This is the second of a three-part set on the current status of the United States ‘ legal system’s movements for religious freedom. Check out the second part about the “rise of global repression” here and the next part about how Christians who refuse to take a COVID- 19 vaccine face “medical death row.”
The Southern Poverty Law Center’s “buried over deep,” according to Mike Farris, general counsel for the National Religious Broadcasters and the leader of Patrick Henry College.
” It’s not that they’re left- wing”, Farris told” The Daily Signal Podcast” in an interview at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention in February. ” They hate the concept that you’re allowed to change, and that is un- National”.
Farris, a lawyer who has represented clients in cases involving religious freedom and free talk for more than 40 times, held the position of president of the Christian-focused volunteer Alliance Defending Freedom for five years. In 1993, he won the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor of Virginia, though he lost the general vote.
Farris recalls that when he began handling situations involving religious freedom,” I was definitely one of the first three full-time Christian attorneys practicing this kind of work.” There are currently thousands of lawyers representing clients at four main firms.
He calls that a” supply of motivation” for him, but the opposition has even gotten harsh.
A “hate image” plots popular liberal and Christian businesses like ADF alongside Klan chapters is published by the SPLC, which began as a civil rights law firm representing bad people in the South and established a name for itself by suing Ku Klux Klan groups into liquidation. It implies that they are motivated by a similar kind of love. A former employee claimed the SPLC’s “hate” charges are a “highly successful scam” to intimidate donors into giving up money in the wake of a sexual abuse and racial discrimination incident in 2019. The SPLC has an investment of more than$ 740 million.
” They do n’t care about rights. They do n’t care about America”, Farris says of the SPLC. They are concerned about using the liberal philosophy to raise a lot of money and invest it on themselves. But they’re using it by criminal methods. You know, criminal techniques wrapped in a little bit of silk”.
In 2012, a criminal used the SPLC’s “hate image” to pin the Family Research Council, a Holy nonprofit in Washington, D. C. The mayor’s creating manager foiled the attack by the criminal, who afterwards told the FBI he had planned to massacre everyone in the building.
The Family Research Council is still a fixture on the “hate map.”
The SPLC claims that ADF is an “anti- LGBTQ hate group”, accusing it of having supported “forced sterilization” in France. Farris says that’s a “flat lie”.
The former ADF president explains that” we wrote a brief in the European Court of Human Rights supporting the French law.” ADF supported France’s right” to make laws on the subject” of gender ideology, arguing” that there are areas that states get some freedom to rule, and there should n’t be one international standard for that”.
” The word’ sterilization’ does not appear in our brief, ever”, Farris notes. We never discussed it, and so someone asserts that the French law could be used to impose sterilization if transgender people in France desired specific rights.
We were not discussing the specifics of French law, he adds, nor were we advocating that it should be written in a particular way. We were just saying this is France’s choice, not the international community’s choice.”
” So, it’s a lie. It’s a flat lie,” Farris said.
He also pointed out that many defamation lawsuits brought against the SPLC are dismissed.
The former ADF president explained that the majority of defamation cases that have occurred against the Southern Poverty Law Center have been brought on the grounds that what they were saying was opinion rather than fact.
However, last year a federal judge rejected the SPLC’s motion to dismiss a defamation lawsuit. D. A. King, the founder of the pro-immigration reform movement The Dustin Inman Society, claimed King had reason to doubt whether King’s organization was a “hate group” because the SPLC had previously stated that King’s organization was n’t a “hate group.”
” If we get the right case for defamation, I’m going to be the first one to sue them—where it’s so clear it’s a statement of fact and it’s false,” Farris pledged.
Of the SPLC, he says”, They deserve to go down, and they do hurt people.”
” I think that if]judges and juries ] apply the defamation law correctly, they’re going to get buried someday,” Farris predicts”. When they get buried, they need to be buried deep.”
He also shared an anecdote that he found revealing.
Farris said at a gathering about religious freedom that the first thing we need to do was remove the rainbow flags that were flying at embassies all over the world because the Christians there see that and say,” They ca n’t be for religious liberty if they’re flying the rainbow flag.” Because the point of the rainbow flag is to crush Christianity.’ “
He recalls a “lesbian Episcopal priest from Philadelphia” who said,” Everyone wants to celebrate our anniversary.”
” They want to be celebrated by everybody. Why? Because in their soul, they know it’s, they feel the pangs of sin,” Farris says.
He emphasizes that conservative Christians should defend everyone’s religious freedom.
” It’s our conservatism that makes us stand up for the rights of everybody,” the lawyer says”. You know, I believe in the rights of Buddhists because I am a Christian, not in spite of the fact that I am a Christian, but because I am a Christian.”
Below, you can listen to the entire interview.
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