Screenshot
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which pressures financial institutions to blacklist the mainstream conservative and Christian organizations it places on a “hate map” with chapters of the Ku Klux Klan, published an article purportedly “debunking ADF’s ‘debanking’ conspiracy theory.”
Alliance Defending Freedom, the organization SPLC attacked, has raised the alarm about financial institutions denying banking services to customers based on their religious or political affiliations. ADF has pointed to numerous instances of what it describes as debanking, though the banks in question claim the denials of service were not religiously or politically motivated.
SPLC not only took the banks’ word for it, but acted as though its own calls for financial institutions to stop “funding hate” did not amount to a debanking pressure campaign.
“By conflating the market consequences for supporting hate and extremism—such as customers choosing not to patronize and shareholders not investing in corporations that do business with extremist groups—ADF has perpetuated a false conspiracy theory that claims big government and big corporations are victimizing conservative Christians,” the SPLC’s R.G. Cravens wrote.
