What lies, puppy? I listed a number of things that FRC does and has done. You pulled the least innocuous out of that already shortened list but ignored the others.
The SPLC’s definition of hate speech does not require an explicit incitement to violence. According to the group’s
website, a hate group must have “beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics.” Being named as a hate group “does not imply a group advocates or engages in violence or other criminal activity.”
Disagreement with the SPLC’s definition of “hate” permeates the conservative criticism of the group, such as Gallagher’s distaste that the SPLC does not distinguish between groups like the FRC and white supremacists. Concern about that definition does not come exclusively from right-wing blogs; there is disagreement among experts who study extremist activity over what exactly makes a hate group.
Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at California State University, said there was a “fine line” where a political group’s promotion of bigotry becomes hateful. He said that violent events often lead to “hate” terminology being used as “political battering rams" against mainstream groups, when the reality is much more complicated. Levin, who formerly worked for the SPLC, said he believed their definition of hate was defensible, but that his center does not consider FRC a hate group.
“[FRC’s] use of pseudoscience and wild allegations about gays certainly brings them up to the line, and a reasonable person could make that argument,” he said. “I do believe they promote bigotry; however for me, it has to be something more—not just falsehoods, but conspiratorial falsehoods, some kind of violence, and some kind of goal of destroying institutions of liberal democracy.” FRC, he added, works through the political system rather than encouraging its members to subvert it. “They’re in D.C., they’re a lobbying group.”
racist pseudoscience and skewed studies designed to confirm to their beliefs. A majority of those populating Internet forums like Stormfront are not personally violent, but their online postings leave no doubt that they are hateful.
Similarly, evangelical “pro-family” groups like the FRC and the AFA
promote both skewed and long-discredited studies on sexual orientation to support a narrative that homosexuality is a threat to society. One only needs to take a brief glance at the
Twitter feed of
Bryan Fischer, the issues analysis director for the AFA, to confirm that he is overcome with hate for a wide variety of groups he perceives as threats to his religious and political views. While statements from the FRC’s leaders are significantly less vitriolic than Fischer’s rantings, they contain many of the same debunked facts and discredited narratives. Their factual failings and hostile rhetoric is so extreme that even Albert Mohler, the president of the deeply conservative Southern Baptist Convention,
characterizedevangelicals’ reaction to homosexuality as “rooted in ignorance and fear” and “consigning homosexuals to a theological and moral category all their own.”
Ignorance and bigotry, as well as sincere religious belief, can lead to bad science. But do bad facts equal hate? Reasonable people can disagree about that, but what’s clear is that the definition of “hate” remains a deeply political question. Most groups engaged in political activity on contentious issues regularly face sharp criticism—conservative groups consistently demonize the SPLC, and gay-rights groups dole out the same to groups like the FRC—without becoming targets of actual violence. As Brian Levin put it, “Criticism can be a validator for what a violent person is going to do anyway, but that’s not grounds for curbing free speech.”
Whether or not one disagrees with the SPLC’s definition of hate, the FRC cannot wage an all-out rhetorical war against the “gay agenda” and then accuse its critics of being too harsh. On the culture-war battlefield, calling someone a “hate group” is a political move—and so is whining about it.