The Southern Poverty Law Center placed the conservative parents’ rights group Moms for Liberty on its “hate map” alongside the KKK, Antifa, and neo-Nazi organizations in 2023.
But last week in a House Judiciary Committee hearing on the SPLC, Rep. Tom Tiffany, R-Wis., vindicated Moms for Liberty by slamming Bryan K. Fair, the SPLC’s interim president and chief executive officer, for placing them on the map.
Tiffany asked Fair, “Why was it important for your organization to put the Moms for Liberty on a hate map?”
Fair responded, “Moms for Liberty is listed on our hate map because it demeans and vilifies people based on mutable characteristics,” he said, referring to biological sex.
Tiffany replied, “Moms for Liberty is not a racist organization. They may differ with you [regarding] gender mutilation for children … but I think that’s a fair debate to be having!”
The SPLC is a leftist advocacy group that claims to “dismantle white supremacy” and “eliminate economic inequality.” The organization started a “hate map” in 2000 to flag racist groups, but it now flags practically any organization that supports parental rights, Christianity, or opposes LGBT insanity and transgender mutilation surgery.
The SPLC has many Christian, conservative organizations besides Moms for Liberty flagged as “hate groups” on its website, leading Moms for Liberty chapter leader Alexandra Bougher to speak up on their behalf on The Vicki McKenna Show on iHeartRadio.
“People have been doxxed, swatted, lost their jobs … because of this hate map,” she said on the radio interview. “The fact that the [SPLC] has no remorse over it is disturbing.”
The hate map led to worse than a lost job in 2012 when a gunman stormed into the lobby of the Family Research Council, a conservative family and education non-profit. The gunman shot a security guard before being subdued. An FBI interrogation revealed that the shooter chose FRC after he found it on the SPLC’s hate map for being anti-LGBT.
“We as Americans should be able to disagree on things without being smeared or demonized … we don’t need to destroy someone’s life because we don’t see eye to eye,” Bougher said in the interview. The DOJ announced an 11-count indictment in April against the SPLC for fraud and false statements, and scheduled a federal trial for October. The DOJ found that the “SPLC is lying to everyone, saying that they’re warning people of hate, meanwhile funding the hate groups to make more money,” Bougher explained. “It’s absolutely sickening.”
The SPLC secretly funneled over $3 million to racist, extremist groups, including the KKK and the American Nazi Party, while simultaneously claiming to fight them between 2014 and 2023, according to the DOJ. “The objective of the scheme and artifice was to obtain money via donations through materially false representations and omissions about what the donated funds would be used for,” the DOJ stated.
For years, the SPLC deceived major corporations by acting like a heroic crime-fighting group. “[The SPLC] did have an original mission of fighting hate and extremism … and that’s why a lot of people believe them … [but] it has totally veered from that,” Bougher said. The SPLC used its name to seduce companies, “the federal government, [and] media agencies, [to] rely on SPLC and what they say, and [not] do their own research … and unfortunately [the SPLC] fuel[s] so much division in our country.”
The Biden-Harris administration heavily relied on advice from the SPLC, a letter from Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, to The Daily Signal found. Among other details, the letter stated that the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division under the Biden Administration partnered with the SPLC, “including scheduling regular meetings, giving the SPLC early access to federal law-enforcement data, and also allowing SPLC employees to train DOJ prosecutors.”
The Federal Bureau of Investigation cut ties with the SPLC under the Trump Administration in 2025 because of its radical activities.
Moms for Liberty faced persecution by the SPLC, and the SPLC is now reaping in court what it sowed for years. But if another group arises to demonize Moms for Liberty for its conservative views, “Moms for Liberty has special parents here, and we never give up. We don’t get intimidated, just take the next foot forward … [because] we’re in charge of our children’s future. Making sure that they are safe and healthy and protected,” Bougher said.
