Family Research Council desperate to smear Southern Poverty Law Center

Tony Perkins of FRC

In the midst of the happy news involving Michigan, I would it would be remiss of me to lose myself in the reverie that I forget what's going on in other places.

Most specifically, the Family Research Council - and an ally in Hawaii - is stepping up its program of revenge against the Southern Poverty Law Center.

 In 2010, SPLC named FRC as an anti-gay hate group for consistenly and deliberately launching inaccurate attacks against the lgbt community. Since then, FRC has been bouncing around several ways to answer the charges from claiming that pride to be called a hate group, to complaining that SPLC is attempting to censor them for their so-called Christian values and belief that "marriage is between a man a woman," to falsely linking the group to an awful near massacre at FRC headquarters(in which a deranged young man, Floyd Corkins, attempted to force his way in, shoot FRC employees, and stuff Chick-Fil-A sandwiches down their throats.

Now it would seem that FRC has settled down to one direct path - good old fashioned revenge.

Earlier this month, FRC began pushing a false story that supposedly SPLC was bribing Hawaii's teachers to participate in its Teaching Tolerance workshop. Initially, FRC complained about a stipend given to teachers who participated in the workshop.   However that complaint died when it was discovered that teachers were paid this stipend ($159) because the second day of the workshop was on a Saturday, when they would normally not be at work.

So on Friday, FRC focused more attention on the second complaint it had about the workshop:

You may remember earlier this month when local reporters exposed SPLC for paying off teachers to attend their weekend workshop on a far-Left curriculum called Teaching Tolerance." Chock-full of pro-homosexual propaganda, the program aims to infiltrate the classroom with its controversial messages of sexual extremism and so-called "anti-bias" talking points. To entice teachers to actually utilize their materials with kids, SPLC offered another kickback -- worth $250 -- if those educators created lesson plans and agreed to be observed implementing one.

Please note FRC's dishonest language. No one was "exposed" or "paid off." And the semantic language FRC uses to describe the program speaks for itself. The organization makes it sound like teachers are being paid to "recruit" children into homosexuality.

If you ask me, it gives the indication that SPLC was correct to label this organization as an anti-gay hate group.  Here is how an objective newspaper, Hawaii News Now, describes the supposed "kickback:"

Those teachers were also eligible for another $250 stipend from the Southern Poverty Law Center, if they implemented and submitted one lesson stemming from what they learned at the workshop, wrote up five implementation logs and agreed to be observed teaching the anti-bias material in the classroom.   

But that's not the clincher of this entire situation. FRC is working with a Hawaii legislator, Bob McDermott, to not only supposedly expose the Teaching Tolerance program but to harm SPLC itself. In addition to complaining Teaching Tolerance program to the Department of Education, McDermott is also asking the Alabama State Bar Disciplinary Commission to investigate SPLC's top executives.

Just so you know, McDermott is a sort of a laughing stock in Hawaii because of his need to overstate his opposition to sexual education programs. Apparently, he is obsessed with gay sex to such a point that earlier this year, he held a press conference complaining about a Department Of Education Sex Education Program because it, according to him, focused too much on anal sex.

However, with regards to his complaint about the Alabama State Bar Disciplinary Committee, McDermott, which I think he did at the urging of FRC, things are becoming more clear about the anti-gay hate group designation given to the Family Research Council by the Southern Poverty Law Center. In spite of any of the organization's claims to the contrary, it is hurting them big time, most likely when it comes to credibility. After all, if it wasn't, then why is FRC going through all of this trouble to smear the Southern Poverty Law Center?

Related posts:

16 reasons why the Family Research Council is a hate group

Family Research Council creating false hysteria about SPLC program in Hawaii

Anti-gay group Family Research Council continues silly vendetta against the Southern Poverty Law Center

Family Research Council ally against SPLC has odd history of 'attacking' anal sex