Blaming Conservatives for Muslim Terrorism

Admitting that “the full facts” were still unknown, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) nevertheless issued a statement on Sunday afternoon on “the senseless act of domestic terrorism in Orlando,” saying that “it is not surprising that the LGBT community was targeted” because “This community has long been vilified by those opposed to LGBT rights and is too often the target of violent hate crimes.” This was a clever but dishonest way of trying to shift the blame to conservatives for terrorism committed by a devoted follower of Islam.

Notice how the SPLC made no mention of the killer’s religious affiliation or motivation, or his acknowledgement of inspiration from ISIS.

Remember that the SPLC is a group which has been consulted by law enforcement authorities at the federal and other levels, including the FBI, and is frequently cited by the media as a legitimate and authoritative “civil rights” organization.

In the days ahead, expect media denunciations of conservatives as somehow responsible for the “homophobia” that drove a faithful follower of Islam to commit mass murder. This is how the SPLC will drive the discussion in the media and cause law enforcement agencies to miss even more terrorist plots. The FBI, which consults the SPLC and failed to uncover Omar Mateen’s terrorist connections, appears to have no understanding of the deadly ideological game that is being played.

President Obama initially blamed the guns, his standard ploy. But the Southern Poverty Law Center was floating a different explanation that is now getting some traction on the left. And that is that conservatives are really to blame for the anti-gay motivation of the Islamic terrorist, because conservatives have opposed the homosexual agenda and have, therefore, made it acceptable to kill gays. Hence, Omar Mateen was really just a patsy of the right-wing. After all, he detested gays kissing one another in public, just like conservatives do.

The Orlando massacre at a gay club put the left-wing legal group in a difficult situation, since it has been focusing on conservatives as the major threat to the homosexual agenda. The group’s demonizing of conservatives, such as depicting the Family Research Council (FRC) as a “hate group,” led to a terrorist attack on the FRC headquarters in Washington, D.C. A homosexual sympathizer walked into the building and opened fire, wounding a security guard before being apprehended and disarmed. He had planned to massacre other employees and testified that an SPLC “hate map” showed him where to go. He was angry at the FRC for opposing the homosexual agenda and was egged on by the propaganda from the SPLC.

Yet, the Department of Justice still cooperates with the SPLC. Despite the SPLC’s indirect involvement in the terrorist attack on the FRC, Assistant Attorney General John P. Carlin spoke at an October 14, 2015, event co-sponsored by the Southern Poverty Law Center and the George Washington University Center for Cyber and Homeland Security’s Program on Extremism.

Incredibly, Carlin said, “SPLC has a long history of tracking and countering hate, and their efforts will continue to be critical.” He added, “We are grateful to have the Southern Poverty Law Center and the George Washington Program on Extremism on our side, working with us to tackle some of today’s most pressing national security threats.”

No wonder the FBI missed the terrorist clues in the Orlando case.

Rather than being a force against terrorism, the Southern Poverty Law Center sets up groups and individuals for terrorist attacks inside the United States. The FRC is just one example. Pamela Geller emerged on a list of extremists assembled by the SPLC and then was targeted for death by the jihadists. ISIS said “…we will send all our Lions to achieve her slaughter.” This writer has been labeled as an extremist by the SPLC for opposing the agenda of the gay rights movement.

By claiming to fight poverty and target political extremists, the SPLC has assembled a reserve fund, or endowment, of $301.8 million. Honest liberals understand and deplore the despicable tactics of the SPLC.

The reality of the Islamic nature of the massacre presented a dilemma for the SPLC. The group regards Muslims as being in the same category as homosexuals—victims of an oppressive American system and police state. The SPLC decries so-called “Islamophobia” and “Homophobia.” Yet, in Orlando, a Muslim killed homosexuals. The perpetrator was not a conservative Christian. How can this be? What should the left do?

An answer soon presented itself. Junaid S. Ahmad, director of the Center for Global Dialogue, tried a variation of the SPLC theme, declaring that while the “conservative” orthodoxy of Islam “may be homophobic,” Muslim thought, practice and behavior “has become much more intolerant of homosexuality” because of the “imposition and importation of Western homophobia…” He said that “contemporary Muslim homophobic rhetoric” reflects “less of Islamic tradition, and far more of Western Victorian and Protestant Fundamentalist vitriol…”

In other words, Islam is really a religion of peace. But it has been distorted and transformed by Western religious traditions and practices.

The real poison in this case is the involvement of those on the left who see all the extremists as being on the right. How else do you explain the fact that a speaker from the Southern Poverty Law Center was advertised as participating in the recent Left Forum conference in New York? The event’s theme was “Rage, Rebellion, Revolution: Organizing Our Power.” The conference organizers declared, “We know that we can do better than capitalism and its state violence and endless bullshit.”

Evelyn Schlatter, the deputy director of research of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, was at a conference that also featured Lynne Stewart, the pro-terrorist lawyer freed from prison by the Obama administration, and members of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO), a group raided by the FBI. Stewart once told Monthly Review magazine that Islamic terrorists were “basically forces of national liberation.” This is how many on the left have viewed the Islamic terrorists. After all, they’re fighting the West.

Schlatter spoke on a Left Forum panel entitled, “Right on the Rise: Neo-Fascism and Far-Right Politics in the U.S. and Europe.” In addition to Schlatter, the advertised speakers included Gerd Wiegel, editor of Marxist Renewal Magazine; Bhaskar Sunkara, editor of Jacobin, another Marxist publication; and Ethan Earle, a champion of Rosa Luxemburg, the Marxist revolutionary and participant in the Russian Revolution.

It looks like the SPLC has a “no enemies on the left” mentality, otherwise known as “partisan tolerance.” It is the idea that anybody opposing the right-wing must be treated as an ally in the struggle to overturn the existing order.

The focus on “the right,” where extremism does exist, is proper at times. But the SPLC has gotten into bed with extremists on the left who themselves have been monitored, investigated, and even imprisoned. It’s time for the Congress to hold hearings into the Department of Justice’s involvement and collaboration with the SPLC.

Cliff Kincaid is the Director of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism, and can be contacted atcliff.kincaid@aim.org

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