A conservative Jewish attorney is not concerned about being labeled a "hate person" by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).
David Yerushalmi, co-founder and senior counsel at the American Freedom Law Center (AFLC) and founder of the Society of Americans for National Existence (SANE), is an Orthodox Jewish attorney who staunchly opposes sharia law and Islamic supremacy.
Though The Jewish Press reports that he was blasted earlier this month by the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Center for American Progress and the Muslim Public Affairs Council in a teleconference they called "The Real World Impact of Hate Rhetoric in America," Yerushalmi is not concerned about being labeled a "hate person."
"The Southern Poverty Law Center is today nothing more than a hardcore leftist, progressive, ideologically-driven organization that identifies everything conservative as a 'hate group' or 'hate person,'" he observes.
But Yerushalmi asserts that he will not blame the SPLC's for the recent shooting at the Family Research Council -- an organization also labeled by the Law Center as a hate group.
"The [shooter] is obviously a left-winger, and he went after the conservative group," he recognizes. "But [the SPLC] can't be responsible for that, because they were simply articulating a bad opinion, which is protected speech. Now, that's what they claim all the time -- that anyone on the right who criticizes Islam is responsible for all acts of violence, and there's not very many."
The Jewish attorney concludes that the best way to deal with the Southern Poverty Law Center's rhetoric is to ignore it.