Fox & Friends recently hosted Andrea Lafferty, president of the Traditional Values Coalition (TVC), an organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has labeled an anti-gay “hate group.” Lafferty, who has described SPLC’s designation of her group as a “badge of honor,” is the latest member of an organization that SPLC has designated as a hate group or otherwise criticized for propagating hateful rhetoric to be invited to speak on Fox News.
Fox Hosts TVC President Andrea Lafferty
Fox & Friends Hosts TVC
President Andrea Lafferty. On the August 4 edition of Fox
News’ Fox & Friends, the co-hosts interviewed Andrea
Lafferty, head of the Traditional Values Coalition (TVC), about TVC’s
report criticizing grants funded by the National Institute of Health. [Fox
News, Fox & Friends, 8/4/11]
Southern Poverty Law Center: TVC Is An Anti-Gay “Hate Group”
SPLC Labels TVC An Anti-Gay “Hate Group.” According
to the SPLC, TVC will be listed as an anti-gay hate group as of
2011. SPLC elevates anti-gay groups to hate group status “based on their
propagation of known falsehoods — claims about LGBT people that
have been thoroughly discredited by scientific authorities — and
repeated, groundless name-calling.” From SPLC:
The group has at times enjoyed remarkable
access to the halls of power — during the
George W. Bush Administration, Sheldon and Lafferty visited the White House a
combined 69 times, meeting personally with Bush in eight of the visits. But
that does not mean that it has not long had a record of extreme gay-bashing.
In 1985, [TVC founder Lou] Sheldon suggested
forcing AIDS victims into “cities of refuge.” In 1992, columnist Jimmy Breslin
said that Sheldon told him that “homosexuals are dangerous. They proselytize.
They come to the door, and if your son answers and nobody is there to stop it,
they grab the son and run off with him. They steal him. They take him away and
turn him into a homosexual.” Sheldon later denied that he made the comments,
but his website today includes strikingly similar language: “[S]ince homosexuals
can’t reproduce, they will simply go after your children for seduction and
conversion to homosexuality.” Elsewhere, it claims that “[t]he effort to push
adult/child sex … is part of the overall homosexual movement.”
The TVC also asserts that "it is evident that
homosexuals molest children at a far greater rate than do their heterosexual
counterparts" — a falsehood based
on conflating male-male molestation with homosexuality. Gays, it says, molest
children at "epidemic rates," adding: "As homosexuals continue to make inroads
into public schools, more children will be molested and indoctrinated into the
world of homosexuality. Many of them will die in that world." With regard to
LGBT teen suicides, TVC, under the headline "Homosexual Urban Legends," claims
that "[t]he cold, hard fact is that teens who are struggling with homosexual
feelings are more likely to be sexually molested by a homosexual school
counselor or teacher than to commit suicide over their feelings of despair."
The TVC also makes assertions on its website
about disproportionate homosexual pedophilia and attacks the idea that people
are born gay and the claim that gays want the right to marry for the same
reasons that heterosexuals do — the TVC
suggests the real purpose of marriage equality is to destroy the concept of
marriage and ultimately replace it altogether with group sex and polygamy. [Southern Poverty Law Center, accessed 3/30/11;
Media Matters, 3/30/11]
Beck
Hosted Author Who Was Member Of League Of The South Hate Group. On the June 8, 2010,
edition of Fox News’ Glenn Beck, Beck hosted author Thomas Woods, who has been a member of League of the South,
which SPLC describes as:
[A] neo-Confederate group that advocates for
a second Southern secession and a society dominated by “European
Americans.” The league believes the “godly” nation it wants to
form should be run by an “Anglo-Celtic” (read: white) elite that
would establish a Christian theocratic state and politically dominate blacks
and other minorities. Originally founded by a group that included many Southern
university professors, the group lost its Ph.D.s as it became more explicitly
racist. The league denounces the federal government and northern and coastal states
as part of “the Empire,” a materialist and anti-religious society.
[SPLC, accessed 8/4/11; Media Matters, 6/8/10]
Beck
Promoted Book By “One Man Hate Group” Eustace Mullins. On the September 22,
2010, edition of his Fox News show, Beck attacked 20th
century diplomat Edward House by promoting a book by Eustace Mullins called Secrets
of the Federal Reserve. Mullins was described as a “nationally known white
supremacist and anti-Semite” in his obituary and was “described in 2000 by the
SPLC as a one-man organization of hate.” From the Daily News Leader in
his hometown of Staunton, VA:
Nationally known white supremacist and
anti-Semite Eustace Mullins of Staunton, described in 2000 by the Southern
Poverty Law Center as a one-man organization of hate, died Wednesday in Waller
County, Texas, at age 86.
[...]
Besides controversial writings in his own
name, he was widely believed to have concocted propaganda hoaxes by authoring
improbably self-damaging writings attributed to others but supporting Mullins’
extremist views. At one point he also adopted the title of “reverend”
and saying he represented what he called the “American Humane
Church.”
Besides his church, he also took credit for
or appeared on letterhead of several other organizations, usually operating at
his home address at the time.
In 1955 he listed himself as Executive
Director of the “Aryan League of America” at a Springhill Road,
Staunton, address.
In 1960, his name was one of two listed on
the letterhead for the policy committee of the Institute for Biopolitics in
Chicago. One memo warned, “The Whiteman’s very existence is in
danger.” [Fox News, Glenn Beck, 9/22/10,
via Media Matters; Daily News Leader, 2/5/10, via Nexis]
Fox
Pushed Attack On Jennings Based On Claims Made
By Anti-Gay Hate Group Mass Resistance. Fox advanced numerous attacks on former Education Department official Kevin Jennings which
originated from the anti-gay hate group Mass
Resistance. The group was listed in SPLC’s list of “Active U.S. Hate Groups in
2008.” [Media Matters, 12/10/09]
Fox
& Friends
Hosted Columnist For “White Nationalist” Website VDARE. On the May 24, 2010, edition of Fox
& Friends, co-host Steve Doocy hosted Allan Wall to discuss Arizona’s
anti-immigration legislation. After the interview, Doocy revealed that Wall is
a columnist for VDARE.com, which publishes the
works of “white nationalists.” According to SPLC, VDARE is a hate group that
“regularly publishes articles by prominent white nationalists, race scientists
and anti-Semites.” [Media Matters, 5/24/10;
SPLC, accessed 8/5/11]
Fox
& Friends
Hosted Official From AIC And AICF, Which SPLC Lists
As Anti-Immigrant Hate Groups. On May 14, 2010, Fox
& Friends hosted Phil Kent of the Americans for Immigration Control
(AIC) and the American Immigration Control Foundation (AICF). According to
SPLC, both organizations are anti-immigrant hate groups. From the SPLC:
Founded in 1983, the American Immigration
Control Foundation (AICF) is an anti-immigration group that has grown more
shrill in recent years. AICF’s web site suggests that immigrants have
“sown the seeds of ethnic strife in America” and that large-scale
immigration into America, especially Third World immigration, is “a policy
rooted in humanistic pride and the worship of Mammon [a Biblical reference to
anti-Christian materialism].”
AICF has been headed by John Vinson since
1990. In the mid-1990s, Sam Francis, who was fired from the conservative Washington
Times after penning a racially inflammatory column, was AICF chairman.
Today, Francis is editor of the racist
Council of Conservative Citizens’ (CCC) monthly tabloid, Citizens Informer. Vinson,
who is also editor of the anti-immigration publication Border Watch, often
speaks at CCC meetings and is a founding member of the white supremacist League
of the South. [Media Matters, 5/18/10;
SPLC, accessed 8/5/11]
Fox Has Repeatedly Hosted Pam Geller, Subject Of SPLC
“Hatewatch” Post. Fox
News has repeatedly hosted anti-Islam blogger Pamela Geller, even after she was the subject of an August 25,
2010, “Hatewatch” post by SPLC titled, “White
Supremacists Find Common Cause With Pam Geller’s Anti-Islam Campaign.” From the
SPLC’s description of Geller:
Pamela Geller is the anti-Muslim movement’s
most visible and flamboyant figurehead. She’s relentlessly shrill and coarse in
her broad-brush denunciations of Islam and makes preposterous claims, such as
that President Obama is the “love child” of Malcolm X. She makes no
pretense of being learned in Islamic studies, leaving the argumentative heavy
lifting to her Stop Islamization of America partner Robert Spencer. Geller has
mingled comfortably with European racists and fascists, spoken favorably of South
African racists, defended Serbian war criminal Radovan Karadzic and denied the
existence of Serbian concentration camps. She has taken a strong pro-Israel
stance to the point of being sharply critical of Jewish liberals. [SPLC, 8/25/10; SPLC, accessed 8/5/11; Media Matters,
7/25/11]
Fox Hosted Head Of Anti-Gay Hate Group Family
Research Council To Attack Gender Diversity Education. On the
May 26 edition of Fox News’ America’s Newsroom, co-host Martha MacCallum
hosted Family Research Council president Tony Perkins to attack a school in
California that was teaching a gender diversity class. The Family Research
Council has been labeled by the SPLC as an anti-gay hate group. From the
SPLC:
The Family Research Council (FRC) bills itself as “the leading
voice for the family in our nation’s halls of power,” but its real specialty is
defaming gays and lesbians. The FRC often makes false claims about the LGBT
community based on discredited research and junk science. The intention is to
denigrate LGBT people in its battles against same-sex marriage, hate crimes
laws, anti-bullying programs and the repeal of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t
Tell” policy.
To make the case that the LGBT community is a threat to American
society, FRC employs a number of "policy experts" whose "research" has allowed
FRC to be extremely active politically in shaping public debate. Its research
fellows and leaders often testify before Congress and appear in the mainstream
media. It also works at the grassroots level, conducting outreach to pastors in
an effort to "transform the culture." [SPLC, accessed 8/5/11; Fox News, America's
Newsroom, 5/26/11, via Equality
Matters]
