It’s interesting that the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) designated the Family Research Center (FRC) as a hate group and now sees no real distinction between them and the Aryan Nation groups. Unsurprisingly, the FRC has responded with fury. They point with righteous indignation to their recent political successes:

The Left’s smear campaigns of conservatives is also being driven by the clear evidence that the American public is losing patience with their radical policy agenda as seen in the recent election and in the fact that every state, currently more than thirty, that has had the opportunity to defend the natural definition of marriage has done so. Earlier this month, voters in Iowa sent a powerful message when they removed three Supreme Court justices who imposed same-sex marriage on the state. Would the SPLC also smear the good people of Iowa?

Yet, the SPLC didn’t focus on the debate over the appropriate definition of marriage. They focused on homophobic statements made by FRC officials. Specifically, they focused on statements made by Peter Sprigg and Tim Dailey.

Both Dailey and Sprigg have pushed false accusations linking gay men to pedophilia (see related story, p. 31): Sprigg has written that most men who engage in same-sex child molestation “identify themselves as homosexual or bisexual,” and Dailey and Sprigg devoted an entire chapter of their 2004 book Getting It Straight to similar material. The men claimed that “homosexuals are overrepresented in child sex offenses” and similarly asserted that “homosexuals are attracted in inordinate numbers to boys.”

More recently, in March 2008, Sprigg, responding to a question about uniting gay partners during the immigration process, said: “I would much prefer to export homosexuals from the United States than to import them.” He later apologized, but then went on, last February, to tell MSNBC host Chris Matthews, “I think there would be a place for criminal sanctions on homosexual behavior.” “So we should outlaw gay behavior?” Matthews asked. “Yes,” Sprigg replied. At around the same time, Sprigg claimed that allowing gay people to serve openly in the military would lead to an increase in gay-on-straight sexual assaults.

They also note that current FRC head Tony Perkins once paid over $80,000 for Klan chief David Duke’s mailing list and has made appearances before the Klan-related Council of Conservative Citizens. So, the designation of the FRC as a hate group is not based on their views on marriage, but on their propensity to pal around with white supremacists while spreading vile lies about gay behavior and calling for their deportation.

On the other hand, it’s hard not to see the designation as in some respects political in nature. The dealings with racist groups are quite old: those cited occurred in 1996 and 2001. While the outbursts of Peter Sprigg and Tim Dailey are not necessarily representative of the FRC, at least not as their ‘official’ positions. This does seem like a new development for the SPLC. They are expanding the scope of what they consider a hate group from what it has been historically. Here is how they justify it:

Generally, the SPLC’s listings of these groups is based on their propagation of known falsehoods — claims about LGBT people that have been thoroughly discredited by scientific authorities — and repeated, groundless name-calling. Viewing homosexuality as unbiblical does not qualify organizations for listing as hate groups.

And to expand on that:

SPLC Research Director Heidi Beirich told me the FRC is part of a growing list of what the SPLC calls anti-gay groups masking themselves under the guise of conservatism or Christianity.

“What this really is is a wholesale defamation attack on gays and lesbians,” Beirich said. “Some of the stuff is just as crude if you compare it to, say, the Klan’s racism. But a lot of it’s a little more sophisticated and they try to make it more scientific even though what they’re pushing are falsehoods.”

…As Beirich told me, there is no difference between the FRC and the KKK in the eyes of the SPLC now…

I asked her if a Republican choosing to address the FRC convention next year would be making the same choice as one who addressed an Aryan Nation rally.

“Yeah,” she told me. “What we’re saying is these [anti-gay] groups perpetrate hate — just like those [racist] organizations do.”

Ms. Beirich did clarify that she doesn’t think all supporters of the FRC are aware of or necessarily agree with the organization’s hateful anti-gay message and that they may be primarily attracted to their evangelical purpose. That distinction alone, it seems to me, makes it quite a reach to say that making a speech before the FRC is no different than making one before the Aryan Nation.

It’s pretty hard to get me to say a word in the defense of the Family Research Council but I don’t see them as in the same league as the Klan. But even if I see a bit of irrational exuberance and false equivalence here, that doesn’t mean that I disagree with the overall point, which is that the FRC is spewing lies that foster hate and that can lead to and be used to justify violence against gays. It goes beyond a mere disagreement about the proper legal definition of marriage.

Whether this will hurt the credibility of the SPLC as much as that of the FRC remains to be seen. It will certainly lead the right to make a loud and concerted effort to brand the SPLC as a purely political organization that serves the left. But, at the same time, politicians now have to consider whether they want to appear before a group that has been designated by the SPLC as a hate group. It should be remembered that the SPLC earned its sterling reputation by using civil law suits to all but destroy the Ku Klux Klan. That’s not a group and a reputation that you want to going up against.

My hope is that the SPLC doesn’t get marginalized and lose its moral authority over this, and that the FRC cleans up its act and polices itself better so that they are not allowing hate speech to get co-mingled with their political mission. I vehemently disagree with their positions on social issues, including gay rights, but I can distinguish between political differences and hate. Maybe this humiliating rebuke will get the FRC to make those distinctions better in the future.