OPINION (CBN) – The D. James Kennedy Ministries, a Christian media ministry founded in 1974 by the late Dr. D. James Kennedy as Coral Ridge Ministries, is fighting back against the Southern Poverty Law Center for putting it on the center’s hate map. This legal battle could be important to Christians across America because they could be targeted as haters just for their faith.
Many people acknowledge the Southern Poverty Law Center did good work for years by targeting haters and racists like the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis. But then it took a lurch to the left and began to put conservatives and Christians on the SPLC website’s hate map. It has happened to dozens of groups, including the Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based D. James Kennedy Ministries because it stands for traditional marriage and against radical parts of the LGBTQ agenda.
“They placed us along with about 55 or 60 other organizations on their so-called hate map,” President Dr. Frank Wright told CBN News. “They put us right next to the neo-Nazis. Right next to the skinheads. Right next to the Ku Klux Klan.” So the organization sued the SPLC, losing the first round in court, but now appealing to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, Ga.
“We have objected that their characterization of us as a hate group is defamatory,” Wright explained.
And that characterization can even be dangerous. The ministry’s video “Profits of Hate” recounts how a would-be mass killer launched a foiled terrorist attack on the conservative Family Research Council because it was on SPLC’s hate map. READ MORE
