The map is an interactive tool that tracks and displays locations of what the SPLC says are ‘hate’ groups.
The SPLC has been criticized for inciting violence through the map as evidenced by a terrorist targeting the Washington, D.C.-based Family Research Council in 2012 after finding it listed.
American Family Association has been on SPLC's hate list since 2014. Innocuous groups like Moms for Liberty and the Ruth Institute are included. But Glenn Stanton of Focus on the Family says, for some reason, his ministry has been left out of the club.
“What took them so long? We've been doing the work that we've been doing forever. So many great organizations have been on that list, and we're just delighted, now, to be counted among them,” he said. (See excerpt below from SPLC map)
Stanton is joking, of course, but the FRC incident is real and shows the dangerous potential of the SPLC’s rhetoric. The hate came from the armed attacker. An FRC security guard was shot but survived.
To date, such incidents are rare. The SPLC, though, believes hate is good for business.
“We see on the Left that the demand for hate outstretches the actual supply. You have all these fake race crimes and things like that that they have to start manufacturing them, and that is exactly what the Southern Poverty Law Center's list is,” Staton said.
Christian apologist Dr. Alex McFarland told American Family Radio that the Bible talks about groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center.
“You know, it's like Isaiah chapter 5 that says, 'woe to those who call good evil and evil good.' I mean, the SPLC is the personification of that.”
McFarland does have a solution to the problem, however.
“So, SPLC operatives, you need Jesus, and He's as close by as a prayer. Please get saved and stop your fight against truth and against God.”
