Right Wing Ramps Up Campaign Against Southern Poverty Law Center

Religious Right groups and right-wing media outlets are waging an intensified campaign against the Southern Poverty Law Center, an Alabama-based organization that monitors and challenges extremist groups and hateful rhetoric. The latest salvo comes in the form of an open letter to the media written by the Family Research Council and Media Research Center and signed by 47 right-wing leaders and organizations. The letter characterizes the SPLC as “an attack dog of the political left” and urges media outlets to stop using SPLC data, lists and maps.

Religious Right groups have been furious at the SPLC since the organization decided several years ago to begin listing some of them as anti-LGBTQ hate groups. Religious Right groups rallied around the Family Research Council when the SPLC labeled it a hate group in 2010. Religious Right leaders complain that they are designated as hate groups simply for upholding “traditional” Christian teaching about marriage and sexuality, which the SPLC has repeatedly explained is not true.