Family Research Council: SPLC Created Environment That Led To Shooting [View all]

[maddezmom]

Source: TPM

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins took to Fox News Thursday to say groups that oppose his organization are responsible for creating the atmosphere that led to the shooting at its headquarters Wednesday.

“Let me be very clear here that Floyd Corkins was responsible for the wounding of one of our colleagues and friends at the Family Research Council,” Perkins said. “But I believe he was given a license to do that by a group such as the Southern Poverty Law Center who labeled us a hate group because we defend the family and stand for traditional orthodox Christianity.”

In late 2010, the Southern Poverty Law Center labeled the FRC a “hate group” over its opposition to gay rights and condemnation of same-sex behavior. The SPLC rating put the FRC — long a mainstay in Republican political circles — on the same list as the Aryan Nations, Nation of Islam and KKK.

The FRC and other social conservative groups rejected the label. And in the wake of Wednesday’s shooting, which was allegedly perpetrated by a man who was opposed to the group’s politics, Perkins said the SPLC needs to watch its words.

Read more: http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/family_research_council_shooting_splc.php

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I agree with SPLC about the label.
http://www.splcenter.org/

edited to add:

Setting the Record Straight on the FRC's Hate Group' Designation

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Thu, 08/16/2012 - 4:46pm
Today, the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins held a press conference to comment on the shooting that took place at the organization's Washington, DC headquarters yesterday.

While Perkins put the blame for the attack on the shooter, he declared that the Southern Poverty Law Center was also responsible for the attack, saying the gunman "was given a license to shoot an unarmed man by organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center that have been reckless in labeling organizations 'hate groups' because they disagree with them on public policy."

Perkins claims that SPLC labeled FRC a "hate group" back in 2010 simply because "they disagree with [us] on public policy," and many in the media have parroted the claim. But it’s utter nonsense. As the SPLC explained, FRC received the designation "because of its dissemination of false and demonizing propaganda about gays and lesbians" and even produced a report chronicling FRC's long history of biased anti-gay activism complete with a collection of the sorts of claims made by the organization:

“Gaining access to children has been a long-term goal of the homosexual movement.”
— Robert Knight, FRC director of cultural studies, and Frank York, 1999

“[Homosexuality] … embodies a deep-seated hatred against true religion.”
— Steven Schwalm, FRC senior writer and analyst, in “Desecrating Corpus Christi,” 1999

“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.”
-1999 FRC pamphlet, Homosexual Activists Work to Normalize Sex with Boys.

“[T]he evidence indicates that disproportionate numbers of gay men seek adolescent males or boys as sexual partners.”
— Timothy Dailey, senior research fellow, “Homosexuality and Child Sexual Abuse,” 2002

“While activists like to claim that pedophilia is a completely distinct orientation from homosexuality, evidence shows a disproportionate overlap between the two. … It is a homosexual problem.”
— FRC President Tony Perkins, FRC website, 2010

more: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/setting-record-straight-frcs-hate-group-designation