By Sarah Holliday

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) continues to march on its self-paved path of defining morality. They seem to think they’re the ultimate judge of what’s right and wrong, with an infamous reputation for smearing the names of those who engage in conservative work. For instance, the most recent expansion to the SPLC’s annual “Year in Hate and Extremism” report, released last Tuesday, involves anyone who opposes gender transition operations for children.

Despite mountains of evidence that “gender-affirming care,” which includes the hormones, surgeries, and puberty blockers given to trans-identifying individuals, is extremely harmful for children (and people of all ages), the SPLC remains fixed on distorting the truth. If you care about sparing children from permanent bodily harm that results from cutting off healthy body parts and taking experimental medicine, then you’re guilty of partaking in “the danger of hate and extremism,” according to SPLC President and CEO Margaret Huang.

But in unpacking what SPLC has to say about the hateful extremists in the world, let’s remember the words of the prophet Isaiah when he wrote, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and shrewd in their own sight!” (Isaiah 5:20-21).

There are roughly “1,430 hate and antigovernment extremist groups that comprise the organizational infrastructure upholding white supremacy in the U.S.,” according to SPLC. As the group states, “The report chronicles trends in hard-right activity, not simply as a reality check, but as a tool to act alongside those working to prevent radicalization and counter white supremacy, disinformation and false conspiracies in 2024.” Let’s take a deeper look at their report.

Some of the categories of “hate groups” the report highlighted are “White Nationalist,” “Anti-Immigrant,” “Hate Music,” “Christian Identity,” “Catholicism,” “Radical Traditional,” and “Male Supremacy.” However, this year’s edition expanded its “Anti-LGBTQ” category, which now includes groups who oppose “gender-affirming care” for minors, such as organizations like Family Research Council and medical professionals alike. In fact, The Daily Signal’s Tyler O'Neil noted “most of the increase in its count of ‘anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups’ comes from” the inclusion of groups and individuals such as these. And what do they all have in common? According to O'Neil, “These groups don’t support ‘hate,’” as the SPLC suggests, “they merely oppose the SPLC’s agenda.”

O'Neil put it well when he wrote that the SPLC’s decision to sound the alarm on those who want to protect children from harmful gender ideology is another example of “it … ratcheting up the alarmist rhetoric and demonizing Americans who dare to dissent from its transgender agenda.” He added that “many brave doctors have spoken out against” the dangerous experimental procedures only to “find themselves on a map with the [Ku Klux] Klan in a report on ‘white supremacy.’” Some of the medical groups now on SPLC’s “hate watch” list are Do No Harm, Partners for Ethical Care, and the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine.

This year’s report even includes Gays Against Groomers, which is an openly homosexual group. Because they exist to prove “not all people who identify as LGBTQ+ support sexual lessons and events geared toward kids,” the SPLC has seemingly turned on its own. Indoctrinating innocent children is just that important to them. But then again, this is the same group that believes “drag performs an important role in American democracy.”

 Ironically, The Washington Times exposed the fact this new list of hate groups “excludes organizations that have demonstrated against Israel and Jews, among them those who celebrated the Oct. 7 slaughter of Israelis by the terrorist organization Hamas, promoted antisemitism and anti-Zionism and received funds linked to Hamas.” In other words, among the 200 organizations added, groups such as Students for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace, the Palestinian Youth Movement, and The Escalate Network, all of whom support terrorism and have promoted acts of violence, were not considered hateful or extreme.

David Closson, FRC’s director of the Center for Biblical Worldview, shared with The Washington Stand how these developments are ultimately “unsurprising” — even as they add the openly gay group to their hate map. “The SPLC has proven that if you are not in lockstep with them on every single issue,” Closson emphasized, “they view you as a pariah and seek to discredit you and drive you from the public square.”

He added, “The SPLC’s bullying tactics are not new, and yet, it is somewhat ironic to see them turn on their own. But once again, the SPLC has proven that if you don’t agree with them on everything, they view you as outdated, subversive, and dangerous.” Most Christians, Closson noted, likely stopped paying attention to the SPLC a long time ago. But even though the SPLC’s continued trend of intolerance towards Christian and conservative worldviews is not shocking, it continues to have damaging consequences.

Not only do they actively slander the names of admirable groups and people, but they also make them targets of ill-willed individuals. Closson recalled, “Those of us at Family Research Council remember the attack in our Washington, D.C. headquarters in 2012,” where a gunman came inside with the intent to murder as many employees as he could. This, Closson said, “was fueled in part by the SPLC’s hate map.”

Even so, the SPLC will likely continue to be the SPLC we know it to be, even though, as Closson noted, they were initially “founded for praiseworthy ends decades ago.” They’ve now been discredited, and believers and conservatives alike do not have to fear their façade of intimidation. Not to mention the fact that, for Christians specifically, this form of hatred is nothing we have to be stunned by. Closson highlighted John 15 and 16 where Jesus told the disciples “that they should expect persecution for following Him.” Really, it’s no different for the church today.

“For 2,000 years,” Closson explained, “Jesus’s words have proven prophetic that those of us who claim the name of Christ will be belittled, will be bullied, and will encounter hardship and persecution for our faithfulness to Jesus.” As such, it would seem the SPLC merely “follow a long list of characters who have persecuted the church and faithful Christians.”

Sarah Holliday is a reporter at The Washington Stand.