The anti-gay group Americans For Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH) is livid about being labeled a hate group, gay news site ChicagoPride.com reported.

The Chicago-based gay rights group Gay Liberation Network (GLN) successfully lobbied the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) to add AFTAH to the list of hate groups it monitors. The SPLC included the group in the most recent issue of its quarterly publication Intelligence Report.

AFTAH is a “national organization devoted exclusively to exposing and countering the homosexual activist agenda,” according to the group's website.

AFTAH President Peter LaBarbera was the first to rail against President Obama's appointment of openly gay Kevin Jennings to the post of Assistant Deputy Secretary for the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools. LaBarbera called Jennings “radical” and “the antithesis of 'safety'.”

The group also supports the so-called ex-gay movement that promotes the notion that gay men and lesbians can alter their sexual orientation through mostly Christian worship.

“There are few things as sinister, and as cynical, as the Left's manipulation of 'hate' as a political weapon to malign Christians and patriotic, conservative Americans,” AFTAH President Peter LaBarbera said on the group's website in response to the SPLC's decision.

“Thankfully, it seems the only people taking the SPLC seriously anymore are the liberal media and hardened, 'Move On'-types on the Left. The SPLC is a spent force when it comes to moral authority – and even some honest liberals are seeing through its disingenuous campaign to redefine morality as 'hate' and 'bigotry.'”

“To defend historic Judeo-Christian moral norms is not 'bigotry' and to disagree with homosexual activists is not 'hate',” he added.

The 47-year-old LaBarbera calls himself a “conservative critic of the homosexual activist movement.”

“Getting LaBarbera's website labeled a 'hate group' is important because it helps assist the political marginalization of a man who has dedicated his career to dying others legal equality,” Bob Schwartz of GLN told ChicagoPride.com.