‘The SPLC… Has Thoroughly Disqualified Itself as an Arbiter of Justice’

USA Today has published an anti-SPLC op-ed piece by Jessica Prol Smith, senior news writer and editor for the Alliance Defending Freedom. She used to work for the Family Research Council, and was there the day a crazed would-be mass-shooter entered the building to murder as many of her co-workers as possible.

Here are two paragraphs from her piece, “The Southern Poverty Law Center is a hate-based scam that nearly caused me to be murdered“:

For years, former employees revealed, local journalists reported and commentators have lamented: The Southern Poverty Law Center is not what it claims to be. Not a pure-hearted, clear-headed legal advocate for the vulnerable, but rather an obscenely wealthy marketing scheme. For years, the left-wing interest group has used its “hate group” list to promote the fiction that violent neo-Nazis and Christian nonprofits peacefully promoting orthodox beliefs about marriage and sex are indistinguishable. Sometimes, it has apologized to public figures it has smeared, and it recently paid out millions to settle a threatened defamation lawsuit.

The SPLC has its own troubles

These shameful secrets are no longer hidden in shadows. The New York TimesPoliticoNPR and a host of other mainstream publications are reporting on the corruption and widening credibility gap. The SPLC dismissed its co-founder in March, and its president has resigned amidst numerous claims of sexual harassment, gender discrimination and racism within the organization — a parade of disgraces that vividly force the conclusion: The SPLC is hollow, rotten and failing at the very virtues it pretends to celebrate.