The Southern Poverty Law Center was, perhaps, once a civil rights organization. Then extremists spent its core assets – in this case, SPLC’s good word and reputation – until they were gone. SPLC now routinely mislabels conservative and/or Christian groups as so-called “hate groups”, emptying the term of meaning and making the SPLC a bad joke.

Most famously, SPLC mislabelled the Family Research Council a “hate group” for its stance against gay marriage, and in 2013 that prompted an attempted mass-murder by a gay activist, Floyd Lee Corkins II.

SPLC is still going. Most recently, they mislabelled the D. James Kennedy Ministries:

I’m sure to oppose much of the rhetoric and positions of the DJKM, the FRC and others. Heck, I may even think they’re stupid and wrong, while I’m right. But they aren’t hate groups, until and unless they’re inciting physical violence and/or condoning criminals. And they aren’t.

The DJKM plan to fight back with a defamation suit. It will be interesting to see how it goes. I expect it to fail; “that’s our opinion” is a workable defense in many instances, and many in the law profession have a blind spot for the SPLC.

But I didn’t think Trump would win, either. The SPLC seems to assert as fact that the DJKM promotes “hate”. The SPLC’s claims then get repeated by the official media (minus Fox). DJKM lawyers will have to define objectively what it is to promote “hate”, then get the court to evaluate SPLC’s claims and intentions there. Who knows, they just might?