On Friday, February 6, 2015, we broke the story that Dr. Ben Carson put on “Extremist” Watch List by Southern Poverty Law Center because of his position on and comments he has made about same sex marriage. (See link for details and videos)

The revelation that the renowned pediatric neurosurgeon and likely presidential candidate was on a list with Neo-Nazis infuriated many people.

The story gained traction over the weekend, spreading far and wide in the blogosphere and into the mainstream media, including Daily Caller, Daily Mail, Washington Times, Mediaite, American Thinker, and many others. Many, but not all, credited us with the story.

The Family Research Council understandably also picked up the story. FRC was attacked by gunman Floyd Lee Corkins II because it was on the SPLC Extremist list, resulting in the shooting of a security guard.

I won’t repeat the long history of SPLC playing politics with its Hate Map and Extremist Lists — turning a potentially laudable alert about dangerous groups into a political mechanism. SPLC even listed Rand Paul on a different list of Electoral Extremism.

Scroll through our SPLC tag for dozens of stories we have written over the years.

As someone who contributed to SPLC for many years, I’m disgusted with what it has become.

If Ben Carson and Rand Paul are “Extremists,” what about SPLC? As far as we know, neither Carson nor Paul have inspired violence the way SPLC has through its “Extremist” lists.

So is SPLC an Extremist Group? Or a hate group?

Ken Blackwell was on the O’Reilly last night talking about that issue:

Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com



