Tony Perkins, president of the
Christian conservative group Family Research Council (FRC), is
seeking $200,000 for a campaign against the Southern Poverty Law
Center (SPLC).
The Alabama-based SPLC monitors more
than 1,000 extremist groups in the United States. SPLC labeled FRC a
“hate group” because of its opposition to LGBT rights.
On Monday, Perkins asked supporters in
an email to contribute to a campaign against the SPLC, Right
Wing Watch reported. He said the group is trying to raise
$200,000 by March 15.
“Exposing the SPLC's radical agenda
is one of the highest priorities we have here at FRC in 2018,”
Perkins wrote. “Teachers, parents and K-12 students can ill afford
to substitute science and math with cross-dressing, gender-spectrum
training and same-sex dating skills.”
The SPLC, Perkins added, is trying to
“marginalize and ultimately silence the voice of Christians.”
The group added on its donation page:
“The SPLC’s agenda to destroy as many Catholic, Baptist, and
Pentecostal organizations as possible, and to push a pro-LGBT agenda
in K-12 education, must be halted.”
Perkins has also called on President
Donald Trump to “forcefully direct all federal agencies to
eliminate the SPLC as a reliable and credible source for information
and data.”
In 2011, the SPLC's Mark Potok defended
designating FRC a “hate group,” telling CBN that “the FRC does
engage, certainly in our view, in the propagation of known falsehoods
in an effort to defame gay people.”