Antisemitic rhetoric and vandalism at pro-life pregnancy centers are among left-leaning political violence tracked by a Hate Map that a conservative civil liberties group launched this week.
The right-leaning New Tolerance Campaign said it created the interactive website for journalists, academics and public officials as “a comprehensive resource documenting instances of political violence perpetrated by leftist organizations across the United States.”
The map lists 184 examples of anti-Jewish incidents, “radical LGBTQ activism,” environmental or animal rights agitation and “general political violence” from leftist protest groups such as antifa. NTC officials said they will update it regularly with the names and locations of those responsible for future incidents.
“Hate in America can’t be addressed unless all hate is addressed,” Gregory T. Angelo, NTC’s president, said in an email. “It will be an ongoing project.”
Mr. Angelo said the map counters the left-leaning Southern Poverty Law Center’s Hate Map, which NTC officials view as a partisan effort to help Democrats defeat Republicans in November’s election.
Conservatives have long accused the SPLC Hate Map of unfairly labeling conservative advocacy groups as “White supremacists” while ignoring a rising tide of deadly protests, vandalism, physical assaults, threats and intimidation from the left.
The Washington Times has reached out to the SPLC for comment.
As of Thursday, the SPLC Hate Map listed 1,430 examples of “hate and anti-government extremist groups” in 2023 that it said “comprise the organizational infrastructure upholding white supremacy in the U.S.”
“In 2023, those opposing inclusive democracy worked to legitimize insurrection, paint hate as virtuous and transform false conspiracy theories into truth — all in preparation for one of the most significant elections in U.S. history,” the SPLC website states. “The report chronicles trends in hard-right activity, not simply as a reality check, but as a tool to act alongside those working to prevent radicalization and counter white supremacy, disinformation and false conspiracies in 2024.”
The SPLC Hate Map flags conservative parental rights groups such as Moms for Liberty alongside explicitly racist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan.
By contrast, the NTC Hate Map includes the radical pro-choice group Jane’s Revenge. An arm of the anti-fascist and anti-racist protest group Antifa, Jane’s Revenge has claimed credit for arson and vandalism attacks on pro-life pregnancy resource centers in recent years.
On July 25, four Florida activists linked to Jane’s Revenge agreed to pay restitution and stay 100 feet away from crisis pregnancy centers to settle a state-filed civil lawsuit over their attacks on three pro-life facilities in 2022.
The NTC Hate Map also lists the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which bills itself as the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights advocacy group and has criticized the Biden-Harris administration for supporting Israel’s military operation in Gaza.
The map points to CAIR national leader Nihad Awad’s statement at a conference last November that he was “happy to see” terrorist group Hamas attack Israel on Oct. 7.
That assault killed more than 1,200 Israeli civilians. Palestinian health officials estimate that Israel’s response has killed more than 39,000 militants and civilians, a number that can’t be independently verified.
“CAIR’s antisemitic statements [and] abuses are vast and well-documented,” the NTC website states. “While claiming to fight intolerance and bigotry, CAIR produces a great deal of both in their way.”
Edward Ahmed Mitchell, CAIR’s deputy executive director, pushed back on the list. He pointed to a December statement reaffirming the group’s “unequivocal condemnation of both antisemitism and attacks on Israeli civilians on October 7th.”
“This website and its list are too silly to take seriously, but what I will say is that it’s a bit amusing to see some conservative activists suddenly embrace the notion that speech they find objectionable is equivalent to an act of violence,” Mr. Mitchell said in an email.
Mr. Angelo, a former head of the conservative LGBTQ group Log Cabin Republicans, became NTC’s first president in May 2021.
Ad Fontes Media, a for-profit company that rates the bias of more than 3,000 multimedia news sources, rates the Southern Poverty Law Center as “skews left” with “generally reliable” analysis.
Vanessa Otero, the CEO of Ad Fontes, said she plans to rate the NTC website “in the coming weeks.”
“In our evaluation of other sites, we find that when a publication or organization explicitly states that it intends to watch one political side in particular, it tends to have noticeable bias to the other side,” Ms. Otero said. “You can see this with organizations such as SPLC or Right Wing Watch on the left or Media Research Center on the right.”
• Sean Salai can be reached at ssalai@washingtontimes.com.
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