Dr. Ben Carson, the highly acclaimed brain surgeon and potential presidential candidate, is warning that America is approaching a point where “wrong is called right and right is called wrong.”
Carson was responding to the decision by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a well-funded civil-rights law firm known for its guilt-by-association tactics, to add him to its “extremist watch list.”
Carson said Monday the designation flips values upside down.
“When embracing traditional Christian values is equated to hatred, we are approaching the stage where wrong is called right and right is called wrong,” he said. “It is important for us to once again advocate true tolerance.
“That means being respectful of those with whom we disagree and allowing people to live according to their values without harassment. It is nothing but projectionism when some groups label those who disagree with them as haters.”
The “wrong is right” theme comes from the book of Isaiah: “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter.”
The Pulpit Commentary notes: “There are persons who gloss over evil deeds and evil habits by fair-sounding names, who call cowardice caution, and rashness courage, niggardliness thrift, and wasteful profusion generosity. The same men are apt also to call good evil; they brand prudence with the name of cunning, call meekness want of proper spirit, sincerity rudeness, and firmness obstinacy.
“This deadness to moral distinctions is the sign of deep moral corruption.”
WND reported SPLC’s reasoning was that Carson is “against” same-sex “marriage.”
The SPLC website states: “Ben Carson rapidly ascended as a far-right political star after publicly scolding President Obama, whom he sat a few feet away from, at a National Prayer Breakfast in February 2013. Carson’s reproach of Obama for his health care and tax policies went viral, unleashing a flood of adulation from right-wing media and hate groups.”
SPLC labels Carson “anti-gay” because of his statements about marriage.
The group cited this quote: “Marriage is between a man and a woman. It’s a well-established pillar of society and no group, be they gays, be they NAMBLA [North American Man/Boy Association, a group advocating pedophilia], be they people who believe in bestiality – it doesn’t matter what they are, they don’t get to change the definition.”
In an interview with Sean Hannity on the Fox News Channel March 26, 2013, Carson also said “if we can redefine marriage as between two men or two women or any other way based on social pressures as opposed to between a man and a woman, we will continue to redefine it in any way that we wish, which is a slippery slope with a disastrous ending, as witnessed in the dramatic fall of the Roman Empire.”
SPLC itself has been accused of being a hate group. It was one of several groups identified by a domestic terrorist as having inspired his attempt to murder Christians at the Family Research Council in a foiled armed attack in 2012.
Floyd Lee Corkin is serving a 25-year prison sentence for the attack that resulted in the wounding of an FRC security guard. A judge determined that it was an act of domestic terrorism after the shooter admitted he used SPLC’s hate map to identify FRC as a target. Corkins said his plan was to kill as many people at FRC as he could.
In 2012, a team of Christian activists, black pastors and Orthodox Jews called on SPLC, which bills itself as an organization “dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry,” to speak out against hate.
“The SPLC has moved from monitoring actual hate groups like the KKK and Neo Nazis to slandering mainstream Christian organizations with that very same ‘hate group’ label,” said Matt Barber, then vice president of Liberty Counsel Action, who attended a news conference held outside the group’s headquarters in Alabama. “By extension, the SPLC is smearing billions of Christians and Jews worldwide as ‘haters,’ simply because they embrace the traditional Judeo-Christian sexual ethic.”
Former Congressman Tom Tancredo has called SPLC a “dishonest left-wing outfit” whose officials “are extremists themselves.”
WND reported the FBI was utilizing SPLC as a “resource” on its website regarding hate crimes but then scrubbed it from the site.
It was at the Family Research Council in Washington that Corkins staged his attack on Christians. He later told investigators how he selected FRC as his target: “It was a, uh, Southern Poverty Law, lists, uh, anti-gay groups. I found them online. I did a little bit of research, went to the website, stuff like that.”
FRC said that when Corkins later pleaded guilty to a charge of domestic terrorism, SPLC “was connected in federal court in this first domestic terrorism conviction in Washington, D.C., under the post 9/11 law.”
“Floyd Corkins admitted his intention to ‘kill the people in the building and then smear a Chick-fil-A sandwich in their face,'” FRC explained. “The Southern Poverty Law Center has thus far refused to remove Family Research Council as a ‘hate group’ from its target map.”
Perkins said SPLC’s statements about FRC “gave license” to Corkins to attack.
“The Southern Poverty Law Center can no longer say that it is not a source for those bent on committing acts of violence,” Perkins said.
