The far-left civil rights organization Southern Poverty Law Center has added the conservative Evangelical parachurch ministry Focus on the Family to its list of "anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups," joining similar organizations that advocate for traditional beliefs on sexuality and family.
The SPLC, with roots dating back to the Civil Rights Movement opposing white supremacist organizations but has long garnered controversy for including conservative Christian entities among its list of so-called "hate" groups, recently posted an entry on Focus on the Family in its "Extremist Files" section.
"Focus on the Family has long relied on its biblical worldview strategy to push back against LGBTQ+ progress and reproductive rights," reads the SPLC profile on the organization founded by Dr. James Dobson in 1977 to help Christian families thrive.
"The organization's online Daily Citizen demonizes LGBTQ+ people, claiming they are unnatural and un-Christian, and promotes anti-trans pseudoscience, such as conversion therapy that seeks to change their sexual or gender identities of LGBTQ youth."
Glenn T. Stanton, director of Global Family Formation Studies at Focus on the Family, told The Christian Post that he was "glad to be listed with so many other great organizations."
"To be honest, our reaction was 'What took them so long?'" he replied. "So many great organizations have been on their 'hate' list for so many years — Alliance Defending Freedom, Family Research Council, American Family Association and so many others."
"We are honored to be listed amongst them because the SPLC's list is really just a silly fundraising tool for them. … Them calling us names doesn't bother us at all."
Stanton believes the SPLC "[has] to create boogeymen to fundraise from," saying they are "using us in that way simply because of" the group's socially conservative views on marriage and family.
"We believe that male and female are objective realities," he told CP. "Marriage is about husbands and wives and family is about children being loved and cared for by their own mother and father. If you believe those things, you too can be on SPLC's 'hate' list."
The Christian Post reached out to the SPLC for this story. The organization did not return comment by press time.
Rising to prominence in the 1970s for its legal efforts against the Ku Klux Klan, the SPLC has since broadened its efforts to fight what it deems as rightwing "extremism" by listing many conservative Christian groups as "hate groups" for their opposition to the LGBT movement.
The SPLC's classifying of the Washington-based Family Research Council as a hate group came under fire in 2012 when a gay rights activist inspired by the SPLC entered FRC's headquarters and tried to kill the staff.
While denouncing the act of violence against the FRC, the SPLC also refused to remove the organization from their hate groups list, maintaining that their rhetoric still warranted the label.
From time to time, the SPLC has been known to remove individuals from their "extremist files" listing in response to considerable backlash.
For example, the SPLC removed accomplished neurosurgeon and conservative activist Dr. Ben Carson, an African American who served as the secretary for Housing and Urban Development during the first Trump administration, from its "extremist files" list in 2015. The group issued an apology for effectively lumping him in with white supremacists, Neo-Confederates and antisemites.
In March 2019, the SPLC fired its founder, Morris Dees, in response to multiple credible allegations of sexual misconduct and also claims of racist discrimination within the leftwing group.
