Southern Poverty Law Center to Ben Carson: Hey, sorry for labeling you 'extremist'

Believe it or not, the Southern Poverty Law Center actually does some good work. There are real racist haters out there, and the SPLC has a history of conducting fairly sophisticated ops to root them out and expose them. So it would be nice if the SPLC stayed true to that mission instead of falling in line with currently in-vogue left-wing nonsense about what constitutes a "hater," like they just did - if only briefly - to Dr. Ben Carson.

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What got Dr. Carson briefly labeled an extremist by SPLC? He expressed his belief in the biblical definition of marriage, which is a union between one man and one woman. The gay marriage train is steaming so fast down the cultural tracks right now - and has become an absolute litmus test on the left - that it's becoming almost rote for left-wing groups to view someone who sticks with the Bible on this issue as an extremist hater. I'm actually more surprised at their decision to back down than I am that they did it in the first place. I don't know who they got blowback from, but it must have been pretty serious:

'In October 2014, we posted an "Extremist File" of Dr. Ben Carson,' the SPLC wrote in a statement on Thursday. 'This week, as we've come under intense criticism for doing so, we've reviewed our profile and have concluded that it did not meet our standards, so we have taken it down and apologize to Dr. Carson for having posted it.' The mea culpa quickly took on a backhanded quality, however. 'We've also come to the conclusion,' the group added, 'that the question of whether a better-researched profile of Dr. Carson should or should not be included in our "Extremist Files" is taking attention from the fact that Dr. Carson has, in fact, made a number of statements that express views that we believe most people would conclude are extreme,' the group added. The bulk of the published statement consisted of a list of those quotes.

If I had to guess, I'd say the SPLC enjoys important support from a fair number of black pastors, who may be Democrats and who may not be aligned with Dr. Carson politically, but nonetheless are not going to take kindly to the idea that you're a hater if you believe the Bible, because on the question of gay marriage, they see it the same way Carson does. That would explain why the SPLC statement redirected the focus to Carson's criticisms of ObamaCare and gun control. They still feel threatened by him, and they still want to attack him, but they've just discovered that they can't join the rest of the left in going full-bore against the Bible without endangering some important support they still need very badly.