GOP Strives to Make Hate Groups Look Respectable

[Zorra]

Gosh, is anyone else as shocked about this as I am?


IMO, this is an extremely well written, and very thoughtful, article, accurately connecting the agendas of the GOP with those of hate groups:

GOP Strives to Make Hate Groups Look Respectable

Meanwhile, the GOP standard-bearers are taking sides in the latest battle between the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Family Research Council. The SPLC, a civil rights group based in Montgomery, Alabama, released a report called 18 Anti-Gay Groups and Their Propaganda. One of the groups named in the report is the Family Research Council, which is described by SPLC as a font of anti-gay propaganda that calls for the criminalization of homosexuality, and pushes false accusations linking gays to pedophilia. Tony Perkins, a former Louisiana state representative and the head of FRC, once paid $82,500 to use the mailing list of former Klan chieftain David Duke. Moreover, in 2001 Perkins gave a speech to the Council of Conservative Citizens, a white supremacist group that is the ideological heir to the White Citizens Councils of the 1950s and 1960s.

FRC is fighting back with a “Start Debating, Stop Hating” campaign. Not surprisingly, the Republican Party leaders are siding with the hate group. In a full-page ad in Politico and the Washington Examiner, FRC calls SPLC a “liberal fundraising machine.” The ad also accuses the civil rights group of character assassination, and attacking groups that “uphold Judeo-Christian moral views, including marriage as the union of a man and a woman.” Among the 150 conservative leaders—including 22 members of Congress— who signed the letter are Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), Rep. Steve King (R-IA), Rep. John Boehner (R-OH), Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-MN), Sen, Jim DeMint (R-SC), Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA), Rep. Steve King (R-IA), and Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. “It was a remarkable performance, given that it was precisely the maligning of entire groups of people — gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered people — that caused the SPLC to list groups like the FRC,” SPLC responded on its blog.

This comes as civil rights groups push for a federal review of curriculum changes made by the Republican-owned Texas Board of Education, including the removal of people of color in the textbooks, the watering down of the civil rights movement, and teaching slavery, Jefferson Davis and the Confederacy in a positive light. The groups claim the board is discriminating against black and Latino students, and failing to provide equal educational opportunities to these students.

Here’s the deal: The GOP cannot have it both ways. They cannot take a stand in favor of hate groups—white supremacists, neo-confederates, and homophobes—and take offense when their critics call them out for it. Moreover, they cannot rewrite history and attack civil rights. Since the Goldwater presidential campaign and Nixon’s Southern Strategy, the Republicans made a deal with the Devil. And the Devil’s in the details. Appealing to disaffected Southern whites on states’ rights and skin-color solidarity, the GOP became the Dixiecrats. Tax cuts became code word for the N-word, because it was understood that blacks would get hurt worse than whites, as Southern Strategy architect Lee Atwater bluntly noted.

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[Politicalboi]

1. We all do that

By accepting hateful churches in our neighborhoods, and look the other way and say "it's their religious right to hate".