Last week D. James Kennedy Ministries (DJKM), a Christian-based missionary ministry based in Florida, filed a lawsuit against the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and Amazon after being added to the SPLC’s list of “hate groups” and excluded from Amazon’s charitable donation program, Amazon Smile. Apparently, at least in the SPLC’s estimation, verbally expressing a religously-based opposition to same-sex marriage and transgenerism is enough to get yourself labeled an “Anti-LGBT hate group.” Per PJ Media:
“We embarked today on a journey to right a terrible wrong,” Dr. Frank Wright, president and CEO at DJKM, said in a statement Tuesday. “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.”The SPLC has labeled DJKM an “anti-LGBT hate group” for its opposition to same-sex marriage and transgenderism. “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 declared.
“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,” the DJKM president concluded.
The lawsuit laid out charges against the SPLC, GuideStar, and Amazon. “SPLC acted knowingly, intentionally, and with actual malice in publishing the Hate Map that included the Ministry and in publishing the SPLC Transmissions to GuideStar that included the ministry,” the suit alleged. “SPLC’s conduct in making these publications was beyond the reckless disregard for the truth standard required by Alabama law for punitive damages.”
Of course, given that “same-sex marriage and transgenderism” generally do not comport with the views of most religious entities, it’s unclear exactly how/why all churches, mosques and synagogues in the U.S. managed to avoid being added the SPLC’s list…maybe DJKM just got lucky?
In all, the SPLC says there are 917 “hate groups” in the United States which they divvy up into the following categories:
- Anti-Immigrant
- Anti-LGBT
- Anti-Muslim
- Black Separatist
- Christian Indentity
- General Hate
- Hate Music
- Holocaust Denial
- KKK
- Neo-Confederate
- Neo-Nazi
- Racist Skinhead
- Radical Traditional Catholocism
- White Nationalist
True Discernment 
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