Tag Archives: islamophobe

Friendly Atheist Tries, Fails to Qualify Criticism on SPLC Hate Groups

Hemant Mehta recently stumbled all over himself trying to say that the Southern Poverty Law Center’s designation of “hate groups” is fine when it comes to Christians, but not when it comes to atheists (something he first tried to do last November).

Just a few days ago Mehta defended the SPLC when Guidestar, a charity review site, began including the SPLC’s ‘opinion’ on charities it claims are “hate groups”.  Within the conversation, Mehta appropriated the SPLC’s “hate group” designation for some Christian groups.  When those groups complained they were being targeted for their beliefs, Mehta said “that’s a lie” and celebrated the idea they would lose charitable donations for the designation. (Guidestar subsequently dropped the categorization under pressure.)

Then, the news broke that Maajid Nawaz is suing the SPLC. He’s a former Read more

Of Bullies, Bigots, Homophobes: The Changing American Vocabulary

Over the past two or three years, words that once held specific meaning have been “appropriated” by ideologies, interest groups, or even just ignorant websites and misused — misused to such an extent people seem to be forgetting “that word doesn’t mean what you think it means;” at least, it didn’t.

One of the first was the Latin suffix –phobia, which was eventually used as a tool by the homosexual advocacy movement to brand its opponents “homophobes.”  The fact their opponents didn’t have a phobia about homosexuality was irrelevant.  A “phobia” brings with it a negative connotation, and the name-calling had the intended effect:  Opponents of the imposition of the homosexual agenda were forced to defend themselves; the argument changed to one of labels rather than positions.  Pastor Greg Laurie recently addressed the semantics, saying “homophobe” was a useless term:

I hate the word ‘homophobic because I can just as easily come back and say ‘well, you’re biblophobic to say I’m homophobic.

Others have latched onto the semantic trend, resulting Read more