Southern Poverty Law Center Slams Michael Voris and Milo Yiannopoulos

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DETROIT (ChurchMilitant.com) - The Southern Poverty Law Center is again going after Church Militant.

After Michael Voris interviewed Milo Yiannopoulos for Mic'd Up, left-leaning activist group the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) put out an article condemning things that were said during the interview.

The Jan. 25 article on the SPLC's "Hatewatch" blog refers to Michael Voris as an "anti-LGBT activist," calls Church Militant "an ultra-orthodox Catholic propaganda ministry" and labels Yiannopoulos a "disgraced far-right provocateur."

At one point during the Mic'd Up interview, Voris and Yiannopoulos discussed the problem of homosexual abuse among Catholic clergy. Yiannopoulos claimed, "I think it's beyond question that this is not just a systematic failing of governance or human resources. This is a gay problem. This is a gay disease."

Yiannopoulos spoke about a link between homosexuality and pedophilia, saying, "It's not that gays are more likely to be into kids, but it is the other way around — pedophiles are much more likely to be homosexual."

Voris and Yiannopoulos noted that the Left does not want to discuss the fact that much of the clerical child abuse scandal was men preying on post-pubescent boys. The 2011 version of the John Jay report, commissioned by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, found that 81 percent of clerical sex abuse victims were male and 78 percent were post-pubescent.

The SPLC article tries to debunk Yiannopoulos' claim about homosexuality and pedophilia, calling it "a falsehood that has been discredited." It cites a 2017 article from The Atlantic, which itself links back to a piece on the SPLC's website.

The "Hatewatch" article also links to a 2004 document from the American Psychological Association. What that document is actually about is the psychological development of children raised by same-sex couples — it mentions sexual abuse, but only in saying that children raised by same-sex couples are not at an increased risk of being sexually abused.

The SPLC goes after Church Militant, mentioning that some have called the apostolate a part of the "Catholic alt-right." The term "alt-right" typically refers to white supremacists, holocaust deniers and other extremists who are considered the far right of the political spectrum.

It notes that Voris has rejected the "alt-right" label but insists that his interview with Yiannopoulos "demonstrates that he's willing to provide a platform for it" — thus implying that Yiannopoulos is alt-right.

But Yiannopoulos says he is not a part of the alt-right. In December 2016, his YouTube channel put out a video mocking the mainstream media for painting him as a leader of the alt-right movement, despite his own statements to the contrary.

In 2017, journalists dropped the term "alt-right" because it is ambiguous and has been used by radical ideologues to make their views appear more mainstream. To make things more complicated, the term "alt-right" has been used sometimes to encompass various types of conservatives and libertarians.

The SPLC was founded in 1971 to ensure civil rights for minorities. In the early years, it battled in the courtroom against racist hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan.

But in recent years, the SPLC has expanded its definition of hate group to include organizations that it deems "anti-immigrant," "anti-LGBT" and "anti-Muslim."

Critics of the SPLC say that some of the groups the SPLC deems extremist are actually mainstream conservative and Christian groups.

For instance, the Ruth Institute is listed as a hate group by the SPLC. The Ruth Institute is a non-profit organization that opposes the sexual revolution and the breakdown of the family.

The SPLC opposes the Ruth Institute for its stances on homosexuality and transgenderism. The Catholic non-profit lost its ability to receive online donations in September 2017 owing to the "hate group" label.

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