Righting a Terrible Wrong: D. James Kennedy Files Defamation Lawsuit Against Southern Poverty Law Center
Peter LaBarbera : Aug 25, 2017
LifeSiteNews
"The Southern Poverty Law Center has descended into a political attack machine, plastering the 'hate' label not only on legitimate hate groups, but also on anyone who disagrees with their far-Left political persuasions. It is intellectually and morally dishonest to group mainstream Christian ministries with neo-Nazis and violent militias — yet this is exactly what the SPLC does, and news media reporting uncritically parrots them." – D. James Kennedy
(Fort Lauderdale, FL) — [LifeSiteNews] The Christian pro-family organization D. James Kennedy Ministries is filing a defamation lawsuit against the leftist Southern Poverty Law Center for labeling it a "hate group." (Photo Credit: LifeSiteNews)
- James Kennedy Ministries (DJMK), formerly known as Coral Ridge Ministries, is among dozens of organizations opposing the LGBTQ agenda, radical Islam, and uncontrolled immigration that have been tarred as "hate" organizations by the SPLC, which is now receiving millions of dollars in new funding in the wake of the recent racial violence in Charlottesville, Virginia. The organizations are listed alongside racist and anti-Semitic extremist groups like Aryan Nation and the Ku Klux Klan.
The lawsuit, filed August 10 in federal District Court in Alabama, charges the SPLC with "trafficking in false or misleading descriptions of the services offered under the Ministry's trademarked name, and for defamation pursuant to Alabama common law arising from the publication and distribution of information that libels the Ministry's reputation and subjects the Ministry to disgrace, ridicule, odium, and contempt in the estimation of the public."
The lawsuit also names Amazon.com, AmazonSmile Foundation and GuideStar USA — organizations that have relied on the SPLC's "hate" designation to effectively punish DJKM and other pro-family and conservative groups by labeling them as "hate groups" and thus ineligible for charitable donation programs. After receiving much criticism, the charity-listing group GuideStar backpedaled and said it would stop designating conservative organizations as "hate groups" based on the SPLC's jaundiced characterization, as LifeSiteNews reported in June ...
"The mission of the [D. James Kennedy] Ministry is to proclaim the Gospel upon which this nation was founded, to teach and nurture the followers of Jesus, to equip and encourage Believers, and to defend religious liberty," the lawsuit states.
"Nowhere in the purpose or action of the Ministry is there HATE or any room for HATE," it states.
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