Who Watches the Watchmen?

Just like Aryan and White Supremacist groups, there is a lot of code in the anti-gay groups like Watchmen On The Walls (WOTW).  It can be subtle, but not always. 

Take the words of Scott Lively defending WOTW and attempting to discredit the most respected (and therefore frequently attacked) hate monitoring group in the US.  In this HeraldNet article he tries to sever the connection of bias and hate that exists between racism and homophobia:

"The Southern Poverty Law Center used to be a very good organization," Lively said. "But something happened and they swerved off into this politically correct position of taking sides with the gay activists against the rest of society.

"And now they're using the reputation that they earned justly working against racism to try to work against people who are standing for family values. They're no longer a nonbiased independent source of information, they're political activists on one side of this culture war."

It sounds reasonable and moderate, but just so you are clear on the messages that he wants people to swallow:

1. SPLC has gone downhill because they don't realize that IT'S A WAR with the whole of SOCIETY AGAINST THE GAYS.
2. SPLC is using their reputation and their credibility to ATTACK YOUR FAMILY.
3. SPLC has gone from being a credible monitor of bias and hate to a BIASED SPECIAL INTEREST OPPOSING STRAIGHT FREEDOM and run out of Larry Kramer's hairy left ear.
4. SPLC have BROKEN THE RULES BY OPPOSING ANTI-GAY EXTREMISM and taking a position on a social issue 

It is hardly uncommon for organizations like WOTW who are caught in the SPLC's illuminating gaze to attack it alleging that it is capitalistic, hypocritical and biased and therefore untrustworthy and irrelevant.

Lively goes on:

The Watchmen members are predominantly Russian-speaking immigrants, a multinational network of like-minded Christians who don't stand for violence, he said.

"If one of our association happens to act violently towards someone who is homosexual, that person will be disassociated immediately," Lively said.

White supremacists have long used this defense as well.  The pattern is to encourage, but not direct, independent action - a "lone wolf" model - on the part of group members or associates that can be disavowed by the inciting or sponsoring organization. 

There is also the most subtle incarnation of this phenomenon, the inculcation of war and conflict motifs, focus on what is "natural" and "healthy", talking about a "moral battle" for your family and "the soul of civilization".

Then there are things like this:

"We're not trying to create a theocracy," said co-founder Scott Lively, a California attorney, author and president of Defend the Family.

"But if people who believe the way we believe were running the TV stations and the government and business and academia, I think that society would be a healthier place and that's our goal," Lively said.

Here's my translation of the above:

We are not trying to create a theocracy (nudge-nudge, wink-wink).

But our goal is to take over the government, the media, the education system, and the business world so we can impose our religious rules and values on everyone and get rid of everything that we think is sick and sinful.

Here is the trick.  When someone spends more time telling you what they are not and what they are against, instead of what they are and are for, they have a big problem.  With that in mind, review the statement recently read by Scott Lively about the mission of WOTW (full version is here):

We are the Watchmen on the Walls.

We are a global coalition of men and women of every race, color and nationality who believe in the superiority of the natural family and marriage between one man and one woman.

We are against cohabitation, divorce, abortion, adultery and other behaviors that weaken the marriage-based society on which civilization depends. But we are especially focused against homosexuality, because those who practice this self-destructive vice, and have organized themselves into a political movement, are the chief enemies of the natural family.

We do not promote or condone violence.

We do not apologize for opposing homosexuality because it is morally, physically, psychologically and socially wrong, unnatural and harmful. This is self-evident to the vast majority of the citizens of the world, whom we represent.

After having read the full statement, I don't see how anyone could question that this group shares the majority of it's organizational and ideological DNA with the many other bias related groups that the SPLC tracks.

We're all watching now.