SPLC Urges Public Figures to Boycott Values Voter Summit Because of Anti-LGBT Hate Speech by Summit Host and Co-Sponsor

 The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) today urged all public figures to boycott this weekend's Values Voter Summit, which is hosted and co-sponsored by two groups that demonize members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community with false propaganda.

"The Family Research Council and the American Family Association are among the chief purveyors of lies about the LGBT community - lies that stoke hate and violence," said Mark Potok, director of the SPLC's Intelligence Project. "LGBT people are now, by far, the group most victimized by violent hate crimes in America. Public figures should not lend their names to groups that vilify them."

Here are examples of what these groups say about LGBT people:

   --  Both groups say gay men molest children at far higher rates than
       heterosexual men - an assertion rejected by every relevant scientific
       organization, including the American Psychological Association.
   --  Both groups have enthusiastically promoted "reparative therapy," the
       widely discredited idea that gay men and lesbians can be "cured" of
       their sexual orientation.
   --  The AFA has declared that "homosexuality gave us Adolph Hitler ... the
       Nazi war machine and six million dead Jews."


More about the FRC and the AFA and their misinformation can be found here: www.splcenter.org/get-informed/news/just-whose-values-are-promoted-at-the-values-voter-summit.