The Washington Times repeated the myth that the FBI has ended its relationship with the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), ignoring that the FBI had already debunked that claim and distorting SPLC's work against domestic hate groups.

In a March 28 editorial, the Times savagely attacked SPLC founder Morris Dees - asserting that he founded the nonprofit in part “to get rich” - baselessly charging that SPLC defines “hate crimes” as “Christian opposition to same-sex marriage.” The Times then applauded the FBI for cutting off ties with the group - something it didn't actually do:

The SPLC never identifies the hate groups about to engulf the land, who they are or where they are assembling their regiments of engulfers. With the Ku Klux Klan shrinking to insignificance, the SPLC, which is thought to be sitting on a treasury of a quarter of a billion dollars, has lately turned its lurid appeals to prosperous but frightened gays.

“Hate crimes” by SPLC definition now include Christian opposition to same-sex marriage.

This week it emerged that the FBI, which has included SPLC data as “a resource,” has finally severed its link with the organization and dumped SPLC from the bureau's Hate Crime Web page.

The FBI offered no explanation of why now, but the dumping follows appeals of 15 family groups to Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. and FBI Director James B. Comey to sever the connection. We think that was a good day's work.

In just a few sentences, the Times' editorial board peddles a number of blatant lies about the SPLC.

SPLC does identify hundreds of prominent hate groups across the U.S., which is why it's so despised by right-wing extremists to begin with.  

SPLC doesn't considering opposing marriage equality to be a hate crime. The SPLC has identified extreme anti-gay organizations like the Family Research Council (FRC) and American Family Association (AFA) as hate groups because they peddle anti-LGBT smears and misinformation, not because they oppose marriage equality. Despite its strident anti-gay stances, for instance, even the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) isn't on the SPLC's list of hate groups.

Meanwhile, the Times' claim that the FBI chose to “sever [its] connection” with the SPLC is merely the latest sign that the paper's editorial board is impervious to facts, particularly when it comes to LGBT issues.

While right-wing media gleefully pounced on the FBI's decision to remove non-government organizations from a list of “resource” groups on a civil rights page, that decision applied to all non-government organizations, including groups like the Anti-Defamation League, equally. The bureau's website still lists the SPLC as a "public outreach" partner in the fight against hate crimes.  Days before the Times published its editorial, the FBI contradicted the right-wing media narrative that by telling the Daily Caller that the bureau continues to receive support “from a variety of organizations,” but had simply “elected not to identify those groups on the civil rights page.”

Nowhere in its editorial did the Times even acknowledge that the FBI had corrected the record. The paper's pattern of rabid homophobia is disturbing enough, but its willingness to lie in the service of bigotry is even more appalling.