Los Angeles, Calif., May 25, 2018 / 14:59 pm
The Southern Poverty Law Center is wrongly targeting social conservative organizations as "hate groups," and George Clooney, a major financial supporter of the law center, should demand better, one commentator said this week.
Chuck Donovan is an author, policy researcher and president of the Charlotte Lozier Institute, the research and education arm of the pro-life political advocacy group the Susan B. Anthony List.
However, he wrote to Clooney in a personal capacity, encouraging the star to use his influence to help persuade the SPLC to avoid its "embittering and unproductive campaigns to label any political or social issue opponent as a hate group."
"This tactic is injurious both to the reputations of some outstanding people and to the flourishing of the common good," Donovan charged in an open letter published May 20 at the Public Discourse website. It is a betrayal of "the honorable history of the SPLC's founding in opposition to the denial of civil rights to African Americans, he said.