Democrats, leftists rely on disgraced SPLC group to smear Speaker Mike Johnson

By Peter LaBarbera

Democrats, leftists and media opposed to new House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., are using the notorious, far-left group Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and its discredited “hate” designation to tar Johnson as being affiliated with a supposed “hate group,” which is actually a leading Christian conservative legal defense organization.

Johnson worked as an attorney for Alliance Defending Freedom, formerly the Alliance Defense Fund, which the SPLC has smeared as a “hate group” – mainly due to ADF’s longstanding opposition to homosexuality and the transgender agenda.

As Daily Signal reported Thursday, “Leftist groups and one of Johnson’s Democratic colleagues in the House noted his history as a lawyer with Alliance Defense Fund, now known as Alliance Defending Freedom. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which gained its reputation by suing Ku Klux Klan groups into bankruptcy, has branded ADF a ‘hate group,’ placing it on a ‘hate map’ alongside Klan chapters.”

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Democrat Representative Judy Chu, representing California’s 28th Congressional District, blasted Johnson on X Wednesday as he was on his way to being elected Speaker of the House. Her Oct. 25 X post stated: “MAGA Extremist Mike Johnson is not fit to lead the House of Representatives. He: – led efforts to overturn 2020 election, helping fuel the January 6 insurrection; – wants to criminalize abortions nationwide; – worked previously for an @splcenter[SPLC]-identified hate group.” Chu’s post was accompanied by a video of Johnson assailing Roe vs. Wade for leading to the loss of millions of future workers through abortion-on-demand:

The left-biased Guardian repeated the SPLC “hate” smear in its reporting on Johnson:

SPLC’s tactic of “designating” various conservative organizations as “hate groups” to advance the Left’s political and cultural narratives has come under withering criticism in recent years as many millions of Americans who follow conservative media and social media were educated on the group’s radicalism and highly political nature.

(Editor’s note: Years ago, this reporter’s organization, Americans For Truth, which opposes the LGBT agenda, was one of the first pro-family, socially conservative groups to be mislabeled a “hate” group by the SPLC. The leftist group’s “reporting” was so slipshod that in 2010 the author of one SPLC report mistook this writer for Paul Cameron, another socially conservative researcher whose first name also begins with “P.”)

If anything, despite the massive blowback in recent years against SPLC’s spurious “hate” designations, the Alabama-based “anti-hate” organization has only expanded its web of conservative organizations maligned as “hate groups.” For example, in the MSNBC interview below, SPLC CEO Margaret Huang discusses how the SPLC added “Mom For Liberty,” a national grassroots organization of moms (and dads) opposing leftist “critical race theory” and pro-LGBT and pro-transgender propaganda targeting young children in schools as a “hate” group:

Moms For Liberty co-founder Bridget Ziegler dismissed the SPLC labeling it and 11 other groups “anti-government extremist groups”: “Outside of it being a leftist attack, political hit job, there’s no credibility behind it. It’s truly laughable,” Florida-based Ziegler told USA Today in June. Ziegler is the chair of the Sarasota School Board.

USA Today reported: “In 2018 the SPLC paid $3.38 million and issued public apologies to Maajid Nawazan, an Islamic activist and the founder of the Quilliam Foundation, to avoid a defamation lawsuit after the SPLC labeled him and others as ‘anti-Muslim extremists.'”

Predictably, the dominant corporate media used loaded terms like “ultra conservative” to describe Johnson, the media watchdog group Media Research Center reports. In contrast, words like “ultra-liberal” are rarely used by “mainstream” journalists:

Left-watcher Andy Ngo sent out an X post Monday revealing the radicalism of the SPLC’s union, which in its own series of X posts Oct. 18 echoed radical Palestinian propaganda despite Hamas terrorists’ wanton slaughter of Israeli citizens:

Scarlett Johnson noted that the SPLC Union’s post stressed that Palestinian “lives matter,” but made no similar assertion for Israelis’ and Jewish lives, even though theirs had just been savagely brutalized and murdered by Hamas terrorists in their Oct. 7 slaughter of unsuspecting civilians:

Mike Johnson is Christian, pro-Trump, and Left calls him ‘raging homophobe’

The world's leading LGBT advocacy group, Human Rights Campaign, sent out this X post Wednesday denouncing Johnson:

Daily Signal reporter Tyler O'Neil offered this critical clarification of the HRC reference to the "trans"-activist propaganda term "gender-affirming care":

"Transgender activist groups use the term 'gender-affirming care' as a euphemism for experimental medical alterations with lifetime impacts to which critics say children cannot provide truly informed consent. The bill Johnson introduced, the Stop the Sexualization of Children Act of 2022, aims to prohibit the use of federal funds for 'any sexually-oriented program, event, or literature for children under the age of 10.' Johnson’s critics branded that a 'Don’t Say Gay' bill along the same lines that they demonized Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ bill expanding parental rights in education."

Capital Research Center, which specializes in researching the activist Left, described the dubious nature of SPLC's "hate" formula in a March report:

"SPLC is known for its Hate Map. It claims to have identified and exposed over 700 hate groups in America, many of which genuinely have hateful ideologies. Still, on closer look, more than a few of these hate-group designations are dubious, to say the least. For example, it labeled the American College of Pediatricians as a hate group. According to the SPLC,

'The American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds) is a fringe anti-LGBTQ hate group that masquerades as the premier U.S. association of pediatricians to push anti-LGBTQ junk science, primarily via far-right conservative media and filing amicus briefs in cases related to gay adoption and marriage equality.'

​"In reality, the ACPeds is a national group of pediatricians that lend their qualified voices to all issues dealing with children’s health and wellness. The SPLC has labeled them 'anti-LGBTQ' because they have highlighted the alarming data and dangers of specific gender-affirming care for transgender children in America. 'The American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds), a professional medical association, calls on organizations to reconsider current protocols for gender dysphoric children based on newly published data.' That sounds more like a group of doctors with legitimate concerns than a hate group."

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Peter LaBarbera

Peter LaBarbera is a former reporter for the Washington Times and LifeSiteNews.com, and a former contributing editor for Human Events. He is the founder of AmericansForTruth.org, which exposes LGBT extremism. His reporting was instrumental in passage of a federal law barring U.S. taxpayer funding of any international group with pedophile ties. A former editor for Family Research Council and Accuracy in Media, he and his wife of 34 years are the proud parents of five children. Read more of Peter LaBarbera's articles here.


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