Southern Poverty Law Center Bias

The Southern Poverty Law Center is highly respected in many circles. It identifies and catalogs many suspected hate sites and organizations, or at least what it considers to be hate sites and organizations. Many of its targets deserve to be on their list, such as the KKK, Neo Nazis, etc. The Nation of Islam is rightfully on their lists as is the LA-based La Voz de Aztlan, which I have mentioned here on my site.

Yet there seems to be an ideological slant to the SLPC lists that indicates that this is a left of center organization. The Family Research Council, which is on that list, has an interesting report on how one shooter got his target (FRC) off the SPLC site.

http://news.yahoo.com/fbi-video-family-research-council-shooter-admits-used-141041463.html

If you examine the SPLC site and their lists of haters, not only do you find the Family Research Center, ("anti-gay"), but  also The United West in Florida, a site devoted to exposing radical Islam, but in no way against Muslim people (I myself have been associated with this group at different times), as well as groups that are against illegal immigration, gay marriage and various other  issues. (For the record, the FRC has made statements about the nature of homosexuality that I do not agree with. Nor do I agree if one of their spokesmen thinks homosexual acts should be illegal. I am going by what is on their Wikipedia page.)

I also note that the categories of hate assigned to groups are curiously worded. Anti-Jewish groups or anti-white groups are labeled as "general hate" (Voz de Aztlan) or "black separatist" (Nation of Islam). Anti-illegal immigration groups as labeled "anti-immigrant". Anti-jihadist groups are "anti-Muslim". As-Sabiqun, a radical Islamic group, of which Abdul Alim Musa and Amir Abdel Malik Ali are prominent figures, is "general hate", as is the New Black Panther Party.

In addition, there is a link to "Hate Watch Blog". Go to that link and the sub-heading is "Keeping an Eye on the Radical Right.". There is no similar link to the radical left. In addition, the link has an article written in the wake of the Boston bombing talking about all the assumptions coming from people like Pam Geller that the attack must have been Islamic terror. Nothing is said about the mainstream media rush to blame it on Tea Partiers, right-wing militiamen, or tax protesters, all of which turned out to be wrong. Whatever Geller said before the attackers were identified, the fact is that it turned out to be at least two jihadists. (I withheld speculating until they were identified.) A look at the stories SPLC highlights clearly illustrates which causes they favor.

What is pretty obvious here is that the SPLC has an ideological bias. Certainly, they would be laughed out of town if they neglected to include the Nation of Islam and other organizations I mentioned above. However, they have a way of categorizing the type of hate associated with these groups that downplays anti-white, or anti-Jewish focus. In fact, you have to search the individual profiles to find the details of anti-Jewish, anti-white rhetoric and action. It is also wrong to label someone who is anti-gay marriage as being "anti-gay", which implies they want to bash gays as people. Similarly, to advocate tighter border control and illegal alien enforcement is hardly "anti-immigrant". To speak out against the jihadist movement, sharia law, Islamic terror, and Islam's own record of hate and persecution does not make one "anti-Muslim", a distinction I have been careful to make in my own writings.

The SPLC has taken up many worthwhile civil rights causes. They are tainted, however, by their ideological bias, which discredits them greatly in my view. I also think they have very loosely and carelessly applied the term "hate' to several undeserving individuals and organizations.