Conservative groups to media: Stop citing Southern Poverty Law Center and its ‘hate map’
Conservative groups, including Tea Party Patriots, signed an open letter asking media outlets to stop using Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) data and its ‘hate map’ in reporting. Acting as an “attack dog of the political left,” the SPLC map depicts several mainstream conservative groups alongside actual hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis. This is disingenuous at best and deceitful at worst.
The Washington Times has the details:
“The SPLC is a discredited, left-wing, political activist organization that seeks to silence its political opponents with a ‘hate group’ label of its own invention and application that is not only false and defamatory, but that also endangers the lives of those targeted with it,” said the letter to “members of the media.”
They cited the 2015 shooting of a Family Research Council building manager in Washington, D.C., by gunman Floyd Lee Corkins, who said he was inspired to attack the organization after finding it on the SPLC’s “hate map.”
“We believe the media outlets that have cited the SPLC in recent days have not intended to target mainstream political groups for violent attack, but by recklessly linking the Charlottesville melee to the mainstream groups named on the SPLC website — those that advocate in the courts, the halls of Congress, and the press for the protection of conventional, Judeo-Christian values — we are left to wonder if another Floyd Lee Corkins will soon be incited to violence by this incendiary information,” the letter said.
The plea comes after CNN published last month the SPLC “hate map” under the headline, “Here are all the active hate groups where you live,” shortly after the violent rally led by white nationalists in Charlottesville, Virginia
Conservative groups have been lumped into the same category as actual hate groups, like the KKK and neo-Nazi groups, just because they don’t succumb to the same belief system as the radical left! The members of the media should see through this type of deception and should NOT use the discredited, radical SPLC as a source for reporting the news. If you’re tired of the mainstream media alongside the left trying to disrepute Conservatives and derail President Trump’s agenda, join us for the Tea Party DC rally this month!