FRC's Tony Perkins Delivers Congressional Testimony on SPLC's Influence on Federal Civil Rights Policy

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- On Tuesday, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins testified before the House Judiciary Committee's Constitution and Limited Government Subcommittee hearing, "Partisan and Profitable: The SPLC's Influence on Federal Civil Rights Policy." The hearing examined the Southern Poverty Law Center's coordinated efforts with the Biden administration to target Christian and conservative Americans and deprive them of their constitutional rights to free speech and free association. The hearing also examined SPLC's history, funding, and work to silence conservative and Christian Americans for their convictions and biblical beliefs.

On August 15, 2012, now-convicted domestic terrorist Floyd Lee Corkins entered Family Research Council's headquarters in Washington, D.C., intent on mass murder. Due to the heroic actions of FRC's building manager, Leo Johnson, who was seriously wounded in the attack, Corkins was prevented from carrying out his plan to kill as many FRC employees as possible. Corkins later told FBI investigators that he targeted FRC because the organization was listed on the SPLC's so-called hate map. Leo Johnson took years to recover from his wounds; the SPLC has never removed FRC from its fraudulent list nor apologized for the terrorist attack it inspired on FRC.

Perkins testified in part:

"The SPLC routinely lumps peaceful Christian ministries together with actual violent extremists, while ignoring radical groups on the political Left whose rhetoric or actions have resulted in real-world intimidation and violence. Even Dr. Ben Carson was added to their extremist file--his offense was affirming that marriage is between a man and a woman. This reveals the SPLC's standard: not public safety, but ideological conformity.

"The SPLC's agitation propaganda has inspired more than one act of political violence.

"In 2017, Congressman Steve Scalise was shot and nearly killed by a man immersed in SPLC-aligned online ecosystems that relentlessly demonized conservatives. Prior to the shooting, SPLC had called for Steve Scalise to be removed from his GOP leadership position. Following this pattern, earlier this year, after months of SPLC targeting, Charlie Kirk was murdered in an environment supercharged by ideological hostility toward social conservatives.

"The SPLC's messaging is crafted to ostracize, intimidate, and silence. If violence follows, the SPLC disavows responsibility--but the social conditions they create remain undeniable.

"We must stop characterizing law-abiding citizens in ways that suggest violence against them is justified. The SPLC refuses to acknowledge its role in fueling hostility, but denial does not erase responsibility.

"If the SPLC is truly concerned about stopping hate and violence, then it should 'drop the gun"--take down the hate map, and stop feeding the social dynamics that lead unstable individuals to act.

"When government and media give SPLC's labels a veneer of neutrality, they create a system where entire viewpoints are marginalized, and entire communities are frozen out of civic life. That is not how we heal a divided nation," Perkins stated.

To read Perkins' full testimony, please visit: https://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=LK25L25&f=LK25L25

To watch Perkins' full testimony, please visit: https://youtu.be/CEf7G8RYxaw

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