The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) makes millions of dollars every year going after so-called hate groups. How does the SPLC define a hate group? Any group that stands up for traditional moral values.

The SPLC list of hate groups grows every year, and with the growth of the list, its bank account also grows. The SPLC is a money-making machine.

When you and I think of hate groups, what most often comes to mind are groups that put their words into violent action or intimidate people by the threat of violence or going after their ability to make a living. Blacks were often the target of discrimination at home and on the job.

Where has the SPLC been when law-abiding citizens were attacked by homosexual groups because a person stood up for his rights and opposed homosexual marriage?

A recent article in National Review Online exposes the blatant hypocrisy of the SPLC. The SPLC is not about exposing hate groups; it’s about promoting a left-wing agenda. If there is a violent left-wing group actually involved in acts of violence, the SPLC will not lift a finger. There’s no money in it. Charles Cooke writes:

I called the Southern Poverty Law Center to find out if they had any plans to start tracking the Occupy movement. The first person I spoke to was so shocked by the question that she paused for a good 15 seconds before promising to put me in touch with a representative. This she eventually did, however, and after a game of cat-and-mouse — the person she’d found for me was busy “hosting an international conference on right-wing extremism.”

When Cooke finally got to talk to someone, he learned that the SPLC had “blogged about it.” There have been rapes, violence, threats, and the destruction of property, and all the folks at the SPLC would do is “blog about it.”

The SPLC raises millions of dollars every year going after organizations that stand up peacefully for their right to speak out against declining moral trends, but real examples of violence against a large segment of society only get a few words of comments.

The person Mr. Cooke spoke with could not articulate why only so-called right wing groups are pursued by the SPLC. The spokesperson said that the SPLC only tracks those who commit violence or who seek to destroy whole systems in the name of an ideology. “Isn’t that exactly what happened in Cleveland?” Cooke asked. “These five men, all linked with Occupy Wall Street, attempted to blow up a bridge as an overture to the wholesale destruction of Cleveland, Ohio, and in the name of anarchism. They also looked to blow up the Republican convention.”

Here was the response from the SPLC spokesperson: “We’re not really set up to cover the extreme Left.”

In the eyes of the SPLC, “‘Left’ equals ‘good,’ and ‘Right’ equals ‘bad,’ and therefore anything ‘Left’ couldn’t be ‘bad’ unless it were infiltrated by the ‘Right.” Makes perfect sense. Here’s how Mr. Cooke concludes his article:

In my time covering Occupy Wall Street I have seen anti-Semitism, black nationalism, class hatred, and threats of violence; there have been rapes, a few murders, and now some domestic terrorism. One would have thought that these things would be sufficient warrant for a group like the Southern Poverty Law Center to stand up and take serious note, but, as I learned . . ., there’s one problem: They’re just “not set up to cover the extreme Left.”