How do you know when there's a hate group lurking in America that you need to watch out for? The Southern Poverty Law Center, of course. The SPLC is the all-seeing eye that scans the land for hate. Then, when they find hate, or at least their definition of it, they add that group to their hate list so we can all avoid those groups and feel much safer.
The SPLC's latest target is the Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian nonprofit group that defends religious freedom cases in court. The ADF has played a role in 52 victories at the Supreme Court over the years. So, the Left needs to take them out. Cue the SPLC.
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The Alliance Defending Freedom was recently banned from the Amazon Smile program. That's the program in which customers can elect to give a small cut of their Amazon purchase to a nonprofit organization of their choice. Amazon Smile kicked the ADF out of the program because the SPLC determines which groups qualify.
Their reason? The ADF is currently before the Supreme Court representing the cake shop owner who refused to make a gay wedding cake.
How did the SPLC get to be chief hate enforcer? Well, they're actually self-anointed. They claim their moral capital from the fact they were founded in 1971 by a white guy in Alabama to fight racial injustice. Never mind that the KKK was virtually nonexistent at that point, it turns out sounding the alarm about the threat of Klansmen is fantastic for fundraising.
You don't build a half a billion dollar endowment by limiting your hate group list to quacks like the KKK and Nazis. Like any business, you must expand.
So, that became the SPLC's formula – shine a spotlight on hate groups and see the cash flood in for the legal takedown of those groups. They've been doing it ever since. They spend more money on fundraising than actual legal work. You don't build a half a billion dollar endowment by limiting your hate group list to quacks like the KKK and Nazis. Like any business, you must expand.
Why Amazon is taking advice from the SPLC, which is essentially a PAC for the Democratic Party, is anyone's guess. But it's a safe bet that Amazon's leadership finds a lot more in common with the SPLC than the Alliance Defending Freedom. That's why Planned Parenthood is still allowed to participate in the Amazon Smiles program.
When common sense leaves the building, it leaves a ton of absurdity behind.