Christian hate group leader claims fellow hate group isn't hate group

Jerry Newcombe falsely claims Moms for Liberty is being attacked because they're "parents with a conservative point of view"

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The leader of a Christian hate group is whining about how another hate group is being called a hate group.

The culprit here is Jerry Newcombe, “the executive director of the Providence Forum, an outreach of D. James Kennedy Ministries.” In an essay for the Christian Post, he writes about how bothered he is that the right-wing group Moms for Liberty has been declared a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which has tracked those kind of groups for decades.

Jerry Newcombe (screenshot via YouTube)

… the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a group that claims to be the last word on who are haters and hate groups in America, has now added Moms for Liberty to their infamous “map of hate.”

This means, according to the SPLC, that right up there — or really, right down there — with the skinheads and the Ku Klux Klan is this grassroots organization of mothers concerned about their children’s education.

…

This is scary. America is in the midst of a crisis of education, and a crying need for more parental involvement in their children’s education. But according to the SPLC, if they are parents with a conservative point of view, then they’re bigots.

…

That may seem preposterous, but my employer, Coral Ridge Ministries (also known as D. James Kennedy Ministries) has been labeled as a hate group by the SPLC. And we can be found on their “hate and antigovernment groups” map. Why? Because we disagree with same-sex marriage…

Because Newcombe is a conservative Christian minister, everyone should just automatically assume he’s lying until proven otherwise. In this case, it turns out that skepticism is warranted.

Let’s go through his biggest lies one by one.

He said D. James Kennedy Ministries (formerly Coral Ridge Ministries) was declared an SPLC hate group because “we disagree with same-sex marriage.”

That’s not true.

According to an SPLC article from 2010, that ministry was included in the list because of the following:

Over the years, Kennedy emphasized anti-gay rhetoric, particularly in his TV ministry. He recommended as “essential” the virulent work of R.J. Rushdoony…, who believed practicing gays should be executed. In an especially nasty 1989 edition of a CRM newsletter, Kennedy ran photographs of children along with the tagline, “Sex With Children? Homosexuals Say Yes!”

Even after new leadership took over, the group continued it’s bigoted ways by hiring a known anti-gay activist Robert Knight. That alone wouldn’t be an issue, except for this:

… Knight wrote [in 2002] that gay marriage “entices children to experiment with homosexuality” and that accepting homosexuality leads to “a loss of stability in communities, with a rise in crime, sexually transmitted diseases and other social pathologies. Still another is a shortage of employable, stable people.”

That is not a disagreement about same-sex marriage. Those are blatant lies being spread about gay people. Gay people deserve death. Gay people are pedophiles. That was the message the ministry was sending out to supporters. They were declared a hate group not because the SPLC didn’t like them but rather because the SPLC was citing the group’s own propaganda.

If the SPLC was going after all ministries that espoused faith-based anti-gay beliefs, then damn near every evangelical church would be on the list. They’re not. The SPLC doesn’t go after groups that merely have religious objections to homosexuality or LGBTQ rights.

The ministry later sued the SPLC over their inclusion on the list—a lawsuit that, predictably, went nowhere.

The power of the SPLC’s designation wasn’t just that people might call this ministry “hateful.” (If that’s all this was, the SPLC wouldn’t get anywhere.) What made it stick was that the SPLC had the receipts. They documented why they believed the ministry crossed the line. People could see for themselves why the ministry’s actions were hateful and not just run-of-the-mill Christian bigotry.

Which brings us to Moms for Liberty.

Newcombe claims that, “according to the SPLC, if they are parents with a conservative point of view, then they’re bigots.” That’s not true, either, because there are plenty of conservative groups that don’t make the SPLC’s list. If every right-wing group was on the list, there would be no reason to take it seriously.

So why is Moms for Liberty on there? They are officially listed as an “antigovernment” group, but the receipts are plentiful. SPLC summarizes them like this:

… They also use their multiple social media platforms to target teachers and school officials, advocate for the abolition of the Department of Education, advance a conspiracy propaganda, and spread hateful imagery and rhetoric against the LGBTQ community.

Specifically, on the subject of LGBTQ people, they’ve demonized trans children and called allies “groomers” (suggesting pedophilic intent). One leader “suggested moving LGBTQ students to separate classrooms, comparing them to students with special needs.” They reject trans identity among children, referring to it as “a mental health disorder that is being normalized by predators.” And, of course, they’ve gone after groups that support LGBTQ youth, claiming that companies like Disney are “OK with sexualizing our children.”

Again, this isn’t a difference of opinion. This is harmful propaganda—lies—that have no basis in the facts. That’s why they’re a hate group while a pastor who simply believes homosexuality is a sin or that there are only two genders wouldn’t make the list.

(The Moms for Liberty page on SPLC’s website goes into much more detail about their other beliefs, too.)

The point is: There’s a simple, straightforward case to be made as to why the group belongs on any hate group list.

Even if you have criticisms about the SPLC, and there are legitimate ones, none of that negates the hate group label. It’s telling that Newcombe’s essay never challenges any of SPLC’s claims about the Moms for Liberty group. He can’t because the group is being cited accurately. If they weren’t, he might have a legitimate claim.

Meanwhile, Newcombe has nothing to say about the sex scandal involving the group’s founders. That doesn’t bother him, apparently.

So now he’s just doing what he’s always done: Lying to Christians in the hopes that they’ll never dig into the reality of anything he’s saying. The Christian Post already fell for it and it’s fair to assume that’s also true of their readers.

(via Joe. My. God. Portions of this article were published earlier)

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