The Illinois Family Institute and Paul Cameron again

The Illinois Family Institute continues to throw humorous tantrums about being designated as an official hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

IFI was given this designation because it apparently uses the discredited work of Paul Cameron.

In the latest screed on Opposing Views, IFI member Laurie Higgins talks about a conversation she had with Mark Potok of the SPLC over this designation:

Mr. Potok stated in his voice message that we, IFI, "publish and promote the work of a man named Paul Cameron." This grossly misrepresents the nature of our involvement with Cameron's work. It suggests that we regularly or continually publish and promote the work of Cameron, when, by Potok and Beirich's own admission, we published only one brief article.

More troubling yet, this one article contained no statements remotely like those that Mr. Potok articulated in his voice message: "gay men are, something like, 20 times more likely to molest children" or that "they're so sickly and, ya know, sorta do such terrible things."

Mr. Potok then digs himself in even deeper when he says on tape that it is the SPLC's view that "the Illinois Family Institute promotes these (emphasis mine) complete falsehoods." "These" is a demonstrative pronoun referring back to the statements he just made. The problem is that he is suggesting that IFI promotes falsehoods that the SPLC's own evidence proves we did not promote. The SPLC's own evidence is the one three-year-old article that did not include any references to "child molestation," or "sickly homosexuals sorta doing terrible things." Mr. Potok was either stunningly careless with his rhetoric or deliberately manipulative.

I also explained to Mr. Potok that the one article from three years ago contained no hate rhetoric, and that it alone cannot possibly justify labeling IFI a hate group. I told him that simply quoting a source once does not mean that an organization supports or endorses everything that a source says or does.

The point is not a specific article by Cameron. The point is that his research tactics are extremely suspect. And while the article may not have had "hate rhetoric" per se, it creates an inaccuracy about lgbts - that we have a short life span.

This inaccuracy is no different than distorting FBI crime statistics to claim that African-Americans on the whole are a violent people.

Regardless of what Higgins says, when an organization cites a source, the organization is supporting that source. The organization is saying that the source is credible.

And an organization that cites Paul Cameron is saying that he is a credible source for information despite the fact that he has been rebuked and censored by several different groups including Exodus International (yeah, I can't believe it either), the American Psychological Association, and the American Sociological Association.

What Higgins is trying to do is have it both ways.

If she and the IFI really care about the SPLC's designation (as well as truth and accuracy), they would take steps to remove the material from IFI's webpage, or at least investigate the claims about Cameron - which, by the way, the group has said it would do.

When you are two-faced, it's best not to speak out of both your mouths. You reveal your duplicity.

And yet, this is the group that is helping to sponsor the Day of Silence Walk out in defense of "Christian values."

Who knew Christian values included lying and evasion?