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04/22/2010
Andrea Lafferty's inability to pinpoint truth: SPLC edition
In addressing the fact -- THE.FACT! -- that her organization, the Traditional Values Coalition, is one of only twelve groups on the Southern Poverty Law Center's list of active anti-gay hate groups, Andrea Lafferty is again doing the thing for which she is best known. That is: She's taking something that is tangibly, demonstrably, easily refutable, but just going ahead and overlooking the concrete data set in order to justify her role as one of America's self-appointed condemners or LGBT equality.
We've of course most prominently seen A-Laf do this sort of thing with the concept of sexual orientation, where she regularly says that there are anywhere from thirty to hundreds of different paraphilias (like sex with an amputees stump, feces play, etc.) that science considers to be an orientation, despite the fact that credible science doesn't say anything close to this. In fact, we're shocked that she doesn't include her own ability to make these ludicrous claims wit ha straight face on her list of orientations!
Now, however, Andrea is operating independent of actuality as it pertains to her own outfit's placement within American politics. She says:
The best [Dr. Jillian Weiss] and his [sic] allies can do to defend ENDA is trying to link Traditional Values Coalition as a hate group. In his [sic] argument against TVC, Weiss brings up the red herring that our organization is listed as a “hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).
This leftist group has also listed Rep. Michele Bachmann (MN), and Fox News hosts Glenn Beck and Judge Andrew Napolitano as “haters.” SPLC has gone after Latin Mass Catholic groups as being haters. TVC nor any of these individuals are on any FBI watch list as dangerous to society.
This charge is supposed to carry some sort of credibility among leftists, but the fact is that the SPLC is long known to be a leftwing hate group that smears any organization opposed to liberalism, illegal immigration or the LGBT agenda. Suggesting the SPLC has any credibility is as absurd as quoting members of the Flat Earth Society.
The SPLC can’t seem to locate leftist hate groups. They don’t list the Communist Party, USA, the Workers World Party, Code Pink, MoveOn.org, Daily Kos, the Huffington Post, People for the American Way or other leftist groups as spewing hatred from their web sites or from their leaders. Several of these groups openly seek the violent overthrow of our nation.
The SPLC is the group that wrote a memo used by Obama’s Homeland Security Department claiming that veterans and pro-lifers were dangerous to national security.
Actually, it is a badge of honor for TVC to be listed by the SPLC as a “hate group.” It proves we’re effective in challenging liberalism, socialism, and the LGBT agenda.
‘Transgender’ Man [sic] Attacks TVC [Andrea Lafferty's blog]
Okay, so it's all far-right whateverness. Typical. But where's the deep and unrestrained lie? Well, first and foremost: In her wholly inaccurate assessment of the SPLC's monitoring work. Yes, the tolerance education organization is known to cover all kinds of people who are pushing what they see as discrimination. For thirty-nine years, they've earned an honored reputation for doing exactly that. So uh huh, true, they have made mention of things that Bachmann or Beck or whoever has said, just as we and a whole host of other groups (even Republican ones) have. And just as TVC has about other folks, both progressive and conservative and everywhere in between, who have said or done something that they find out of line. Fighting what we see as the good fight is what this whole crazy game is all about.
But, but, but, but, but, but, but: When it comes to the SPLC's mapping of what they deem to be hate groups, they have limited that scope to only those groups who've met a certain threshold, broken down into categories of which anti-gay is one of the smallest. Very few of the groups that we regularly challenge are on that list. Not the American Family Association. Not Focus on the Family. Not the Family Research Council. Not Peter LaBarbera's Americans For Truth (although AFTAH is on a separate list of anti-gay sites, and Pete's former group, the Illinois Family Institute was on the SPLC list under his watch). In fact, as it now stands, MassResistance, Westboro Baptist (who has actually moved off the gay list and onto a "general hate" one), and TVC are the only three SPLC listees that we cover with any kind of frequency. That's because they are the only three groups that have done the kind of thing (or combination of things) that, by SPLC's own standards, took the work from "culture war" to overheated attack. We might ask questions about those standards, as this site has certainly done about groups and people who embolden the work of groups already on the list. But SPLC has their own criteria, which they have whetted down in a way that has allowed for PLENTY of wiggle room for any group who wants to opposed homosexuality. Andrea and TVC wiggled beyond those parameters.
We totally get why Andrea would want to hide this fact. It must be embarrassing to be placed in such dubiously exclusive company, and it certainly shuts doors among "pro-family" folks who want to keep a mainstream image. But boo hoo. Andrea and her father (TVC prez Lou Sheldon) have willingly set up shot atop this contentious volcano. If Andrea wants to get TVC off of it, then Andrea can vow to be better. She can vow to stop saying that being gay is equivalent to schtooping a toaster. She can stop calling an important piece of legislation the "Barney Frank She-Male Shower Bill." She can stop referring to a collection of transgender people as a "freak show." She can stop putting Jesus on Wanted posters as a way to pit that particular religious figure against gays who support hate crime protections. She can stop directing her worker bees to Photoshop a smiling Barack Obama in front of the burning WTC towers or onto a Nazi propaganda poster. TVC can stop flipping Congressional exchanges so that they are made more convenient for their self-serving purposes. She can stop being untruthful.
Andrea has the power to change her group's fate. But instead, she wants to wave her hands real fast, toss in a few anti-progressive buzz words and names, and hope that people will look elsewhere rather than notice the undeniable truth: That the California and D.C.-based Traditional Values Coalition's is placed on a highly selective list of anti-gay groups who have proven to be more incendiary than all others. If she considers it a "badge of honor" to meet such an non-commendable threshold, then she needs to wear that badge with honesty pride rather than obfuscating it with overgeneralized deceit.
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