Homosexual Activist: “Hate Group” Charge Doesn’t Require “Hate”

On August 15, a gunman, apparently hostile to our positions on the issue of homosexuality, shot one of my colleagues in the lobby of the Family Research Council headquarters. In the wake of this attack, even liberal journalists,  such as Dana Milbank of The Washington Post and James Kirchick (named Journalist of the Year in 2007 by the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association), have called on the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and other homosexual activists to back off on their inflammatory labeling of FRC as an “anti-gay hate group.”

The SPLC refused. Since SPLC has doubled down on the “hate group” charge, FRC recently posted a brief response to some of the key charges made by SPLC in support of this defamatory label. At the end, the piece addressed what would seem to be the key issue with the following question and answer:

Does FRC “hate” homosexuals?

As a Christian organization, we have an obligation to love our neighbor — including our neighbors who experience same-sex attractions. However, we believe sexual acts between persons of the same sex are objectively harmful to those who choose to engage in them and to society at large, in addition to being forbidden by Scripture. Since the essence of love is to desire the best for a person and act to bring that about, we believe the most loving thing we can do is discourage such self-destructive conduct, rather than affirm it. We are happy to debate those who disagree with us regarding the harms of homosexual conduct, but there is no justification for anyone to impugn our motives with false labels such as “hate.”

One homosexual blogger (and regular critic of FRC) did a detailed critique of the FRC Issue Brief. To this final point, he emphasized that the SPLC “hate group” label is not because of our political positions, but because we support those positions by saying things which (they claim) are untrue.

After reiterating this SPLC definition of an “anti-gay hate group,” the writer then says the following:

Now whether or not FRC hates gays is irrelevant.

Say what?

“[W]hether or not FRC hates gays is irrelevant” (emphasis added) to the question of whether we are an “anti-gay hate group”?

I certainly appreciate the (implicit) concession that FRC may not, in fact, actually hate homosexuals at all.

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I think this statement — ”whether or not FRC hates gays is irrelevant” — is what lawyers call an “admission against interest.” It shows, quite clearly (albeit perhaps accidentally), that the “hate group” label is not meant to be a description of reality.

That label is, instead, a weapon — merely a tool to be used against certain pro-family groups to cut us out of the public debate on crucial issues. {snip}

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