In recent months, it seems that cowardly acts of mass violence have plagued the news cycle amidst the mounting financial crisis in Europe, domestic economic limbo, foreign policy nightmares, and topped off with a circus of a presidential election.
A crazed gunman opened fire in a crowded movie theater in Colorado, killing 12 and injuring 58 others. In Wisconsin, a neo-Nazi ex-soldier carried a 9mm handgun into a Sikh temple and remained silent as he murdered six fellow Americans in cold blood. And just last week, a man carrying bags of Chick-fil-A sandwiches entered the offices of the Family Research Council in Washington, shooting the building manager after a confrontation.
I would like to think these recent tragedies would give us the opportunity to pause and reflect on the effect that rampant vitriol has in our current political climate. Sadly, instead of reflecting, many have chosen to capitalize on the inevitable media sensationalism and throw blame on rivals, instead of the lunatics responsible for the loss.
The FRC has long been a mainstay among the conservative lobbying machine in Washington. Throughout its almost 30-year history, it has actively and aggressively opposed the expansion of basic rights to citizens through efforts to block reforms on abortion and LGBTQ rights, stem-cell research and pornography.
The FRC’s efforts against LGBTQ rights has become the organization’s sacred cow, allowing them to continually rally and fundraise from a loud base of supporters while drawing fire from a mainstream society who increasingly wonders why they care so much.
But the FRC’s history of bully-pulpit tactics, blatant lies and utter disregard for fact-based research earned them the label ‘hate group’ in 2010 by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a Montgomery-based civil rights organization focused on monitoring and prosecuting extremist groups.
After the shooting last week, FRC President Tony Perkins took to the airwaves of Fox News and attempted to make the ridiculous case that blame should be shared by both the shooters and the SPLC.
“[The shooter] was given a license to shoot an unarmed man by organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center that have been reckless in labeling organizations as hate groups because they disagree with them on public policy,” Perkins said.
However, Perkins and his colleagues at the FRC have repeatedly crossed the wide line between simple disagreement on public policy and spewing hateful, poisonous rhetoric that provides critical fuel to extremist mentality and mantra.
Mark Potok, a senior fellow at SPLC, responded at length to Perkins’ claims, calling them “outrageous,” and launched into a broader criticism of Perkins and troubling comments he and others at the FRC have made in the past.
“As the SPLC made clear … we criticize the FRC for claiming, in Perkins’ words, that pedophilia is ‘a homosexual problem’ — an utter falsehood, as every relevant scientific authority has stated,” Potok said. “An FRC official has said he wanted to ‘export homosexuals from the United States.’ The same official advocated the criminalizing of homosexuality.”
This malicious speech that is continually and unashamedly promulgated by the FRC is a clear example of the type of hate-centric ideology against which the SPLC fights. What is worse seems to be the audacity for groups like the FRC to use Christian fronts and biblical themes to promote terribly un-Christian and discriminatory agendas.
But perhaps the most staggering element of Perkins’ claim that the SPLC is to blame for the shooting, is Perkins’ failure to realize that, while the shooting was tragic and deplorable, countless members of the LGBTQ community are victimized, harassed, assaulted and even murdered on a daily basis. And many times at the hands of individuals fueled by the same false, malicious dogma held by Perkins and the FRC.
For this crucial reason, the SPLC is right in their continued designation of the FRC as a hate group, and, barring some road-to-Damascus-style epiphany, they should never be considered otherwise.
With each new tragedy, we seem to become more calloused to the true effects that bitter partisanship and rhetoric have on the health of our society. Yet, groups like the SPLC must also continue on a relentless mission to expose the truth behind organizations like the FRC, allowing the real blame to be shared among the actual perpetrators.
Austin Gaddis is a senior majoring in communication studies and public relations. His column runs on Wednesdays.
