Serious questions have arisen about whether the White House encouraged the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) to label parental rights groups as “extremist” in its most recent “The Year in Hate Extremism” report. Just last week, two U.S. Senators and 10 members of Congress sent President Joe Biden a letter questioning the purpose of a curious meeting between the SPLC and the National Security Council. And it has come to light that White House visitor logs reflect multiple meetings between the SPLC and the president himself over the last few years.

Parents have become a target because they are a powerful force in American society. From local school board meetings to the halls of Congress, concerned parents are speaking out — influencing elections, seeking redress in courts of law, and impacting public opinion.

According to the SPLC’s “Hate Map,” however, average American moms and dads are not loving by any means. Instead, the SPLC wants us to believe that ordinary parents are the new perpetuators of hate in American society.

Once a respected civil rights organization, the SPLC is now targeting parent groups by disingenuously categorizing them with organizations like the American Nazi Party and Ku Klux Klan — equating “hate” with political disagreement on hot-button cultural issues.

A recent analysis demonstrated how the SPLC actually inflates “hate” by at least 267%, padding numbers by counting every regional chapter of Moms for Liberty, or by slapping the “hate” label on groups that disagree with the SPLC’s radical political positions.

As the parental rights movement has gained momentum across mainstream America, the SPLC’s strategy to shame and silence dissent has shifted from conservative organizations to parents. Nearly 25% of the “hate and anti-government groups” listed on the SPLC’s 2022 “Hate Map” are parental rights advocacy groups united around common concern for their children, their communities, and the foundational liberties and institutions which sustain the American way of life.

These parent organizations are not promoting anti-American sentiments or seeking to overthrow the U.S. government. Quite the opposite. Made up of religiously, racially, and ethnically diverse parents, these groups are working only to preserve the American family and the innocence of children.

Such parent-led groups have proliferated in recent years as parental rights have come under increasing threat. They were born of necessity in response to the rapid promulgation of harmful school policies, ideologically driven curriculum, and anti-parent legislation — all of which unlawfully encroach on the enduring tradition of the family structure and erode the historically protected rights of parents to raise their children without illegitimate governmental interference.

School districts like the Kettle Moraine School District, the Madison Metropolitan School District, and the Harrisonburg City Public Schools are encouraging children to adopt different names and opposite-sex pronouns at school, hiding important information about children’s gender confusion from parents, and even compelling teachers to lie to parents about the different identities children use at school.

And other districts like the Albemarle County School Board are introducing divisive theories through curriculum and teacher training that push students to see themselves and everyone through the lens of race, compelling students to affirm ideas contrary to their families’ deeply held moral, philosophical, and religious beliefs.

States like California and Minnesota are passing laws that unlawfully cut caring parents out of life-changing decisions about how best to help gender-confused children. These laws entice children to run away in search of puberty blockers and opposite-sex hormones if their parents will not blindly follow the state’s ideologically driven standard of care mandating that such harmful physical interventions are the only way to treat a child’s internal feelings of discomfort with their sex.

These parent groups are not motivated by hate. They are compelled — by a matchless love and sober duty unique to the parent-child relationship — to preserve their unalienable right to raise and nurture their children within the sanctity of their family.

Parents deserve laws and policies that provide government accountability, offer choices regarding their child’s education and health care, and demand transparency when their child expresses confusion about their sex and a desire to be called by a different name and pronouns at school.

A coalition of groups on the SPLC’s “Hate Map,” including No Left Turn in Education and Eagle Forum, support the Promise to America’s Parents, which provides a roadmap for parents, faith leaders, and lawmakers to work together and act to safeguard children and their families. These groups — and all parents — should be able to exercise their constitutionally protected freedoms without being labeled “anti-government extremists.”

Based on 100 years of Supreme Court jurisprudence, parents have the fundamental right to direct the upbringing, care, and education of their children in accordance with their moral values and religious beliefs. It is deeply rooted in American history and tradition (and has been “beyond debate” for many decades) that our Constitution values and protects the primary role of parents in raising their children. Indeed, as the Pierce Court famously declared, “The child is not the mere creature of the state; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.”

The SPLC is right about one thing — hate has no place in our society. But concerned parents exercising their constitutional rights, affirming biological reality, opposing destructive ideologies, and protecting their children from harm is not hate. It’s love — love for family and love for country. As Martin Luther King, Jr., once said, “I believe unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.”

Sharon Supp is senior research analyst for Alliance Defending Freedom (@ADFLegal).

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

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SPLC Labels Parents As Perpetrators Of Hate, Gets White House Welcome