CBN News, by Paul Strand: The D. James Kennedy Ministries, a Christian media ministry founded in 1974 by the late Dr. D. James Kennedy as Coral Ridge Ministries, is fighting back against the Southern Poverty Law Center for putting it on the center’s hate map. This legal battle could be important to Christians across America because they could be targeted as haters just for their faith.
Many people acknowledge the Southern Poverty Law Center did good work for years by targeting haters and racists like the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis. But then it took a lurch to the left, and began to put conservatives and Christians on the SPLC website’s hate map.
It has happened to dozens of groups, including the Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based D. James Kennedy Ministries, because it stands for traditional marriage and against radical parts of the LGBTQ agenda.
“They placed us along with about 55 or 60 other organizations on their so-called hate map,” President Dr. Frank Wright told CBN News. “They put us right next to the neo-Nazis. Right next to the skinheads. Right next to the Ku Klux Klan.”
So the organization sued the SPLC, losing the first round in court, but now appealing to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, Ga.
“We have objected that their characterization of us as a hate group is defamatory,” Wright explained.
And that characterization can even be dangerous. The ministry’s video “Profits of Hate” recounts how a would-be mass killer launched a foiled terrorist attack on the conservative Family Research Council because it was on SPLC’s hate map.
In the video, the FRC’s Peter Sprigg said, “When he (Floyd Lee Corkins) was interrogated by the FBI, they asked him ‘How did you pick your target?'”
Corkins told his interrogators, “The Southern Poverty Law lists anti-gay groups. I found them online.”
In the video, the FRC’s Jerry Boykin explained Corkins’ motive.
“What he objected to was our stand on traditional marriage,” he said.
This fact should worry churches and groups all across America because taking a stand for traditional marriage could land them all on the hate map.
“The hate label is a game the Left plays to try to do three things: to marginalize you, to demonize you, and then to criminalize you,” Wright told CBN News.
The SPLC has the power to do that because legislators and law enforcement consider the SPLC as an authority on hate groups.
Wright pointed out that within the last couple of months, “A committee of the United States Congress held hearings in which they said any group that’s on the SPLC’s hate map ought to have their tax-exempt status stripped from them.”
So what Wright’s emphasizing is that much more is on the line than just a negative term like “haters” hitting conservative and Christian groups.
“If you say I’m a hater because of what I believe, then you’re playing a very dangerous game,” he explained. “When government and the law can punish people for what they think, that is on the cusp of totalitarianism. That is on the cusp of tyranny, when by your thoughts you’re condemned.”
Wright also objects to the SPLC slapping the “hater” label on his Christian organization because he believes it’s inaccurate.
“A hater among Christians is an outlier. It’s an exception. Jesus taught to love your very enemies,” he argued.
Wright said of those who believe he or his organization hates them, “If they were to come to me and say ‘Why do you hate me?’ I would explain to them that I don’t. ‘You and I see this issue totally differently…I don’t hate you. Why should I hate you? And why should you hate me simply because we disagree?'”
Our Comment:
Eventually, Sabbath keepers will become the targets of leftist organizations and their hate propaganda. Labeling someone as a hater gives everyone else the freedom to hate them. Thus, the SPLC is promoting hate by the label.
Prophetic Link:
“And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved.” Matthew 10:22.
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