The attitude of same-sex marriage advocates can be summed up by a quote from Disney’s animated classic, Beauty and the Beast: “If you’re not with us, you’re against us!”
The Southern Poverty Law Center just published its annual “Year of Hate and Extremism” report, and according to catholicnewsagency.com, organizations opposing same-sex marriage are featured on the report’s list of “hate groups.” These organizations include Alliance Defending Freedom, C-FAM, Liberty Counsel, and the Ruth Institute.
These groups are lumped in with other, more justifiably vile groups on the list, including Ku Klux Klan chapters, neo-Nazis, and white nationalist groups. (Because obviously, those who believe that marriage can only take place between a man and a woman are as dangerous as those types.)
Why the Alliance Defending Freedom, which has won several court cases against the HHS contraception mandate, graces the list is a mystery, as they have stated that their organization “believes that all people are made in the image of God and that everyone is worthy of dignity and respect.” Additionally, the legal group states that “while ADF takes legal and policy positions that are informed by a biblically-based understanding of marriage, human sexuality, and the sanctity of life, we respect the human dignity of those with whom we disagree and win legal cases that also protect their freedom to express and advocate for their beliefs.” Where’s the so-called hate, then?
Being on the list can have damaging consequences, to which the Ruth Institute can attest. Because of their opposition to same-sex marriage, they were banned from online fundraising. Their founder, Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, stated that “The Ruth Institute's primary focus is family breakdown and its impact on children: understanding it, healing it, ending it. If this makes us a ‘hate group,’ so be it.”
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s website, the Center was founded “to ensure that the promise of the civil rights movement became a reality for all.” But it turns out that they’re just as discriminatory toward their perceived enemies as their old racist opponents used to be.