Focus on the Family, the evangelical Christian nonprofit based in Colorado Springs, is responding to its recent inclusion on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s list of U.S. based hate groups.
The designation was announced in May and marks the first time Focus on the Family has been added to the list, formally known as the “Hate Map.”
The Southern Poverty Law Center said Focus on the Family was added for its overt stances against LGBTQ+ lifestyles.
“While they attempt to encode anti-LGBTQ+ ideology into American life and law, they strategically craft a public image as family counselors,” a statement from the law center reads. “They perpetuate decades-old tropes about gay people that divide families, churches, and communities.”
Colorado Springs has hosted the headquarters of Focus on the Family since the early 1990s. It’s famously known as one of the country’s most prominent anti-abortion organizations. The group has also long advocated for traditional Christian family values more broadly. This has included speaking out against the LGBTQ+ community and gay marriage and in favor of strict gender classifications tied to one’s sex assigned at birth as well as advocating for defining marriage as only possible between a man and a woman.
In an emailed statement to CPR News, Focus on the Family President Jim Daly said his organization espouses “multi-millenia, divinely inspired beliefs.” Those beliefs, he said, clearly state that sex outside of a heterosexual union is a sinful act.
“These convictions make us anti-sin, not anti-anybody,” Daly said. “We strongly reject the widely discredited, scandal-ridden, radical SPLC’s careless and threatening ‘hate list’ designation and urge them to do the responsible thing and deescalate their potentially violent rhetoric.”
The law center, “always finds a way to hate Christians,” he added.
The nonprofit Southern Poverty Law Center traces its roots back to the 1970s, when it was founded as a watchdog for underprivileged and minority groups. It has been producing its list of what it defines as hate groups and antigovernment extremist groups since 1990.
But the organization has had its own problems, including allegations that it uses its “hate list” designation to denigrate politically conservative organizations. It has also faced allegations of discrimination and harassment from its own employees in past years.
The latest release of the SPLC Hate Map lists 33 groups operating in Colorado. These range from immigration reform organizations to the state Constitution Party to several chapters of the group Moms for Liberty.
