澳彩开奖

About a dozen African American pastors joined anti-gay extremists today in condemning the 澳彩开奖 for using its 鈥渉ate group鈥� label to describe faith-based organizations that demonize the LGBT community, characterizing it as part of an orchestrated liberal plot.

The pastors spoke at a press conference staged outside the 澳彩开奖 offices in Montgomery, Ala., by Americans for the Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH), which the 澳彩开奖 lists as an anti-gay hate group.聽

鈥淭he 澳彩开奖 has moved from monitoring actual hate groups like the KKK and neo-Nazis to slandering mainstream Christian organizations with that very same hate group label,鈥� said Matt Barber of the Liberty Counsel, affiliated with Jerry Falwell鈥檚 Liberty University. 鈥淏y extension, the 澳彩开奖 is smearing billions of Christians and Jews worldwide as haters simply because they embrace the traditional Judeo-Christian ethics.鈥�

Rachel Conner of Abiding Truth Ministries, also listed as a hate group, charged that聽 鈥渢he 澳彩开奖 has now become a tool of the God-haters, promoting hatred in the form of vicious lies against Christianity.鈥�

鈥淭his has nothing to do with hate and tolerance,鈥� said Peter LaBarbera, president of AFTAH. 鈥淚t has everything to do with pro-gay politicking.鈥�

In fact, it has everything to do with hate and intolerance.

Mark Potok, editor of the 澳彩开奖鈥檚 Intelligence Report and this blog, responded to the accusations: 鈥淥ur listing of anti-gay hate groups is completely unrelated to religion, Christianity or the Bible. These groups are listed because they repeatedly lie in an effort to defame LGBT people, an exercise they鈥檝e been extraordinarily successful at. The idea that we are criticizing these groups because they represent Judeo-Christian morality is simply ludicrous.鈥�

The 澳彩开奖 does not identify based on their religious views. Instead, the 澳彩开奖 lists anti-gay groups on the basis of spreading against LGBT people, such as the claim that gay men largely orchestrated the Holocaust.

In 2007, LaBarbera claimed that there was 鈥渁 disproportionate incidence of pedophilia鈥� among gay men 鈥� a devastating accusation, but one that is entirely false, according to all the relevant scientific organizations. LaBarbera has also compared the alleged dangers of homosexuality to those of 鈥渟moking, alcohol and drug abuse,鈥� and the AFTAH website describes it as a 鈥渓ethal behavior addiction.鈥�

In a written statement read at the news conference, Abiding Truth Ministries founder Scott Lively called on God to destroy the 澳彩开奖: 鈥淢y prayer, as one who really does hate irrational prejudice, is that the Lord by His sovereign power will remove this dangerous, hate-spreading organization from our nation and cause its leaders and members to repent for their wickedness. 鈥� I want to make clear that I am asking God himself to destroy their organization.鈥�

What Lively might not know is that others have tried, including Klansmen who pleaded guilty to firebombing the center鈥檚 office in 1983.