Christian ministry sues over listing on Southern Poverty Law’s ‘hate map’

Christian ministry sues over listing on Southern Poverty Law’s ‘hate map’

D. James Kennedy Ministries includes Amazon, GuideStar in defamation lawsuit



https://twt-thumbs.washtimes.com/med...8b0ef168a6f9da
Richard Cohen of the Southern Poverty Law Center. **FILE** more >

By Valerie Richardson - The Washington Times -
Wednesday, August 23, 2017

A conservative Christian media group has slapped the Southern Poverty Law Center with a defamation lawsuit after being listed alongside neo-Nazis and white supremacists on its “hate map.”

D. James Kennedy Ministries filed a lawsuit this week in federal court in Alabama alleging that the SPLC “illegally trafficked in false and misleading descriptions of the services” offered by the ministry, subjecting it to “disgrace, ridicule, odium, and contempt in the estimation of the public.”

“These false and illegal characterizations have a chilling effect on the free exercise of religion and on religious free speech for all people of faith,” said president and CEO Frank Wright in a Wednesday statement.

Also named in the lawsuit are Amazon and GuideStar. The ministry alleges that the online retailer has excluded it from its Amazon Smile charitable-giving program, according to AL.com.

The charity tracker GuideStar ran afoul of conservative nonprofits this year when it included and then removed the SPLC “hate group” tag from its listings.
The SPLC did not return immediately a request for comment about the lawsuit.

A 44-year-old ministry based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, DJK is described as an “anti-LGBT” organization on the SPLC “hate map,” which has been blasted for listing mainstream conservative organizations alongside racist extremist groups the Ku Klux Klan and Aryan Nation.

“After having given the SPLC an opportunity to retract, we have undertaken this legal action, seeking a trial by a jury of our peers, to preserve our own rights under the law and to defend the religious free speech rights of all Americans,” Mr. Wright said.

The ministry released last month a DVD critical of the SPLC called “Profits of Hate,” saying the group has morphed from a legitimate civil-rights group to “slandering and demonizing Christian and conservative organizations.”

The lawsuit comes as the latest salvo in the battle over SPLC “hate map,” which lists 917 organizations.

Another conservative group tagged as “anti-LGBT,” the Alliance Defending Freedom, called last month for a retraction after ABC News picked up the “hate group” tag, citing the SPLC.

SPLC president Richard Cohen responded by saying that the ADF “spreads demonizing lies about the LGBT community in this country and seeks to criminalize it abroad. If the ADF had its way, gay people would be back in the closet for fear of going to jail.”

Jerry Boykin, vice president of the Family Research Council and a former Army Delta Force commander, applauded the DJK ministry for “its effort to expose the truth about the Southern Poverty Law Center.”

“The SPLC is an organization that is an attack dog of the Left, they are not a neutral arbiter that is calling balls and strikes,” said Mr. Boykin in a statement. “They are on the field playing, pushing an agenda, and anyone who opposes them is slandered and slapped with a hate label.”

Founded in 1971, the SPLC is based in Montgomery, Alabama.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...defamation-la/

Class action suit???

Someone message me and let me know how I can call this group to see if we can join their lawsuit!

The SPLC needs to stop smearing good people.

W

From AL.com

Ministry files lawsuit against Southern Poverty Law Center for labeling it a hate group

146Updated on August 23, 2017 at 5:11 PMPosted on August 23, 2017 at 4:22 PM
By Greg Garrison
ggarrison@al.com

http://media.al.com/news_impact/phot...k%20Wright.PNG
Frank Wright is CEO of D. James Kennedy Ministries. (Coral Ridge Ministries)

D. James Kennedy Ministries, based at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, has filed a federal lawsuit in Alabama against the Montgomery-based Southern Poverty Law Center for calling the ministry a hate group.

The lawsuit was filed Aug. 22 in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama in Montgomery. The lawsuit alleges that the SPLC "illegally trafficked in false and misleading descriptions of the services offered by DJKM and committed defamation against DJKM arising from the publication and distribution of false information that libels the ministry's reputation and subjects the ministry to disgrace, ridicule, odium, and contempt in the estimation of the public," according to a statement by the ministry.

The ministry is named for the late TV Evangelist D. James Kennedy, who was the longtime pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church and host of the nationally syndicated "Coral Ridge Hour" TV program. He died in 2007. Kennedy played a role in helping form the conservative Presbyterian Church in America denomination, which organized in Birmingham in 1973 at Briarwood Presbyterian Church.

"We embarked today on a journey to right a terrible wrong," said Dr. Frank Wright, president and CEO at D. James Kennedy Ministries, in a statement released after the filing of the lawsuit. "Those who knowingly label Christian ministries as 'hate' groups, solely for subscribing to the historic Christian faith, are either woefully uninformed or willfully deceitful. In the case of the Southern Poverty Law Center, our lawsuit alleges the latter."

Other defendants in the lawsuit include Amazon and Guidestar. The ministry alleges that it was excluded from the Amazon Smile program, which allows customers to donate to the charity of their choice when making a purchase. The ministry said the SPLC's classification of it as a hate group, because of its stance against homosexuality, was the basis for its exclusion.

"These false and illegal characterizations have a chilling effect on the free exercise of religion and on religious free speech for all people of faith," Wright said. "After having given the SPLC an opportunity to retract, we have undertaken this legal action, seeking a trial by a jury of our peers, to preserve our own rights under the law and to defend the religious free speech rights of all Americans."

Coral Ridge Presbyterian and Briarwood maintained a close association over the years as two of the largest churches in the Presbyterian Church in America denomination. Coral Ridge also was supportive of former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, now a candidate for U.S. Senate, who spoke at Coral Ridge Presbyterian in 2003 during the controversy over a Ten Commandments monument Moore installed in the Alabama Judicial Building that was later removed.

Coral Ridge raised more than $575,000 for Moore's legal defense and his Foundation for Moral Law during the Ten Commandments controversies.

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TV Evangelist D. James Kennedy, former senior pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, died in 2007. (Coral Ridge Ministries)

"We don't think he did anything wrong," Kennedy said in an interview with The Birmingham News at the time of Moore's speech. "He is one of the most courageous men I've ever met."

After being introduced as "a champion of liberty for us all" and welcomed with a standing ovation, Moore praised Kennedy before his 2003 speech in the church.

"He's probably done more to expose the agenda of these people who want to take God from our country than anybody," Moore said of Kennedy.

The American Civil Liberties Union sued in 1995 to get Moore, then an Etowah County circuit judge, to remove his handmade wooden plaque of the Ten Commandments from his Gadsden courtroom.

Moore kept his plaque, became a national celebrity and ran successfully for the state's highest judicial office in 2000, vowing to stand up for the Ten Commandments and the moral foundations of law.

After taking office, Moore commissioned a 2.6-ton Ten Commandments monument for the state judicial building. Moore allowed Coral Ridge Ministries to tape the after-hours installation of the monument, which aired as part of Kennedy's national TV program.

The ACLU, Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the Southern Poverty Law Center fought a successful legal battle to get Moore to remove the monument.
Moore defied a federal judge's order to remove the monument. The eight other Supreme Court justices overruled him and had it moved from the rotunda.

D. James Kennedy Ministries has recently produced and offers for sale a documentary attacking the Southern Poverty Law Center, called "Profits$ of Hate: The Southern Poverty Law Center." The DVD is promoted on its web site with this description:

"In the 'Profits of Hate: The Southern Poverty Law Center' DVD, we reveal the true motives of the liberal-progressive SPLC. Their deceptive 'hate map' attempts to demonize and silence Christians--and makes huge profits for them in the process. As the DVD shows, when disagreement with radical liberalism is labeled 'hate,' the consequences can be dire and even tragic."

Actor George Clooney and his wife, Amal, recently announced a $1 million grant to the Southern Poverty Law Center to combat hate groups through their foundation, the Clooney Foundation for Justice.

"We are proud to support the Southern Poverty Law Center in its efforts to prevent violent extremism in the United States," the Clooneys said in a statement. "What happened in Charlottesville, and what is happening in communities across our country, demands our collective engagement to stand up to hate."

http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/201...t_against.html

Family Research Council Statement on D. James Kennedy Ministries' Lawsuit Against the Southern Poverty Law Center


WASHINGTON, D.C. – Yesterday, D. James Kennedy Ministries filed a lawsuit in an Alabama federal court against the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) alleging “that the SPLC illegally trafficked in false and misleading descriptions of the services offered by D. James Kennedy Ministries and committed defamation against D. James Kennedy Ministries arising from the publication and distribution of false information that libels the ministry's reputation and subjects the ministry to disgrace, ridicule, odium, and contempt in the estimation of the public.”

Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Jerry Boykin, former U.S. Army Delta Force commander and current Family Research Council executive vice president, made the following comments:

"I applaud D. James Kennedy Ministries for its efforts to expose the truth about the Southern Poverty Law Center, a discredited organization that has become so controversial that even the Obama Justice Department backed away from the group -- along with the FBI and U.S. Army.


“For any reputable organization to use the Southern Poverty Law Center’s hate list, is reckless, irresponsible and uninformed. This is an organization that has been linked in federal court to domestic terrorism, committed against the Family Research Council, by Floyd Corkins, with information he obtained from SPLC’s so-called ‘hate map.’ On its website, the SPLC continues to recklessly label people such as House Majority Whip Steve Scalise who was recently shot by James Hodgkinson, a Facebook fan of the SPLC.

“The SPLC is an organization that is an attack dog of the Left, they are not a neutral arbiter that is calling balls and strikes. They are on the field playing, pushing an agenda, and anyone who opposes them is slandered and slapped with a hate label. It is important to remember that the SPLC is the same group that identified Dr. Ben Carson as a hate monger because of his Christian values. (Only to retract the label later due to public backlash.) This is wrong. It's not the American way. The SPLC is inciting hatred against Christians, which has already led to violence. It needs to stop,” concludes Boykin.




https://youtu.be/hgjI3wavx-I


Video: Confessed Terrorist Floyd Corkins Admits to Using SPLC Target List



http://www.frc.org/newsroom/family-r...rty-law-center

Tucker Carlson interviews D. James Kennedy Ministry about their lawsuit against the SPLC.


https://youtu.be/BRuzg0sRoRU

https://youtu.be/BRuzg0sRoRU

SPLC is probably a criminal organization at this point. Very sad. All of our once great institutions have been bought up by criminal foreign interests.