SPLC’s research director Heidi Beirich told Talking Points Memo on November 24, 2010, that there was no difference between Family Research Council and the Ku Klux Klan:
I asked her if a Republican choosing to address the FRC [Values Voter Summit] convention next year would be making the same choice as one who addressed an Aryan Nation rally.
“Yeah,” she told me. “What we’re saying is these [anti-gay] groups perpetrate hate — just like those [racist] organizations do.”
The SPLC can see no difference between Family Research Council and a group that lynched black people in order to keep them from voting.
Listen, the shooter alone is responsible for the shooting. But trying to lump Tony Perkins with the guy who shot people at the Sikh temple (they are all hate groups, see?) is morally bankrupt on its face.
I hope this event prompts people of conscience over at SPLC to do some serious soul-searching.