{"id":193416,"date":"2019-08-18T12:42:08","date_gmt":"2019-08-18T12:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=193416"},"modified":"2019-08-24T05:38:54","modified_gmt":"2019-08-24T05:38:54","slug":"the-southern-poverty-law-center-is-a-hate-based-scam-that-nearly-caused-me-to-be-murdered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=193416","title":{"rendered":"The Southern Poverty Law Center is a hate-based scam that nearly got me murdered"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jessica Prol Smith \u2013 USA Today Aug 17, 2019<\/h1>\n
\"\"<\/a>

SPLC campaign advert. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

I\u2019ll never forget the moment I learned we were on lockdown. It was Aug.15, 2012. My frustration mingled with fear. Trapped on the sixth floor, we knew someone had been shot. We knew we couldn\u2019t leave yet. We knew little else.<\/h5>\n
While I was missing lunch, a crime scene played out in the office lobby below me. My coworker and friend Leo wasn\u2019t armed, but he\u2019d played the quick-thinking and inadvertent hero, disarming a young man on a mission to kill me and as many of my colleagues as possible. The gunman had packed his backpack with ammo and 15 Chick-fil-A sandwiches \u2014 later admitting that he\u2019d planned to smear them on our lifeless faces as a political statement. Leo took a bullet in the arm but managed to disarm and hold the attacker until law enforcement arrived.<\/h5>\n
I wrote and edited for the Family Research Council, a public advocacy organization that promoted the principles I\u2019d cared about since childhood: protecting the family, promoting the dignity of every human life\u00a0and advocating for religious liberty. It reads like a tagline, but it\u2019s also just what I believed and the way I chose to match my career with my convictions.<\/h5>\n
I never expected that everyone would celebrate or share my beliefs. But I did expect to be able to discuss and debate these differences without becoming a political target in an act of terrorism, the first conviction under Washington, D.C.\u2019s 2002 Anti-Terrorism Act.<\/h5>\n

The Southern Poverty Law Center labeled us a “hate group”<\/h2>\n

It was the type of violent incident that one could expect a group that purportedly monitors \u201chate,\u201d like the Southern Poverty Law Center, to notice, research, and decry. In fact, we were on the center\u2019s radar but for all the wrong reasons. The assailant acknowledged later in FBI testimony that he had selected our office precisely because the SPLC had labeled my employer a \u201chate group.\u201d<\/h5>\n
It\u2019s always been easier to smear people rather than wrestle with their ideas. It\u2019s a bully who calls names and spreads lies rather than thoroughly\u00a0reading a brief\u2019s legal arguments or challenging the rationale underlying a policy proposal. The SPLC has chosen to take the easy path \u2014 to intimidate and mislead for raw political power and financial benefit.<\/h5>\n
For years, former employees revealed, local journalists reported\u00a0and commentators have lamented: the Southern Poverty Law Center is not what it claims to be. Not a pure-hearted, clear-headed legal advocate for the vulnerable, but rather an obscenely wealthy marketing scheme. For years, the left-wing interest group has used its \u201chate group\u201d list to promote the fiction that violent Neo-Nazis and Christian nonprofits peacefully promoting orthodox beliefs about marriage and sex are indistinguishable. Sometimes, it\u2019s apologized to public figures; it\u2019s smeared and recently paid out millions to settle a threatened defamation lawsuit.<\/h5>\n

The SPLC has its own\u00a0troubles<\/h2>\n

These shameful secrets are no longer hidden in shadows. The New York Times, Politico, NPR and a host of other mainstream publications are reporting on the corruption and widening credibility gap. The SPLC dismissed its co-founder, and its president resigned amidst numerous claims of sexual harassment, gender discrimination\u00a0and racism within the organization \u2014 a parade of disgraces that vividly force the conclusion: The SPLC is hollow, rotten\u00a0and failing at the very virtues it pretends to celebrate.<\/h5>\n
\"\"<\/a>

Jessica Prol Smith. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

The criticism comes from many corners. There\u2019s the Current Affairs editor who seems sympathetic to the center\u2019s progressive mission but decries its \u201chate group\u201d list as an \u201coutright fraud\u201d and a \u201cwillful deception designed to scare older liberals into writing checks to the SPLC.\u201d<\/h5>\n
There\u2019s the retired investigative journalist who helped research and write an eight-part series on the center\u2019s \u201clitany of problems and questionable practices\u201d in the mid-1990s. His Washington Post opinion piece reads with a thinly-veiled message:\u00a0We nearly got a Pulitzer Prize for TELLING YOU SO.<\/h5>\n
But perhaps most damning of all are the indictments leveled by former employee Bob Moser in The New Yorker. He remembers being welcomed to the \u201cPoverty Palace\u201d and recounts the heart-sinking reality of it all \u2014 being \u201cpawns\u201d in a \u201chighly profitable scam.\u201d<\/h5>\n
Jobs and years have passed, and I work now for Alliance Defending Freedom. ADF ranks among \u201cthe top performing firm(s]”\u00a0litigating First Amendment cases, the \u201cChristian legal powerhouse that keeps winning at the Supreme Court.\u201d And yes, my new employer has also attracted one of the SPLC\u2019s spurious hate labels. The label easily peels and fades away when one actually does the research and listens to truth before deciding to troll.<\/h5>\n

I won’t be intimidated by the SPLC<\/h2>\n

If the SPLC thought that their hate would intimidate or silence me and my colleagues, they\u2019re sadly mistaken. I\u2019m lucky \u2014 blessed, really \u2014 that I didn\u2019t take a bullet for my beliefs back in 2012. But the center\u2019s ugly slander and the gunman\u2019s misguided attack have sharpened my resolve and deepened my faith in my Savior, who commands my destiny and shields me from the schemes of man. The same is true for my colleagues.<\/h5>\n
Fifty-one years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., fell to an assassin\u2019s bullet. The SPLC pretends\u00a0to carry his legacy but weaponizes\u00a0hate labels instead. Unlike SPLC’s name-calling, Dr. King\u2019s words and vision stand the test of time. \u201cInjustice anywhere,\u201d he warned, \u201cis a threat to justice everywhere.\u201d<\/h5>\n
The SPLC, as an institution, has thoroughly disqualified itself as an arbiter of justice. But this country would be a better place if the center\u2019s donors, lawyers\u00a0and friends would truly believe and apply Dr. King\u2019s legacy \u2014 his peaceful pursuit of justice and his love of neighbor.<\/h5>\n
Jessica Prol Smith is senior news writer and editor for Alliance Defending Freedom. Follow her on Twitter: @JessicaProl<\/em><\/h5>\n

Source<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The truth about the SPLC emerges, as Jessica Prol Smith reveals it is rotten and failing at the very virtues it pretends to promote<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-193416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=193416"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193416\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":193423,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193416\/revisions\/193423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=193416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=193416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=193416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}