ABC Smears Religious Conservatives Using Partisan SPLC's 'Hate Group' Label
In an article shamelessly titled "Jeff Sessions addresses 'anti-LGBT hate group' but DOJ won't release his remarks," ABC uses an egregious label slapped on the Alliance Defending Freedom by the deeply partisan and increasingly wealthy and influential Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) to paint those who believe in the traditional view of marriage and sexuality as an "anti-LGBT" hate group.
ABC's use of the SPLC label to portray as "anti-LGBT" extremists those who push back against the Left's "sexual liberty" agenda and define marriage as between a man and a woman (in other words, define marriage in the same way Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama did a few short years ago) was noted by The American Conservative's Rob Dreher. The premise of the ABC hit-piece was based on the SPLC's "hate group" designation of the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian, pro-religious freedom legal group.
Here's the key passage from the story (emphasis added):
Attorney General Jeff Sessions delivered a speech to an alleged hate group at an event closed to reporters on Tuesday night, but the Department of Justice is refusing to reveal what he said.
Sessions addressed members of the Alliance Defending Freedom, which was designated an “anti-LGBT hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2016, at the Summit on Religious Liberty at the Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel, in Dana Point, California.
The event promised to “bring together prominent legal advocates, scholars, cultural commentators, business executives and church leaders to examine the current state of religious freedom” and “develop legal and cultural strategies to allow freedom to flourish in the United States and around the world.”