To borrow from President Obama’s Black Nationalist mentor, Jeremiah Wright, the Southern Poverty Law Center’s hate-baiting chickens “have come home to roost.” The hard-left group has become everything it presumes to expose.
On Wednesday, homosexual activist Floyd Corkins entered the Washington-based Family Research Council (FRC) armed with a gun and a backpack full of ammunition. He also had 15 Chick-fil-A sandwiches (FRC recently defended the food chain’s COO Dan Cathy for pro-natural marriage statements).
The only thing standing between Corkins and mass murder was FRC facilities manager and security specialist Leo Johnson. As Corkins shouted disapproval for FRC’s “politics,” he shot Johnson who, despite a severely wounded arm, managed to tackle Corkins and disarm him (of course, this is all impossible as it’s illegal in Washington, D.C., to carry a concealed weapon).
Of Johnson’s actions, D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier said, “The security guard here is a hero, as far as I’m concerned.”
I agree.
Upon hearing of Leo’s selfless act of heroism, I was reminded of John 15:13: “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”
But according to the SPLC, Leo’s heart is, instead, full of hate. In fact, everyone at FRC is hateful. After all, in 2010 the SPLC, with much fanfare, “officially certified” FRC as a “hate group” for its orthodox Christian positions on marriage and family.
Alongside violence-charged photos of actual hate groups like the Aryan Brotherhood and the KKK, the SPLC lists on its website the decidedly mainstream and always peaceful FRC.
It’s a clever strategy, dishonest and reprehensible though it may be. By juxtaposing FRC and other Christian organizations with violent extremist groups, SPLC has engaged in intellectual sloth at its worst (the organization has repeatedly declined to debate FRC President Tony Perkins over its “hate group” smear).
Rather than debating – on the merits – mainstream Christian groups with which it has ideological disagreement, SPLC has chosen, instead, the coward’s way out: demonization and marginalization through false guilt by association.
It’s a scheme not only slimy, but extremely dangerous.
If ever there were a time I’d prefer not to have been right, now is that time. Back in November 2011, I essentially predicted both the FRC shooting and the SPLC’s undeniable complicity therein.
With a column headlined, “Liberal violence rising,” I wrote, “The SPLC’s dangerous and irresponsible (‘hate group’) disinformation campaign can embolden and give license to like-minded, though less stable, left-wing extremists, creating a climate of true hate. Such a climate is ripe for violence.” (If anyone deserves to be taken out – rationalizes the unbalanced SPLC dupe – its members of this or that evil “hate group” whom, as he’s been repeatedly told, mean him great harm.)
That was before the fact. After the fact – one day after the shooting – Tony Perkins addressed exactly that which I forecast:
“Let me be clear that Floyd Corkins was responsible for firing the shot yesterday,” he told Washington reporters. “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.”
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.”
Regrettably, Mr. Perkins finds himself in a uniquely credible position to make this charge.
Still, although there remains a vast ideological divide between the SPLC and the tens of millions of Christian Americans represented by the Family Research Council, the Southern Poverty Law Center now finds itself with a brief window of opportunity to both do the right thing and rehabilitate its badly damaged reputation.
To the SPLC, I say this: Your cynical efforts to dehumanize Christians and equate biblical truth to “hate” are working better than I think even you expected. It’s now within your power to right a horrible wrong and restore a sense of peace and security to the rattled folks at FRC. What a gift that would be.
I appeal to your sense of goodwill. This is not a game. Lives are at stake. I know you have good employees (I’ve met some) who believe they’re doing the right thing; so, please, validate that belief. It’s time to remove your metaphorical “hate group” Star of David from mainstream Christian organizations before another of your ideological allies spills blood.
And to homosexual activists and other liberal groups, I say this: Rise above the fray. Let’s come together. Here is something on which even we can agree. Publicly encourage SPLC to lift this veil of fear.
Media, you, too, are on notice. Remember Wednesday’s shooting next time you even think about repeating SPLC’s “hate group” brand while addressing the Christians upon whom it’s tattooed. You also have share in the blame.
SPLC, hear me now: If, God forbid, something like this – or even worse – happens in the future and you have yet refused to retract and apologize for your “hate group” propaganda, then your hands will forever be stained with the blood of innocents.
Still, either way, we Christians are commanded to speak the truth of Christ “even unto death.”
FRC will not be deterred. “We’re not going anywhere,” Tony Perkins told reporters Thursday [8/16/12]. “We’re not backing up; we’re not shutting up,” he vowed. “We feel that – we don’t feel, we know [that] we have been called to speak the truth. Speak it in love, but to speak the truth nonetheless – and we will not be intimidated, we will not be silenced.”
“I was there as [Leo] came to from the anesthesia,” said Perkins, “and I told him, ‘Leo, I want you to know you’re a hero.’ And he thought about it for a minute and he said, ‘You know, this hero business is hard work.’”
Heroes don’t work for “hate groups,” and FRC’s hard work is heroic indeed.
Clearly, what our nation needs is more “separation of church and state.” If those obnoxious, right-wing Bible thumpers would simply quit bellowing about the need for revival – a return to the deeply held Judeo-Christian principles embraced by our Founding Fathers – America would be a much better place.
Secular-humanism – that’s the ticket! We need more reliance on man and less on God.
At the time of this writing, I’m sitting just a few miles from a Century 16 theatre in Aurora, Colo., where, in the early morning hours of July 20, 2012, a deranged, fame-starved gunman shot dead at least 12 innocent people and wounded scores more at a midnight showing of “The Dark Knight Rises,” a Batman sequel.
One of the victims killed was a 6-year-old child. I won’t even share the gutless dirt bag’s name because that’s exactly what he wants.
I had an entirely different column prepared for this week, but, in light of this horrific event, its subject matter seemed trivial and inappropriate.
Like most decent Americans, I am sickened today – mournful in a way words cannot describe. Please join me in the coming hours, days and weeks in, yes, praying for the victims, their families and the state of our lost union.
It’s times like this when we’re reminded that, when the smoke clears, we’re left with our relationships alone: family, friends, prayer and, most importantly, a deep, childlike need for God’s love, mercy and comfort.
Still, we shouldn’t be surprised by this mass murder. In fact, if we’re honest, we’re not surprised. We’ve become almost numb to such reports – desensitized to what only a few short decades ago would have been unimaginable. Although no one is to blame for this man’s objectively evil actions but he alone, those actions are, sadly, a dreadful sign of our desperate times.
Today, children are reared in a culture that glorifies – even worships – death and violence. But brutal crimes such as this are not the cause of our culture of death; they are merely a symptom.
In an opinion piece penned for the Telegraph in 2008, columnist Jenny McCartney used a prior Batman movie, “The Dark Knight,” to illustrate, in a cursory way, our rising death-culture problem. In many ways her words were eerily prophetic and sickly ironic.
“But the greatest surprise of all – even for me, after eight years spent working as a film critic,” she wrote, “has been the sustained level of intensely sadistic brutality throughout the film.”
McCartney went on to describe, in gory detail, the movie’s severely violent opening scene, lamenting that millions of parents would choose to expose their children to it. She concluded by chastising Hollywood for its complicity in an increasingly violent youth culture.
“Even since 2002, the public’s willingness to expose children to previously unthinkable levels of screen violence has soared,” she noted. “The poet WB Yeats once wrote, ‘In dreams begins responsibility,’ yet Hollywood will never take responsibility for its most brutal dreams so long as the paying public still flocks to the theatre of cruelty.”
I think McCartney was on to something but believe there’s plenty more responsibility to go around. I submit that our culture of death derives from somewhere far beyond just Hollywood. The “theatre of cruelty” spans from sea to shining sea.
Just one example, though a big one, is America’s ongoing capitulation to the horrific abortion violence carried out under cover of manmade law each day – an equally evil phenomenon.
Beneath the euphemistic banner of “reproductive choice,” hundreds of women elect to have their own babies slaughtered in the womb daily. Children – those who dodged the abortion bullet anyway – aren’t stupid; they’re just young. From this, they can only deduce that, according to our culture, human life is cheap and meaningless.
So why are we surprised when people like the “Batman killer” act accordingly?
Indeed, in our perverse society, a woman exercising her “right to choose” death for her innocent child represents “courage,” while the Batman shooter’s “choice” to kill innocent moviegoers represents cowardice. And it is. They are both acts of cowardice. The only relevant difference is the victims’ age.
Let me be clear: Am I comparing this incredibly wicked, illegal mass murder at Aurora’s Century Theatre to the incredibly wicked, legal mass murder committed at Planned Parenthoods across the country each day? Absolutely – and you can quote me on it.
But again, like the Batman murders, our nation’s 55-plus million abortion murders post Roe v. Wade are not the cause of our culture of death; they are merely a symptom. Ultimately, the cause stems from something much less complicated.
We as a nation – as a people – have turned our backs on God. We have rebelled against Him and have forgotten that it was He and He alone who gave us 200-plus years of prosperity, unprecedented in world history.
We have left Him, so why are we surprised He’s leaving us? We have said, “We don’t need you, leave us alone.”
And so He has.
Recently, Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Vilsack acknowledged at a White House briefing that he’s been praying for rain to alleviate the widespread drought plaguing our nation. “I get on my knees every day,” he admitted. “And I’m saying an extra prayer now.”
Predictably, godless “progressives” are up in arms over his statement. Tom Flynn, executive director of the Council for Secular Humanism, quickly pounced, saying that Vilsack’s mere mention of prayer “sends the wrong message to distraught farmers.”
“[Praying] for rain? That’s not just government entangling itself with religion, that’s government publicly practicing it, and wallowing in superstition,” he said.
Oh, please.
In the coming days and weeks, politicians, entertainers, media-types – public figures of every stripe – will call for prayer in response to the Batman shootings. But don’t expect to hear much from the aforementioned godless “progressives.” They generally know when to shut up.
Still, prayer is only the beginning. It can’t just be superficial prayer. It can’t just be an emotional response to this horrible tragedy.
For any real national healing to occur – in order to un-ring the culture-of-death bell – we must collectively surrender. We must recommit ourselves as “one nation, under God,” to the underlying culture of life that such a commitment presupposes.
If we don’t, we’re done.
2 Chronicles 7:14 gives us hope: “Then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land.”
Indeed, the restoration of our land begins with you and me.
To borrow from President Obama’s Black Nationalist mentor, Jeremiah Wright, the Southern Poverty Law Center’s hate-baiting chickens “have come home to roost.” The hard-left group has become everything it presumes to expose.
