- Update 12/15/10 - Sign the "Start Debating/Stop Hating petition."
- To tar as "hateful" and "bigoted" any person or organization that continues to define marriage as one man and one woman is disgusting. "Hate" is a word thrown around much too much, and especially as a tactic to shut down debate. Anyone using it must now be regarded with suspicion, for in 9 times out of 10, the one doing the accusing turns out to be the genuine "hater." Charles Colson spotlights the latest "hate" attack, this time by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Colson writes:
What’s the easiest way to shut down a debate? Well these days, just label your opponent a hate-filled bigot. . .
In its newly-released Winter Intelligence Report, the Southern Poverty Law Center labels eighteen Christian organizations as “anti-gay groups.” The charges? “Pumping out demonizing propaganda aimed at homosexuals and other sexual minorities.”
And which Christian organizations engage in those activities? None other than the American Family Association, the National Organization for Marriage, and the Family Research Council! For heaven’s sake! The report also announced that 13 of these organizations will be added this January to its list of official “hate groups.” They join the likes of Neo Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan!
J. Matt Barber of The Washington Times calls the report a joke. This organization, he says, “has leveraged…its . . . waning credibility to target and undermine organizations” not because they’re hate-mongers, but because “they pose a direct threat to the advance of the postmodern secular” agenda.
He says the report will end up damaging the SPLC’s credibility more than anyone else’s. Well, I agree with him. But on the other hand, I don’t think this is any joke. It’s a trend.
Remember back in August when Federal Judge Vaughn Walker overturned California’s Proposition 8, he said “…beliefs that gay and lesbian relationships are sinful or inferior to heterosexual relationships harm gays and lesbians.”
So often today, conscientious objectors to homosexual marriage are being accused of hatred. It’s a dangerous trend. Princeton professor Robbie George, who helped draft the Manhattan Declaration, said this in a recent interview: “If belief in marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife comes to be treated in law as a form of bigotry, persons and institutions that dissent from the new political orthodoxy will quickly find…disabilities imposed upon them.”
Just last week—as you’ll hear in today’s Two Minute Warning, which I urge you to go watch at Colson Center.org—Apple decided to kill the iPhone app for the Manhattan Declaration. Why? Because it, quote “offended large groups of people.” End quote. Those people were gay activists who accuse the Manhattan Declaration of gay bashing, and, what else, promoting hate.
Anyone who’s read the Declaration knows that’s not so, but so much for civil discourse. More and more, rather than engage in a reasoned and civil discourse about the issues, backers of so-called “gay marriage” are determined to silence opposition. The methods range from judicial activism and censorship, to accusations of “hate.” But the goal remains the same: to shut down the debate.
Nearly half a million signers of the Manhattan Declaration have pledged to defend the sanctity of life, traditional marriage, and religious freedom. And one way to defend these principles is to stand up to the political bullying. And we will. But we will always respond in love to those who accuse us of hate.
'Hate Group' Designation Angers Opponents of Same-Sex Marriage
Krissah Thompson | The Washington Post | November 24, 2010
The Wolf Who Cried 'Hate'
J. Matt Barber | The Washington Times | November 26, 2010
Two Minute Warning: Democracy, Apple and Us
Chuck Colson | The Colson Center | December 8, 2010
The Family Research Council offered it's own response: "SPLC's Cowardly Lyin'
I suppose FRC should be flattered that the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) thinks we're such a threat to their radical agenda. Since last month, when the group slapped FRC with a "hate" label for supporting man-woman marriage, SPLC has grown more and more defensive. Maybe that's because prominent people, including Mike Huckabee, think the name-calling shows how desperate the Left really is. "[FRC opposes same-sex 'marriage'], he told the News Herald. "So does 60 percent of America. Does that mean that that 60 percent of America is a hate group?" Yesterday, to try and legitimize their smear campaign, SPLC held an audio webcast focused almost entirely on FRC. Among other things, they backpedaled from the notion that FRC belongs in the same category as the KKK, agreeing that we are "the most mainstream of the organizations" SPLC has ever criticized.
Richard Cohen, SPLC's President, revealed what this whole attack on FRC was really about. "We don't believe that some of these people should be put on national TV." According to Cohen, FRC's position on marriage should disqualify us from any media appearances. (Is it really our position on marriage or that the facts are just not on their side?) Even Tom Brokaw, who is unapologetically liberal, told a gay newspaper this week, "I don't think you can shut down free speech." Asked how to deal with pro-family groups, Brokaw said, "We're a free speech society. They're entitled to their positions.... How do you begin to censor things?" Easy, says SPLC. Start "inoculat[ing] the public against FRC's propaganda." In other words, do everything possible to keep the public from hearing FRC's rational arguments. But as I told the Los Angeles Times, silence is not now, and never will be, an option. Until then, if SPLC ever scrapes together enough courage to face these issues head on, tell them to give us a call. We'll run to--not from--the debate.