ANALYSIS/OPINION:
Conservative and Christian organizations dinged by GuideStar as “hate groups” have risen up and launched a counterattack, asking the supposed nonpartisan watchdog of the nonprofit world to reverse course and remove the labels.
And well GuideStar should. The organization’s recent move gave off the distinct odor of an anti-Christian, anti-conservative attack.
How so?
GuideStar, in recent weeks, had affixed a “hate” tag to 46 different conservative and Christian groups, using data from the — get this — Southern Poverty Law Center, a far-left leaning outlet if ever there was one.
Among the groups that had been corralled under that “hate” heading were the Family Research Council, the American Family Association, the American Freedom Defense Initiative, the Immigration Reform Law Institute, the Jewish Institute for Global Awareness and the American College of Pediatricians.
Forty-one of the groups banded to pen a critical letter to GuideStar, saying: “We, the undersigned organizations and individuals, write to express our strong disagreement with GuideStar’s newly implemented policy that labels 46 American organizations as ‘hate groups.’ Your designations are based on determinations made by the [SPLC], a hard-left activist organization. As such, SPLC’s aggressive political agenda pervades the construction of its ‘hate group’ listings.”
What’s even more interesting about GuideStar’s recent labelling is that it had been perpetrated under the leadership of CEO Jacob Harold — a guy described in the organization’s bio section as a “social change strategist” whose background included work as a “climate change campaigner” for Rainforest Action Network and Greenpeace USA.
Harold, as LifeSite found, also took part in the January Women’s March — a gathering in Washington, D.C., that was supposed to be about equality between the genders but was actually an excuse to proclaim loud and public hatred for President Donald Trump.
“I think that what GuideStar is doing [with the hate labels] is another attack on conservative Christian organizations and individuals,” said William “Jerry” Boykin, a retired Army general now serving as executive vice president of the FRC, the Daily Signal reported.
Quite right. What’s next, a declaration of the Bible as a hate manual?
It’s bad enough the SPLC is a go-to organization for the left, whenever the media or Democrats need an outside source that labels a conservative outlet as discriminatory, hateful or intolerant. But et tu GuideStar?
A spokesperson for GuideStar, in response to the backlash, said the organization is considering some changes to its website, in terms of how the labels and descriptions are presented.
But really, GuideStar doesn’t need to include any “hate group” label at all in its data and reports. Let the readers and researchers, the potential donors and contributors, make that determination themselves.
No need for GuideStar to wade into this political quagmire at all — particularly when those of traditional values are so very often skewed by those of weak moral compass and shaky virtuous standing as hate-filled.
Really, let’s just stop with all this mudslinging of Christians, of traditionalists, of the conservatives of America as the haters. At this point in the Trump presidency, it’s quite apparent where all the violence, all the hate, all the intolerance is coming from — and it’s not from the Christian crowd, but rather the left. If GuideStar wants to maintain any semblance of nonpartisanship, and salvage any bit of respect for its watchdog work of nonprofits, organizational leaders will outright remove the hate tag from these 40-plus groups, and pronto.