to say plainly that our aim in life is to destroy these groups, to completely destroy them.”

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