https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/08/17/southern-poverty-law-center-hate-groups-scam-column/2022301001/
I wrote and edited for the Family Research Council, a public advocacy organization that promoted the principles I have cared about since childhood: protecting the family, promoting the dignity of every human life and advocating for religious liberty. It reads like a tagline, but it’s also just what I believed and the way I chose to match my career with my convictions....
The Southern Poverty Law Center labeled us a 'hate group'...
It has always been easier to smear people rather than wrestle with their ideas. It’s a bully who calls names and spreads lies rather than thoroughly reading a brief’s legal arguments or challenging the rationale underlying a policy proposal. The SPLC has chosen to take the easy path — to intimidate and mislead for raw political power and financial benefit. ...
Bigots come in disguise, often.
Some context, besides this column, may be useful:
The SPLC did not arrive at the hate group designation lightly. In their report of their investigation of the FRC, they cited a 1999 publication by FRC, Homosexual Activists Work to Normalize Sex With Boys, which stated: "one of the primary goals of the homosexual rights movement is to abolish all age of consent laws and to eventually recognize pedophiles as the 'prophets' of a new sexual order."
This is the group the column author belongs to, and the anti-gay message she endorses in her "promoting the dignity" of all human life. Hmm. So linking gay men to pedophilia is not meant to fan the flames of homophobic hatred? Just nice god-fearin' folk minding their own business?
The SPLC was correct in its listing of FRC. That doesn't mean they supported a violent attack on the FRC (in fact, they condemned it), nor does it mean they were saying all hate groups are precisely equivalent to neo-Nazis.
It's this column you quoted, Ham, that's the real smear tactic.