The Obama Justice Department has stooped to a new low by teaming up with an organization of dubious credibility – the Southern Poverty Law Center – to combat domestic terrorism, says the leader of a Christian group that has felt the sting of the "civil rights" organization's political gamesmanship.
As WND reported, the announcement was made Wednesday by Assistant Attorney General John Carlin that the DOJ was creating a new division that would focus on investigating "extremists" of the home-grown variety. Carlin cited a study by a George Soros-funded foundation saying "right wing" extremism was more of a danger to America than Islamic terrorists and he applauded the SPLC's role in helping the government track these "extremist" groups.
It's ironic that the SPLC should be selected for this quasi-governmental role of determining who is a violent extremist when the organization itself provided the inspiration for a domestic terrorist attack against his organization, says Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council.
On Aug. 15, 2012, Floyd Corkins burst into the FRC office in Washington, D.C., armed with a pistol and a bag full of Chick-fil-A sandwiches. His mission that day was to kill as many FRC employees as possible and then "smother the faces" of each corpse with a Chick-fil-A sandwich. Corkins, a homosexual with a history of mental-health issues, had read on the SPLC website that Chick-fil-A and Family Research Council were "anti-gay" hate groups.
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"Don't look for justice to roll down like a river (Amos 5:24) at the DOJ here in Washington," Perkins wrote in an email alert Thursday. "Fueled by a radical agenda that heeds neither the law nor common sense, the Obama DOJ will stop at nothing to marginalize and silence the Americans it disagrees with -- a goal it shares with the disgraced Southern Poverty Law Center."
Watch the attempted slaughter by Corkins, captured on video.
Watch Corkins admitting that he was inspired to attack FRC by what he read from SPLC:
While it is true the founder of the Chick-fil-A restaurant chain, Truett Cathy, has voiced his belief in traditional marriage and that FRC also promotes the biblical view of marriage between a man and a woman, neither has ever advocated any "anti-gay" policies or violence of any sort against homosexuals, but it doesn't take much to get on the SPLC's list of hate groups, Perkins says. All it takes is to disagree politically with the SPLC's agenda.
Corkins was stopped that day in August 2012 by a brave security guard named Leo Johnson, who took a bullet to the arm while charging the shooter and disarming him. Corkins is now serving time in federal prison. He admitted to the court that he learned of the Family Research Council by reading the SPLC's annual "hate map," which is widely circulated among mainstream media outlets and reported on as fact.
And FRC is not the only mainstream conservative organization or person who has ended up on SPLC's list of so-called haters.
Dr. Ben Carson, a leading candidate for the GOP presidential nomination running second only to Donald Trump in the polls, was branded an "extremist" by the group for his views on marriage, Obmacare and Second Amendment rights. After a public outcry, SPLC retracted its "extremist file" on Carson and posted an apology but still maintained that his views "needed to be examined."
The SPLC also opened a "Hate Watch" file on popular conservative columnist Ann Coulter, calling her a "White Nationalist in the Mainstream" in a May 27, 2015 posting.
"While the rest of the government is more cautious about its involvement with the so-called 'civil rights' group, the DOJ continues to rush headlong into partnership with Richard Cohen's anti-Christian organization," Perkins wrote.
Wednesday, at George Washington University, that partnership "was on full display at a special address on domestic terrorism -- a topic the SPLC knows plenty about, having inspired the only case of it in D.C. since the law was adopted," he added.
But instead of using the SPLC as an example of the kind of extremism the agency is trying to prevent, Carlin heaped praise on the group for helping to end the very violence it's been linked to in federal court, Perkins said.
"While we continue to address this evolving international threat of violent extremists, we have not lost sight of the domestic terrorism threat posed by other violent extremists... Homegrown violent extremists can be motivated by any viewpoint on the full spectrum of hate," Carlin told his audience.
Carlin applauded the SPLC for being an "important voice on the wide range of extremist groups throughout this country."
SPLC president Richard Cohen then "lauded" the Justice Department for taking action against "domestic terrorism."
Perkins said the love-in between the DOJ and the SPLC is so outrageous that it would be comical if not so serious.
"Is he (Carlin) serious? Were it not for an ordinary man showing extraordinary courage, an activist bent on massacring an office of innocent people might have succeeded in gunning down dozens of people at FRC," Perkins wrote. "As prosecutors pointed out, this was no ordinary attack -- but an act spurred on by the SPLC's reckless 'hate' labeling. Now we're supposed to believe that this same organization, the one that inspired Floyd Corkins to walk into our building and shoot Leo Johnson, is a legitimate ally in the fight against domestic terrorism? A trusted source in identifying the homegrown threats?"
SPLC's own extremism is so dangerous that the FBI, Defense Department, and U.S. Army have all backed away from using the group as a reliable source, Perkins said, because they recognize that this "reckless labeling was a few rounds away from ending the lives of dozens of Christians."
Perkins said that for three years, his organization has called on the SPLC to stop targeting Christian conservative organizations and individuals.
"And despite the suffering and near casualties at FRC, SPLC refuses," he wrote. "Obviously, the DOJ sees no problem with putting countless Americans at risk simply for participating in the political process and advocating for public policy consistent with their orthodox Christian beliefs."
The SPLC has been paid more than $150 million in the past 20 years from advising law enforcement on conservative and libertarian "extremism."
Sharing the stage with an organization that sparks the very hostility the government wants to end, Carlin insisted that "The Department of Justice's highest priority is combatting terrorism, both international and domestic, and other threats to our national security in order to protect the American public..."
The SPLC, he said, "will be particularly valuable on this front."
Perkins said Carlin's statements should be taken as a warning to every freedom-loving citizen in America.
In essence, the Obama administration fired a shot across the bow, sending a chilling message to its political opponents, he said.
"Your rights to speak, believe, and even think independently are about to be severely tested."
Another conservative policy organization that has been targeted by SPLC is Liberty Counsel, which represents Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk who refused to issue same-sex marriage licenses because it violated her faith.
"By falsely and recklessly labeling Christian ministries as ‘hate groups,’ the SPLC is directly responsible for the first conviction of a man who intended to commit mass murder targeted against a policy organization in Washington, D.C.," said a Liberty Counsel report on the FRC shooting, WND reported.