Pastor Donnie Romero has gone viral.

“I’m going to explain to you why God wants these people to be put to death,” Romero declared during a sermon in December. “The word of God is very clear that God is against the sodomites, that they’re filthy, and it says they’re an abomination to God.”

A clip from Romero’s sermon, posted on YouTube by Right Wing Watch, has been viewed more than 28,000 times. It also helped land Romero’s Fort Worth church on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s annual list of active anti-LGBT hate groups.

“Their gay-bashing is intense,” said Heidi Beirich, director of SPLC’s Intelligence Project. “Stedfast Baptist Church is very crude in its hatred. That’s not a complicated thing to explain why we put them on the hate list.” Romero didn’t return a phone call seeking comment.

Stedfast Baptist is one of two Texas-based organizations added to the list this year. The other is Probe Ministries of Plano. They joined longstanding designee Tom Brown Ministries of El Paso. The increase in Texas contributed to a 10 percent jump in anti-LGBT hate groups nationwide, from 40 to 44.

Meanwhile, the overall number of hate groups of all types declined by roughly 17 percent in 2014, from 939 to 784. Beirich said she’s unsure whether anti-LGBT hate is on the rise or SPLC is simply doing a better job of tracking it.

The increase in Texas contributed to a 10 percent jump in anti-LGBT hate groups nationwide, from 40 to 44.

“The rhetoric is becoming much harsher for sure,” she said. “I think some of the groups are becoming harder-line, whether we’ve listed them or not, because they’re losing on a lot of fronts.”

Probe Ministries, which has a syndicated radio show with more than 1 million weekly listeners, has published materials on its website saying gays molest children at higher rates and die younger, Beirich said.

“If an organization is knowingly putting out false propaganda to demonize a particular population—in our view, that qualifies them as a hate group,” she said. Probe Ministries President Kerby Anderson rejected the designation, saying his group is “compassionate” and pointing to its work with Living Hope Ministries, which offers so-called gay conversion therapy.

“That’s not the first time I’ve seen people that did not deserve that designation receive it, so I guess I’m not too surprised by what the Southern Poverty Law Center does,” Anderson said.

Beirich said SPLC maintains a high bar for the hate list. It’s not enough to oppose same-sex marriage or espouse Bible-based views about homosexuality. Rather, groups must use slurs or engage in demonization and propaganda, tactics that make the LGBT community more vulnerable to hate crimes.

“We don’t want to just list everybody in the world,” she said. “We want to point out what is particularly damaging.”

Asked why more prominent groups aren’t on the list—such as Texas Values and the Texas Pastor Council Beirich said SPLC hasn’t considered them. The Alabama-based organization relies heavily on the media to bring potential hate groups to its attention.

“We try our best to track these groups. We don’t get all of them,” Beirich said, adding she plans to review Texas Values and the Texas Pastor Council for possible inclusion on next year’s list.