San Diego Union-Tribune Smears Chula Vista Residents as a "Hate Group"

David Hernandez Smears
Chula Vista Residents as "Hate Group"

Mr. Hernandez (Email --- david.hernandez@utsandiego.com)

                          (Twitter: @D4VIDHernandez)

My name is Arthur Schaper, and I am the Organization Director for MassResistance.

We are the international pro-family group that makes the difference. We set up the press conference at the Chula Vista Main Library on Thursday, August 29, 2019.

We had men and women of all backgrounds, and they were all Chula Vista residents aside from myself.

I read this part of your commentary in one of the articles you wrote about our press conference:

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/communities/south-county/story/2019-08-30/drag-queen-storytime-moved-to-larger-space-to-accommodate-expected-attendance

As with other similar events across the country, the storytime caught the attention of MassResistance, an anti-LGBTQ organization. The Southern Poverty Law Center has described MassResistance as a hate group.

Are you not aware that the Southern Poverty Law Center is a discredited hate group in and of itself and has been thoroughly discredited?

1. Its co-founder, Morris Dees, was fired for fostering a workplace filled with racism and sexism. He engaged in frequent acts of sexual misconduct against female employees, too.

2. The president of the Organization, Richard Cohen, was forced to resign as well for overlooking and enabling the workplace culture which shut out minorities and women. So did the SPLC legal director Rhonda Brownstein.

3. Former employee Bob Moser (himself politically liberal and openly gay) denounced the culture of hatred and dishonor within the organization, and patently admitted in his article in the New Yorker that the SPLC is not really interested in fighting so-called "hate groups", as much as merely engaging in smears against any group whose views they simply do not like. That is not a digilent organization of any measure, and therefore should not be quoted or referenced.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-reckoning-of-morris-dees-and-the-southern-poverty-law-center

Brian Camenker

 4. Regarding MassResistance specifically, it is quite offensive for you to refer to this organization as a "hate group." Our founder, President Brian Camenker, is an orthodox Jew who suffered discrimination himself as a youth in Duluth, Minnesota. We have Orthodox Jewish communities in New Jersey and New York, as well as communities of many ethnic backgrounds who work with us. How can you possibly reference such individuals as "a hate group"?

Maajid Nawaz

5. For the record, the SPLC is facing at least six lawsuits for libel, and they were forced to pay a $3.8 million settlement to reformist Muslim Maajid Nawaz for smearing him as an "anti-Muslim" extremist. The SPLC had to issue an official apology, as well. That you would reference an organization which has such anti-Muslim and even anti-Semitic leanings is quite disturbing,

6. Marc Potok, another former employee of the SPLC, openly admitted that their express interest is to smear conservative groups, nothing more. They have no interest in stopping hate, but rather perpetuating it.

7. The SPLC has applied the "hate group" label to every pro-family organization they can. It's a joke. Here is a list of other groups and organizations which have been labeled "hate groups" by the SPLC:

The Family Research Council

The Alliance Defending Freedom

The American Family Association

The American Freedom Alliance

Family Watch International

World Congress of Families

It's completely meaningless and nonsensical.

In short, Mr. Hernandez, your remarks and references to the SPLC that MassResistance is a hate group are libelous. To call a group of committed Chula Vista residents "a hate group" is striking in its lack of professionalism. Mothers and fathers who care about children and their communities does not constitute "hate".

The San Diego Union-Tribue
Thinks These Loving people are "a hate group". Really?!

Furthermore, are you even daring to allege that a black pastor, himself a pillar in the community, Pastor Dennis Hodges, is a hater too? Such writing is completely uncalled for.

That reference to the Southern Poverty Law Center must be removed. It is libelous, inflammatory, devoid of any fact or basis in truth, and completely unprofessional.

Readers in the San Diego area deserve better than this kind of shoddy journalism.

I expect to hear back from you that this matter has been resolved.

My email is arthur@massresistance.org

Sincerely,

Arthur Schaper, Organization Director

Website: MassResistance.org

Email: arthur@massresistance.org

(781) 890-6001

@MassResistance

@CAMassResistanc