Should Americans for Truth be considered as a hate group?

First an observation - it's been days since One News Now has featured a slanted article on the lgbt community.

The magic is gone from our relationship!

Seriously though, yesterday on Pam's House Blend (where I also post blog entries), someone made an interesting comment about my Illinois Family Institute/Southern Poverty Law Center post:

When I lived in Illinois, it was Peter LaBarbera who headed IFI. I don't know what happened, but somehow, he was either told to leave or did it on his own. They then put David Smith in charge of the organization.

Laurie Higgins now writes the anti-Gay articles for the group. She and Smith have done a fine job of making the organization a hate group and they have truly and diligently earned that label.

Yet they now decry it. Well, if the shoe fits, wear it!

What miffs me most, however, is that LaBarbera, and his organization "Americans For Truth About Homosexuality" (AFTAH) has not been labeled a hate group.

It certainly has gone above and beyond what IFI has written in misleading statements of "facts." Yet SPLC has yet to label AFTAH as a hate group.

What gives?

Then another comment said the following:

LaBarbera left the IFI right after his abysmal failure at getting an anti-gay marriage referendum on the ballot in November 2006. It was advisory only-- Illinois does not have ballot initiatives like California.

I was one of many volunteers for Fair Illinois, the organization that verified the signatures on the petitions. Lots of forged signatures and non-existent people. I know this because we were connected to the actual voter registration database when we audited their work. It was a complete sham.

You are correct. Laurie Higgins is now part of their echo chamber. It's rather incestuous-- the IFI and AFTAH are each other's Boards. All they've got is each other.

Laurie Higgins is about as qualified to talk about gay men and women as Elaine Donnelly is about the military. A bunch of junk science by a pair of quacks.

I, too, wondered why AFTAH was not labelled a hate group too.

I have to ask a basic question here: Does the SPLC even know that AFTAH exists? And how do we nominate The Peter for this? (seriously)

Does anyone know?

So the basic question is should Americans for Truth be considered as a hate group?

According to SPLC:

Anti-gay groups are organizations that go beyond mere disagreement with homosexuality by subjecting gays and lesbians to campaigns of personal vilification.

Over the years, Americans for Truth and LaBarbera has done more than enough to fulfill this requirement. LaBarbera seems to have made it his life's work to attack and villify the lgbt community via campaigns of misinformation, lies, and out-and-out ugly commentary.

SPLC has talked about LaBarbera before:

Peter LaBarbera, head of the Illinois Family Institute and a discredited "researcher" whose work has been denounced by the American Psychological Association for producing bogus data (Editor's note - actually that is incorrect. It was Paul Cameron who was denounced by the American Psychological Association. However, LaBarbera freely cites Cameron's work) "proving" homosexual behavior is deleterious to health and welfare, called homosexuality "disgusting." LaBarbera, who "investigates" this lifestyle by hanging out in gay chat rooms, insisted that good Christians must "stand up to homosexual aggression" and stop using "that hoary euphemism" -- "sexual orientation." He called for the repeal of all "sexual orientation laws" -- laws that ban discrimination against gays -- because they violate religious freedom. He demanded the closing down of all "homosexual establishments." And he spoke of the "need to find ways to bring back shame to those practicing homosexual behavior."

SPLC would do well to, at the very least, investigate the anti-gay activities of Americans for Truth.

You can tell them your feelings about the situation by contacting them via here.