WASHINGTON – In 2012, Floyd Lee Corkins II walked into the Family Research Council’s offices in Washington, D.C., with a gun and the intent to kill as many people as possible.
He later told the FBI he targeted the Family Research Council because the Southern Poverty Law Center had included FRC on its list of “hate groups.”
After the deadly clash in Charlottesville on Saturday, CNN published a feature about hate groups operating across the country accompanied by a map produced by SPLC. It was the same list Corkins used.
SPLC’s list includes organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan, black-power groups and neo-Nazis, but many are mainstream groups designated only because they support age-old views of marriage and family held by Democrats and Republicans alike.
Here are some of organizations SPLC regards as “hate groups,” which in the current climate could be targets of the kind of attack suffered by FRC.
Family Research Council: According to its website, FRC’s “vision is a culture in which all human life is valued, families flourish and religious liberty thrives.”
“Family Research Council’s mission is to advance faith, family and freedom in public policy and the culture from a Christian worldview.”
Since 1983, FRC has advocated pro-life policies and traditional, Christian views on marriage and the family, as well as religious liberty. SPLC mentions FRC’s opposition opposition to same-sex marriage, which captured the attention of Corkins, who intended to shoot and kill employees and smear Chick-Fil-A sandwiches in the faces of their dead bodies. Corkins was stopped by security guard Leo Johnson, who was wounded in the attack.
Alliance Defending Freedom: When Attorney General Jeff Sessions spoke to ADF in July, ABC, NBC and other media outlets dubbed ADF a “hate group,” citing SPLC.
In courts across the nation, ADF defends religious liberty, promotes pro-life causes and supports the traditional family.
ACT for America: Act for America focuses on helping Americans understand the threat of radical Islam to the nation’s security.. The group says it’s “committed to recruiting, training, and mobilizing citizens community by community to help protect and preserve American culture and to keep this nation safe,” <a href= “http://www.actforamerica.org/aboutact”according to its website. Some of its specific issues are energy independence, securing the border, protecting the Constitution and standing with Israel.
The ACT for America website goes to great lengths to distinguish between “radical Islam” and “moderate Muslims”, saying “ACT for America has never, and will never, tolerate any bias, discrimination, or violence against anyone, based on their religion, gender, race, or political persuasion.” The group says the “freedom to practice one’s religion in peace is afforded to each of us by the U.S. Constitution and we will defend it vigorously. … We stand shoulder to shoulder with peaceful Western Muslims and peaceful Muslims worldwide. … Anyone who traffics in prejudice, or advocates violence in any way towards our moderate Muslim allies does not speak on behalf of ACT for America. Should our organization find out that such beliefs have been propagated by one of our members or anyone claiming to be associated with ACT for America, we will terminate any relationship with such person, group or entity, and disavow them.”
Nevertheless, SPLC has labeled Act for America an “anti-Muslim hate group.”
Center for Immigration Studies: CIS is a non-partisan research group whose mission is “providing immigration policymakers, the academic community, news media, and concerned citizens with reliable information about the social, economic, environmental, security, and fiscal consequences of legal and illegal immigration into the United States.”
But SPLC calls CIS an “anti-immigrant hate group” for statements such as “many of our researchers conclude that current, high levels of immigration are making it harder to achieve such important national objectives as better public schools, a cleaner environment, homeland security, and a living wage for every native-born and immigrant worker.”
CIS also describes itself as “low-immigrant, pro-immigrant.” It says “data may support criticism of US immigration policies, but they do not justify ill feelings toward our immigrant community.”
