Hit-Piece Inspired by Fellow-Traveler SPLC
Hit-Piece Inspired by Fellow-Traveler SPLC
by Bill Lockwood
Journalism seems to have reached an all-time low with the recent hit-piece against Mat Staver and Liberty Counsel by Claire Galofaro of Associated Press. Staver is Kim Davis’ attorney, the Kentucky county clerk who refuses to have her name on same-sex marriage licenses because of the Bible’s teaching. Galofaro labels LC as a “hate group” twice in the article, quoting as her source the thoroughly discredited Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).
Liberty Counsel’s stand for limited government and Christian freedom has earned it the ire of the SPLC. Founded in 1971 by Morris Dees and Joseph Levin, Jr., the Montgomery, AL-based SPLC has labeled anyone who believes in biblical values—such as those opposed to abortion or homosexuality— as “purveyors of hate.” Since its inception, the pedigree of the SPLC has been communism. For instance, SPLC has for a long-time glowingly promoted the self-confessed communist Bill Ayers. Gabrielle Lyon of the SPLC gushed how wonderful is Bill Ayers with an article entitled, “An Unconditional Embrace.” She wrote, “Throughout his career as a civil rights organizer, radical anti-Vietnam War activist, teacher and author, Ayers has developed a rich vision of teaching that interweaves passion, responsibility and self-reflection.” Just makes one long to meet the one who has such a “rich vision” as to want to kill innocent Americans.
One of the SPLC’s board members, James Rucker, co-founded with communist Van Jones ColorOfChange.org and became a leader of STORM (Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement), an ultra-radical collective that declared its commitment to “revolutionary democracy, revolutionary feminism, revolutionary internationalism, the central role of the working class, urban Marxism and Third World Communism.” SPLC gives annually its “Roger Baldwin” award. Baldwin was a co-founder of the ACLU along with William Z. Foster, long-time head of the Communist Party, USA. Baldwin bragged, “I am for socialism…. I seek social ownership of property, the abolition of the propertied class, and sole control by those who produce wealth. Communism is the goal…. I don’t regret being part of the communist tactic. I knew what I was doing. I was not an innocent liberal. I wanted what the communists wanted and I travelled the United Front road to get it.”
One of the writers for SPLC is Chip Berlet who operates the Political Research Associates in Somerville, Massachusetts. Berlet at one time assisted the Socialist Workers Party and was a staff member for the National Lawyers Guild, which was described in a U.S. congressional investigation as the “foremost legal bulwark of the Communist Party, USA.” His articles have appeared in the communist Guardian newspaper of New York, as well as other communist-front groups.
As true with all communist or fellow-traveler organizations, the ignoble campaign of the SPLC is to smear any patriotic American who stands for limited government and liberty under God. Its hate “watch list” in 2014 included presidential candidate Ben Carson because he opposes homosexuality and socialistic ObamaCare. It has also maligned James Dobson, Beverly LaHaye, Dr. James Kennedy, David Barton, the American Family Association, Tony Perkins and his The Family Research Council, the NRA, and of course, all Tea Parties which are supposedly “shot through” with “racism.”
One of the worst slanders performed by the fear-mongering SPLC was to label Dr. Carol Swain, professor of political science and law at Vanderbilt University and member of the Tennessee Advisory Committee of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, as “an apologist for white supremacists” in 2009. Bizarre label for a conservative professor who happens to be black. But Dr. Swain spoke out against our open border policies and promptly made it to the communist “hate watch list.”
Predictably, Mat Staver and Liberty Counsel is in the cross-hairs SPLC for defending a lone woman in Kentucky who wishes to stand upon Christian principles. That an AP “journalist” would source her material to the SPLC illustrates the complete leftist partisanship role played by the media.