SPLC responds to attorney general's defense of anti-LGBT hate group, attack on SPLC
August 09, 2018
Richard Cohen
President
During his campaign, President Trump promised to be a real friend to the LGBT community. Yet, yesterday, his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, lauded the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a group that vilifies the LGBT community and promotes discrimination against it in the name of religion.
Whats more, Sessions attacked the SPLC for calling the ADF what it is a
hate group that would like to push the LGBT community into the closet if not into jail. Sessions words and actions reflect what is painfully obvious: Contrary to Trumps campaign promise, his administration is no friend of the LGBT community.
The ADF richly deserves the hate group label. It supports the
criminalization of sexual relations between consenting adults abroad. It opposes anti-bullying policies that provide protections on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. It says that the American Convention on Human Rights should not prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. It promotes the myth that there is a link between homosexuality and pedophilia despite the fact that the weight of scientific authority has debunked the claim.
Linking the LGBT community to pedophilia
as the ADF has done is not an expression of a religious belief. It is simply a dangerous and ugly falsehood. FBI hate crime data show that the LGBT community is the minority group most likely to be targeted for violent hate crimes. Demonizing the LGBT community and portraying it as a danger to children is likely to exacerbate the hate crime epidemic it is facing.
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