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In what was an otherwise very informative segment discussing the rise in the number of hate groups in America in the wake of the recent shootings in Texas and questions as to whether there are links with a white supremacist prison gang, the audience of MSNBC's The Cycle were treated to conservative co-host S.E. Cupp playing concern troll for right-wing gay-hating fundamentalists, who are none too happy about being designated as hate groups by the SPLC.

As Dave Neiwert discussed here:

When right-wingers got wind of the fact that the Southern Poverty Law Center had designated a number of Religious Right organizations who specialize in rhetorically bashing gays and lesbians as hate groups, they and their allies on the Right came more or less unglued.

Now, rather than face up to the substance of the accusations, they're choosing to demonize the SPLC and their critics. Par for the course for this crowd.

Which is exactly what Cupp did this Wednesday with the SPLC's Heidi Beirich right about mid-way through the segment above:

CUPP: But Heidi, your group, the SPLC, has earned significant criticism over the years for smearing religious and far right groups and ignoring far left hate groups. Shouldn't people be aware of your ideological biases before they take seriously your claims about who they should be afraid of?

BEIRICH: Well, I guess I have to dispute the notion of the question on its... on the premise. The fact of the matter is that we've written about left wing domestic terrorism for almost a decade now coming from animal rights groups, for example, or eco-terrorist types. The criticism we get most heavily from the right-wing are complaints about our listing of groups like the Family Research Council or the American Family Association as anti-gay hate groups.

And the fact of the matter is that those organizations are akin to many of the white supremacist organizations that we list in the sense that they lie about gay folks. White supremacist folks lie about African-Americans.

In the case of something like the Family Research Council, they put out all kinds of defamatory information about how gays are child molesters at higher rates and so on, with the intention of destroying that particular population and making them appear to be lesser. So for us, it is a no-brainer to put groups like that on our hate list.

CUPP: The Family Research Council was actually the victim recently of a hate crime as I'm sure you're aware, when a gentleman stormed the building in D.C. with a bag full of Chick-Fil-A sandwiches.

BEIRICH: Yeah, I mean obviously, we condemn all kinds of violence. It's a horrible thing and what we're all about trying to stop domestic terrorism, violence and anything inspired by hate. That was a disgusting incident.

The wingers over at Brent Bozell's rag, Newsbusters, who I will not link to, were all over this, defending Cupp and blaming the SPLC for the shooting at FRC's headquarters, because of course they want to paint someone who tells the truth about hate groups and the lies they tell as a hate group themselves, as though the work the SPLC is doing is somehow equivalent to the garbage being spread by these so-called Christians. And naturally their comment section was full of attacks on Beirich for her looks, because we all know the most important thing is how you look on TV and not what comes out of your mouth. As Dave noted in his very long post which I linked above, when you can't defend your message, you attack the messenger.

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The absolutely venal Tony Perkins, President of the Family Research Council, wasted no time in politicizing the shooting which occurred at their Washington office yesterday. A short time later the equally noxious hate group the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) joined in in condemning the SPLC.

via CNN

(CNN) -- Accusations of blame abounded Thursday, a day after a 28-year-old man who had volunteered for a center that serves gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people was taken into custody for allegedly shooting a building manager at the headquarters of a Christian conservative group.

"Let me be clear that Floyd Corkins was responsible for firing the shot yesterday," Family Research Council President Tony Perkins told reporters in Washington about the suspect. "But Corkins was given a license to shoot an unarmed man by organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center that have been reckless in labeling organizations hate groups because they disagree with them on public policy."

Perkins said the SPLC "should be held accountable for their reckless use of terminology that is leading to the intimidation and what the FBI here has categorized as an act of domestic terrorism."

Mark Potok of ths SPLC responded by releasing this statement to Perkin's offensive claim:

Perkins’ accusation is outrageous. The SPLC has listed the FRC as a hate group since 2010 because it has knowingly spread false and denigrating propaganda about LGBT people — not, as some claim, because it opposes same-sex marriage. The FRC and its allies on the religious right are saying, in effect, that offering legitimate and fact-based criticism in a democratic society is tantamount to suggesting that the objects of criticism should be the targets of criminal violence.

Full statement below.

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As Raw Story's Stephen Webster noted, on the heels of a recent study which found that "people who have negative feelings toward homosexuality often have secret attractions to the same sex — and are more likely to have grown up in households that forbid homosexual feelings," we have Thom Hartmann asking about that very topic during this interview with the leader of an anti-gay organization which the SPLC has designated as a hate group.

Hartmann confronts anti-gay leader: Do closeted gays run your movement?:

On Russia Today TV’s The Big Picture Thursday, progressive radio host Thom Hartmann confronted Family Research Institute chairman Dr. Paul Cameron and asked him an unusually pointed question: “Does it concern you that many of your colleagues in the anti-gay movement may actually be closeted gays?”

“Um, no,” Cameron replied. “Very few of them are homosexually interested. First of all, um… Most people are not interested in homosexuality. There’s not at all. A few homosexuals like to say — and they’ve been saying this now for at least the last seven years — almost everybody is bisexual, maybe some homosexual…”

“I’ve never heard anybody say that,” Hartmann replied.

Cameron went on to claim that biologist Alfred Kinsey, whose groundbreaking research pioneered the study of human sexuality, “was gay” and “pushed that idea,” making his scientific findings somehow less valid. “Most of the homosexual leadership… have pushed that idea,” he added. “But it’s not true!”

Cameron didn’t provide any source or research to support his claim, so interested viewers may just have to take his word for it. Read on...

Here's more from the Southern Poverty Law Center on Cameron:

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The Southern Poverty Center's Mark Potok joined MSNBC's Cenk Uygur to discuss Rep. Peter King's upcoming hearings on radical Islam and whether they're being motivated by King's well known bigotry against the Muslim community. As Cenk noted it's caused outrage from the Muslim community and their supporters who demonstrated in New York City's Times Square against the hearings.

As was pointed out during the segment, the Muslim community has been cooperating with the Justice Department to try to weed out radicals among their ranks, and in the mean time there's been an explosion of hate groups within the U.S. such as the Klan, Neo-Nazis, Black Separatists, White Nationalists, racist skinheads and Neo-Confederate groups. As this report by the SPLC shows, U.S. Hate Groups now top 1000:

The number of active hate groups in the United States topped 1,000 for the first time and the antigovernment “Patriot” movement expanded dramatically for the second straight year as the radical right showed continued explosive growth in 2010.

Several factors fueled the growth: resentment over the changing racial demographics of the country, frustration over the lagging economy, and the mainstreaming of conspiracy theories and other demonizing propaganda aimed at minorities and the government.

The report is in the Spring 2011 issue of the SPLC’s quarterly investigative journal Intelligence Report. The Hate Map also contains a comprehensive, state-by-state listing of hate groups and their locations. Read on...

Rep. King seems determined to single out the Muslim churches to attack for political gain while ignoring the threat from these other groups. I guess that's not too surprising from someone who doesn't seem to mind "palling around with terrorists" himself as long as they're Irish Catholics.

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Keith Olbermann talked to the SPLC's Mark Potok about what the possible motivation behind the assassination attempt on Rep. Gabrielle Griffords may have been.

OLBERMANN: Loughner's Internet trail, does it tell us anything about his politics? Does that specific reference to the 8th District, the Congresswoman's district, does that step out of the incoherence or just part of the incoherence?

POTOK: Well you're right that reading through all of his materials or the materials that are purported to be his he sounds quite mad... out of his mind. But there is a thread through the material that really seems pretty clear and that thread has to do with seeing the government as an enemy. The books you mentioned, there's a theme that runs through all of them, particularly the Ayn Rand book; the idea of the individual against the state, but there are ideas, like the idea of the only legitimate currency being backed by gold instead of silver; that's a core idea of the radical right in this country.

The idea weirdly enough of controlling grammar, of somehow the government using grammar to control the people is an idea that exists on the radical right. There's a particular person, a man named David Wynn Miller who has plugged this idea for years. This man also talked quite a lot in these strange videos of his about what he called conscience dreaming but I think it's almost certainly meant to be conscious dreaming which is an idea that also has been kind of tossed around on the radical right, in particular by a kind of British conspiracy theorist by the name of David Icke. So a lot of these ideas, his burning of the flag, his talking about the government as treasonous and using mind control to control the rest of us and so on, these are all ideas or kind of shards of ideas that exist very much on the radical right.

And then of course as the Pima sheriff said so dramatically and so truly I think, you know you add those kinds of ideas to just the amazing level of vitriol out there on the air waves and also in addition to what the sheriff said, coming from politicians, and it is not entirely surprising, you know, that someone like this acts out.

Keith asked Mark Potok if in fact Jared Loughner is just one extremely disturbed individual, does that “exonerate those that put the cross-hairs on Ms. Giffords” and “those who use language demonizing liberals, or Democrats or just leaving the party out of it, people in office, incumbents, or does it simply underscore why such language, no matter what direction it's pointed in is so ill advised.”

POTOK: I think the latter. I think there's no exoneration for the people who talk about... who make these... who will repeat these kind of falsehoods on the air and in public squares all over this country. You know, the people who say it's not about health care, it's about the president wanting to kill your grandmother. It's not about immigration reform, it's about a secret plot on the part of Mexico to reconquer the Southwestern United States, and on and on and on.

Thank you Mark Potok for that. It's a sad day for Democracy as Keith Olbermann expressed in his special comment when one of our political parties has turned to terrorism as a political tactic, and that's exactly what the right wing and the Republicans have done while being given a free pass from our useless corporate media.

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Chris Matthews talked to the SPLC's Mark Potok and The Family Research Council's Tony Perkins about the recent designation of Perkin's FRC as a hate group for their anti-gay rhetoric.

From the SPLC's web site -- Active U.S. Hate Groups:

The Southern Poverty Law Center counted 932 active hate groups in the United States in 2009. Only organizations and their chapters known to be active during 2009 are included.

All hate groups have beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics.

This list was compiled using hate group publications and websites, citizen and law enforcement reports, field sources and news reports.

Hate group activities can include criminal acts, marches, rallies, speeches, meetings, leafleting or publishing. Websites appearing to be merely the work of a single individual, rather than the publication of a group, are not included in this list. Listing here does not imply a group advocates or engages in violence or other criminal activity.

Here's more from TPM -- Family Research Council Labeled 'Hate Group' By SPLC Over Anti-Gay Rhetoric:

The Family Research Council is perhaps the most prominent voice in conservative social politics and the hosts of an annual rite of passage for many Republicans who hope to run for president. And now, FRC is on the same Southern Poverty Law Center list of hate groups as the Ku Klux Klan.

The SPLC gave the Family Research Council the designation due to anti-gay speech from its leaders, which the SPLC says includes calls for gay men and lesbians to be imprisoned. Read on...

Perkins needless to say isn't happy about it. I say good for Mark Potok and the SPLC for putting these hate mongers in the type of company where they belong.

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As I already noted in my post about David Brooks recent white washing of the increase in Islamophobia, the Southern Poverty Law Center has a report out on the recent wave of hate crimes directed towards Muslims in the United States. Their spokesman and director of publications and information Mark Potok went on CNN to discuss that article.

He didn't get a chance to do it until near the end of the interview but he rightfully called out the Republican Party and the right wing of their party for fanning the flames on this issue and for their part in "pouring gasoline on this fire."

He's absolutely right and I'm wondering just how badly they and Fox News are going to be willing to keep this up in order to win the mid-term elections this year before they over-play their hand or if they already have. One of my co-workers is deeply religious and involved in his church and he's been following this stuff and is worried that it's going to reflect badly on his church since this wingnut in Florida is so over the top and made sure to point out to me that this pastor didn't represent all Christians.

I tried to explain to him that this was nothing but part of an ongoing strategy by Republicans and our corporate media to fan the flames of racism and hatred and to make sure everyone is afraid of the scary black man in the White House and that it's disgusting and of course doesn't mean that all religious groups or Christians should be tagged with this one crazy person's extremism.

The fact that he's viewing this from that stand point makes me wonder if they have indeed overplayed how the electorate is responding to this nonsense, and I'd love to know if anyone else has had any similar reactions from friends or family as well. People who are middle of the road, non-political and just very religious don't want to be painted as raving wingnuts who hate Muslims. I hope to hell there are a lot of others out there like my co-worker who are watching this stuff and feel like he does as well where it doesn't make him feel like he wants to go vote for Republicans because he's afraid of the scary Muslims, but is embarrassed by what's going on and worried that he or his church is going to get tagged with the extremism instead.

And for anyone that wants to pretend like Fox hasn't been ginning this up to help the Republicans make electoral gains for a long time now, Media Matters has this report.

TIMELINE: Nine months of the right's anti-Muslim bigotry:

Cheered on by Fox News and the rest of the right-wing media, conservative activists spent the past year engaged in an anti-Muslim campaign that included efforts to block the planned Islamic center in lower Manhattan and demonize the imam spearheading the project. The bigotry has culminated in a Florida pastor's now-"suspended" plans to burn Qurans on September 11 -- plans that the pastor has explicitly linked to the controversy over the Islamic center.

Go read the rest and share with anyone that thinks Fox is a credible "news" organization.

Transcript via CNN below the fold.

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Thom Hartmann talks to the SPLC's Heidi Beirich about John Tanton, the anti-immigrant zealot behind the new Arizona "show me your papers" law and with ties to about every white nationalist/anti-immigration group in the United States. The SPLC has more on Tanton here: The Tanton Files: FAIR Founder’s Racism Revealed.

As Hartmann and Beirich pointed out, we've watched this same sort of reaction to every single immigrant group that's come to the United States and every time they're wrong.

Rachel takes the President of FAIR (Federation for American Immigration Reform) to the woodshed in this interview over his organization's motivations for supporting Arizona's new "show me your papers" law and his group's racist history. He attacked Maddow and the Southern Poverty Law Center and claimed they were just trying to smear him.

The SPLC has more here -- Answering Our Critics: SPLC ‘Smear’ Dissected:

The suggestion that the SPLC worked surreptitiously with La Raza and others to designate FAIR a hate group is false; the decision to list the organization was made by the SPLC alone, based on almost a decade of SPLC research. We make no apologies for sharing that research with others in the human rights community, including La Raza, which we consider an important ally.

FAIR, an organization that has been dominated for much of its life by its racist founder John Tanton, has probably done more to inject fear and bigotry into the national immigration debate than any other modern organization. Its demonizing propaganda, aimed primarily at Latinos, comes at a time when the number of hate groups continues a decade-long rise, fueled by anti-Latino hatred. At the same time, the FBI reported a 40% rise in anti-Latino hate crimes between 2003 and 2007. Those crimes decreased slightly in 2008, the latest year for which statistics are available.

What follows is a list of factors that resulted in the listing of FAIR as a hate group. More detailed information on FAIR and its founder may be found here and here. Read on...

The Rachel Maddow blog already started fact checking Stein on their site (h/t Laffy):

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From GoLeftTV's Ring of Fire:

If you think that the Tea Partiers are just a bunch of misinformed Republicans who hate paying taxes, think again. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center who monitors the activities of extremist hate groups, the Tea Party is actually helping to strengthen the white supremacist movement in America, and has helped to re-energize some specific hate groups that were on the verge of extinction. Mike Papantonio talks about this with Mark Potok, editor of the SPLCs monthly Intelligence Report.