The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) just disgraced itself further by placing Dr. Ben Carson on its extremist watch list.
The SPLC is a self-styled watchdog group for “hate and extremism,” but SPLC itself manufactures hate – check out this detailed report on its activities, including inspiring a deranged lunatic to shoot up the Family Research Council’s headquarters.
Now they’ve added an “Extremist Files” profile for Dr. Ben Carson for his “anti-LGBT ideology,” but their examples are mostly a credit to him rather than damning evidence of extremism:
In His Own Words:
“Marriage is between a man and a woman. It’s a well-established pillar of society and no group, be they gays, be they NAMBLA [North American Man/Boy Association, a group advocating pedophilia], be they people who believe in bestiality—it doesn’t matter what they are, they don’t get to change the definition.”
—Interview on Fox News’ “Hannity,” March 26, 2013
“[I]f we can redefine marriage as between two men or two women or any other way based on social pressures as opposed to between a man and a woman, we will continue to redefine it in any way that we wish, which is a slippery slope with a disastrous ending, as witnessed in the dramatic fall of the Roman Empire.”
—America the Beautiful: Resdiscovering What Made This Nation Great, 2012 book written with Candy Carlson
“Obamacare is really the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery. And… in a way, it is slavery.”
—Values Voter Summit, Washington, D.C., Oct. 11, 2013
“I mean [our government and institutions] are very much like Nazi Germany… You know, you had a government using its tools to intimidate the population. We now live in a society where people are afraid to say what they really believe.”
—Quoted by Breitbart News, March 12, 2014
“What we need to do is come up with something simple. And when I pick up my Bible, you know what I see? I see the first individual in the universe, God, and he’s given us a system. It’s called a tithe.”
—Endorsing a flat tax for all Americans, White House Prayer Breakfast, Feb. 7, 2013
The Nazi Germany reference might go too far, but it is ironic that they include the part of that quote where he says, “We now live in a society where people are afraid to say what they really believe,” when SPLC is directly contributing to that fear by labeling views it doesn’t like as hatred or extremism.
How many of us have been so browbeaten by the left that we’ve become reluctant to say what we really believe about things like gay marriage?
Legal Insurrection notes that there are plenty of people on the extremist list who truly belong there, but asks, “Is Carson really such an extremist that he deserves to be on the same list as David Duke and neo-Nazi leaders?”
The answer is an obvious NO, but the fact that the SPLC puts him there shows how far they’re willing to go to silence and destroy those who defend traditional marriage and Godly principles. In fact, most of us would probably also be labeled as extremists by the SPLC for holding similar views.
Their definition of hate and extremism is so broad and nonsensical that it means nothing. And though my rhetoric may a bit more toned down than Dr. Carson, I share his common sense views. So I say:
If Dr. Carson is an extremist, then so am I!
Are you? Take your stand in the comments below!