Hate Peddlers | Americans United

Americans United enjoyed a dubious distinction late in February: Within the space of a week, the organization was singled out for attack by two Religious Right groups.

First out of the gate was the Liberty Institute, a Religious Right legal group based in Texas. The Institute published an article titled “5 Dangerous Enemies Against Your Christian Faith” on the website Charisma News. Americans United was among the five.

In a brief synopsis, Liberty Institute noted that Americans United was founded in 1947. Just about everything else it reported after that was a lie, a half-truth or an inflammatory distortion.

According to the Liberty Institute, AU has “worked to ban ‘God’ from graduation speeches, shut down the activity of prison ministries, outlaw school vouchers allowing parents to send children to religious schools, and tear down veterans memorials.”

Added the Liberty Institute, “They also constantly lobby Con­gress and threaten religious activity in local communities.”

The charges were a distortion of AU’s work that failed to tell the whole story,,,

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Four days after that list was issued, another Religious Right group lashed out at Americans United. The American Family Association, a stridently fundamentalist outfit based in Tupelo, Miss., released a “Bigotry Map” listing “anti-Christian” groups in America.

The map, obviously based on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s map of American hate groups, broke down the groups into four categories: “Homosexual Agenda,” “Anti-Christian,” “Atheist” and “Humanist.”

Americans United was listed under the “Anti-Christian” category. These organizations, they AFA asserted, actively engage “in the complete eradication of the Christian faith from society, government and private com­merce. These groups file lawsuits and use intimidation to silence any reference to Christianity from the public square.”

Hate Peddlers | Americans United