This is not about religious differences, however, it is ludicrous for the petitioners to transform their asserted theologial dispute into a political accusation of hatred. The supremacy of gay identity politics corrupts all that it touches.

The petition is its own example of bigotry — hateful or otherwise. It is intended as another Alinsky attack on the pluralism of civil society.

Please note the first several words in the FBI definition of hate group: “An organization whose primary purpose is to promote animosity, hostility, and malice against persons…” The idea that the Catholic Church’s primary purpose is to promote hatred against any group of persons is preposterous: according to the FBI, the Catholic Church is by definition not a hate group.

Of course, the petition writer did not refer to the FBI or any other gov’t agency for the definition: he deferred to the authority of the ADL and the SPLC. Unfortunately for petitioners, the ADL will have none of it:

“‘The claims made in this petition to the White House are abhorrent, and the notion that the Catholic Church could be defined as a hate group is an outrageous and offensive conceit,’ said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director. ‘While one may agree or disagree with the Church’s position on homosexuality and marriage, any attempt to label the entire faith as a hate group is illegitimate and unacceptable. It was irresponsible for the promoter of this petition to use our name.’”

http://www.adl.org/PresRele/VaticanJewish_96/Church_Not_A_Hate_Group

Still no response from the SPLC, though.

While the FBI definition you cite exists, it is still the case that the FBI keeps no list (or at least no public list) of “hate groups.” So petitioning the federal government to “officially recognize the Roman Catholic Church as a hate group” is basically nonsensical. Obviously it’s offensive, but why some seem to feel it’s threatening is something I don’t understand.

There’s an interesting graph over on dotCommonweal that shows the religious make-up of the House and Senate. The House is 31.4% Catholic and the Senate 26%. And of course everyone knows 6 of the 9 Justices on the Supreme Court are Catholic. I saw it pointed out somewhere that with the (presumed) confirmation of John Kerry for Secretary of State, the line of succession to the presidency will be vice-president (Biden), Speaker of the House (Bohner), President Pro Tempore of the Senate (Leahy), and Secretary of State (Kerry). All four men are Catholics. Even if the federal government did keep a list of hate groups, the idea that the Catholic Church could become one when there are so many highly placed Catholics in government is preposterous.

“An organization whose primary purpose is to promote animosity, hostility, and malice against persons belonging to a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity/national origin which differs from that of the members of the organization, e.g., the Ku Klux Klan, American Nazi Party.”

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/hate-crime/hcguidelinesdc99.pdf

(“To ensure uniformity in reporting nationwide, the following definitions have been adopted for use in hate crime reporting.”)

Only 263 votes?? Come on, people!

“Hate group” is nothing more than a marketing ploy created by the SPLC’s PR chief, Mark Potok.

Mr. Potok has designated just over 1000 “hate groups” but he cannot seem to locate 247 of them on any map, including his own “Hate Map” fundraising tool.

http://wp.me/pCLYZ-ce

That’s 25% right off the top.

Some “experts”