Virginia ACLU uses SPLC ‘hate group’ attack to block school board’s transgender policy review

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)’s Virginia chapter has adopted the Southern Poverty Regulation Middle (SPLC) declare that the Christian authorized nonprofit Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) is a “hate group” in an effort to disgrace the Hanover County Faculty Board into compliance with ACLU’s most well-liked transgender insurance policies.

The Hanover County Faculty Board voted final week to usher in ADF for an unbiased assessment of its transgender insurance policies after the ACLU-VA sued the varsity board, claiming that it violated state legislation by failing to undertake new guidelines that may enable transgender college students to make use of bogs and locker rooms that align with their gender identities. ADF will conduct the assessment without charge to the varsity district, in response to the varsity board.

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“The absurdity of this motion is past perception,” ACLU-VA mentioned in a information launch. “Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) is an extremist conservative non secular group, labeled as an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group by the Southern Poverty Regulation Middle since 2016. ADF was categorized as a hate group as a result of it helps the concept that being LGBTQ+ ought to be against the law within the U.S. and internationally.”

ACLU-VA introduced that it had teamed up with Equality Virginia, He She Ze and We, the HAnover County NAACP, and Facet by Facet Virginia to file a Freedom of Info Act request for communication between the varsity board, the varsity district, and ADF.

“We’re conscious of those claims and don’t share the identical perspective,” Ola Hawkins, a college board member, informed Fox Information Digital in response to the “hate group” cost in opposition to ADF. Hawkins declined to remark additional, citing the ACLU-VA lawsuit.

“The Hanover Faculty Board is dedicated to finishing up the crucial process of offering excellence in schooling for his or her college students whereas advancing a tradition that respects the dignity and wishes of all college students and workers,” Ryan Bangert, senior counsel and vice chairman for technique at ADF, informed Fox Information Digital. “ADF seems ahead to serving the board by offering authorized recommendation that accomplishes these targets.”

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ADF has gained 13 instances on the Supreme Courtroom since 2011 and has been concerned in 64 Supreme Courtroom victories up to now 25 years. ADF has defended the rights of Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and other people of no religion, and has gained greater than 400 free speech victories on school campuses. The SPLC itself signed onto an amicus transient in one in all ADF’s instances.

Neither ACLU-VA nor ACLU nationwide responded to Fox Information Digital’s requests for remark relating to the “hate group” accusation in opposition to ADF.

(AP Picture/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

The SPLC declare in opposition to ADF and different conservative teams has confronted stiff criticism, not solely from conservatives however from a former SPLC worker and from a former president of the nationwide ACLU. 

Nadine Strossen, a former president of ACLU nationwide, famous that whereas she admires and helps the work of the SPLC, she should “respectfully dissent” from the declare that ADF is a “hate group.”

“I think about ADF to be a beneficial ally on necessary problems with frequent concern, and a worthy adversary (not an ‘enemy’) on necessary problems with disagreement; what I don’t think about it to be, contemplating the complete scope of its work, is a ‘hate group,’” Strossen wrote.

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Amid a racial discrimination and sexual harassment scandal that led the SPLC to fireplace its co-founder in 2019, a former staffer got here ahead, claiming that the SPLC makes use of its “hate group” accusation to magnify hate in a fundraising scheme to “bilk” donors.

Critics have claimed that the SPLC manufacturers mainstream conservative and Christian organizations “hate teams,” putting them on a listing and a map with really hateful organizations just like the Ku Klux Klan. The “Intelligence Venture,” the SPLC division that screens “hate teams,” started as a venture to watch the KKK and different White supremacist organizations.

Adri Perez, ACLU of Texas Coverage and Advocacy Strategist, heart, and different LGBTQ leaders communicate exterior the Travis County courthouse the place a listening to was held to cease the brand new baby welfare investigations concentrating on supportive households of transgender youngsters, on Wednesday, Mar. 02, 2022, in Austin.
(Erich Schlegel/AP Pictures for Human Rights Marketing campaign)

In August 2012, a terrorist focused the Household Analysis Council (FRC) in Washington, D.C, planning to shoot everybody within the constructing and put a Chick-Fil-A rooster sandwich by every sufferer’s head. A safety guard stopped the shooter, who was sentenced to 25 years in jail on expenses together with terrorism. The shooter informed the FBI that he discovered FRC on the SPLC’s “hate map.” The SPLC condemned the capturing, nevertheless it has saved FRC on the “hate map.”

The SPLC has confronted a number of defamation lawsuits over its “hate” and “extremist” labeling. In 2018, the SPLC paid $3.375 million and issued a groveling apology after branding Muslim reformer Maajid Nawaz an “Anti-Muslim Extremist.” The Supreme Courtroom is contemplating whether or not to take up DJKM’s defamation lawsuit difficult the “hate group” accusation. 

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ADF has repeatedly contested the SPLC’s particular claims, as effectively. Jeremy Tedesco, an ADF spokesman, emphatically denied the SPLC’s declare that ADF “has supported the concept that being LGBTQ ought to be against the law.”

The SPLC has additionally claimed that ADF supported the pressured sterilization of transgender Europeans. Tedesco claimed that “SPLC’s false declare relies on a deliberate distortion of our authorized transient supporting the rights of particular person international locations within the European Union to set their very own legal guidelines, fairly than having them imposed by worldwide courts. Our transient had nothing to do with pressured sterilization.”

ADF defended France’s proper to set the requirements permitting folks to vary their gender on authorities paperwork.

The SPLC didn’t reply to Fox Information’ request for touch upon the criticism of its “hate group” accusation.

Kimberly Thurston, who has three youngsters in Hanover colleges, informed WTVR that she helps the ADF assessment.

“They do superb work defending our First Modification rights,” she mentioned. “I used to be happy to see them introduced in without charge to taxpayers.”