Editorial: Scandal-Ridden SPLC’s Flimsy Charges Against C-Fam

By | April 19, 2019

WASHINGTON DC, April 19 (C-Fam) In the summer of 2013, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) placed C-Fam on its hate-list, alongside the KKK, and Aryan Nations.

As SPLC comes under increasing criticism from a broad-range of critics – for sexism, racism, and fraud – it is timely to revisit the charges made by SPLC against C-Fam in 2013.

First, SPLC said at the time they made repeated requests for comment from us. We never received a single request. When we asked Heidi Bereich for a copy of an email requesting such a comment from us, she couldn’t produce a single one.  Bereich is in charge of the SPLC hate-list that even leftists have criticized as partly phony.

SPLC accused us of supporting a law in the country of Belize that criminalized genital contact between men. While it is true, we were invited by the government and others to advise them during this debate, our intervention was limited exclusivelyto the question of whether international law requires Belize to change its laws on sodomy. At the time, the International Law Commission was telling the government that international law requires the legalization of sodomy. Based on our longtime expertise in the development of international law, we told them there was no such legal obligation. In short, SPLC charged us with hate for advising our client on a point of international law they disagreed with. As an organization, we have never taken a position either for or against laws on sodomy.

SPLC said we “decried a global study of violence against LGBT people.” Like the Belize charge, this is utterly false. In a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference I explained that the report was less about violence than a political initiative to introduce the term “sexual orientation and gender identity” into the UN debate so as to create a new category of nondiscrimination through the repetitious use of the term in nonbinding UN documents. In fact, we would welcome a debate in the General Assembly about including “sexual orientation and gender identity” as a new category of protection in international law. Let’s have an open and honest debate.

We were also charged with “lauding” a man named Scott Lively, an American pastor who has been active in organizing Africans with regard to the homosexual question. He is charged with leading efforts to enact the death penalty for homosexual behavior in Uganda. Far from ever “lauding” Scott Lively, we threatened to pull out of a global conference because of his presence on the planning committee. Lively is a convenient boogey man used by the left, and he has no more influence on African law and policy than the man in the moon. So, no, we have never “lauded” Scott Lively. It should be pointed out that we as an organization oppose all draconian laws against homosexual behavior.

One of the oddest charges made by SPLC against C-Fam, is that we work with Muslims groups and Muslim nations on issues related to homosexuality. What is odd is that SPLC considers working with Muslims a problem, even “hateful.” Does this make SPLC guilty of Islamophobia? Should SPLC place itself on its own hate list? In fact, C-Fam works with a broad range of countries and organizations at the United Nations, including Muslim nations.

These were the flimsy charges of hate made against C-Fam in 2013. These are the charges SPLC says proves we are an “active hate group.” Had they made a real effort to talk to us, perhaps they would have come to a different conclusion, but I doubt it. Why? Because SPLC is a highly suspect, even dishonest, source of reporting on such issues.

Mark Potok, SPLC’s chief spokesman, let the veil drop not long ago when he was caught on video telling donors what SPLC is really up to, “Sometimes the press will describe us as monitoring hate crimes and so on…. I want to say plainly that our aim in life is to destroy these groups, to completely destroy them.”

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