Black pastors join antigay extremists in protesting inclusion on SPLC's hate group list

SPLC photo

Here's, in part, what the SPLC had to say about the protests outside its doors today:

The pastors spoke at a press conference staged outside the SPLC offices in Mont­gomery, Ala., by Americans for the Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH), which the SPLC lists as an anti-gay hate group... 

     “This has nothing to do with hate and tolerance,” said Peter LaBarbera, president of AFTAH. “It has everything to do with pro-gay politicking.”

     In fact, it has everything to do with hate and intolerance.

     Mark Potok, editor of the SPLC’s Intelligence Report and this blog, responded to the accusations: “Our listing of anti-gay hate groups is completely unrelated to religion, Christianity or the Bible. These groups are listed because they repeatedly lie in an effort to defame LGBT people, an exercise they’ve been extraordinarily successful at.

      The idea that we are criticizing these groups because they represent Judeo-Christian morality is simply ludicrous.”

     The SPLC does not identify anti-gay hate groups based on their religious views. Instead, the SPLC lists anti-gay groups on the basis of spreading known falsehoods and demonizing propaganda against LGBT people, such as the claim that gay men largely orchestrated the Holocaust.

     In 2007, LaBarbera claimed that there was “a disproportionate incidence of pedophilia” among gay men — a devastating accusation, but one that is entirely false, according to all the relevant scientific organizations