Christian legal organization Alliance Defending Freedom has been removed from an Amazon Smile, an Amazon platform that donates 0.5% of the purchase price of eligible items to the nonprofit of your choosing. However, according to the ADF, their conservative beliefs caused them to be kicked off the platform.
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The decision was influenced by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which tracks a number of groups it deems to be spreading “hate” and informs Amazon accordingly.
The SPLC has compiled a vast list of these so-called “hate groups,” and has included some 954 organizations on its “hate map.”: “The Alliance Defending Freedom spreads demonizing lies about the LGBT community in this country and seeks to criminalize it abroad,” the SPLC said back in 2017.
ADF’s is “an alliance-building legal organization that advocates for the right of people to freely live out their faith,” according to its website.
Since its removal from the program, ADF has sought to fight back the SPLC and the influence it levies regarding Amazon and its financial programs. “Our primary concern was, and still is, that Amazon uses information from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) – a leftist propaganda machine – to make decisions on which organizations to include in their AmazonSmile program,” the ADF noted in an article posted to its website yesterday.
ADF’s President and CEO, Michael Farris, sent a letter directly to Amazon querying the company’s removal of his organization from their charitable program, and calling the retailer out for relying on information provided by the SPLC.
“We were surprised and disappointed to learn that you have terminated the participation of Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) and ADF Foundation in the AmazonSmile program. Even more concerning is your reliance upon the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) to make that determination,” Farris wrote in his letter.
“ADF is a faith-based organization and the world’s largest legal organization advocating for the freedom to peacefully speak, live, and work according to one’s convictions without fear of government punishment. Our organization is well respected in the legal profession as one of the nation’s most successful Supreme Court advocates.”
Farris further stated that ADF “drew the ire of SPLC because of its religious beliefs and advocacy” and that the organization has gone downhill in recent years. “Although the SPLC did good work many years ago, it has devolved into a far-left propaganda machine that slanders organizations with which it disagrees and destroys the possibility of civil discourse in the process,” he added.
“Once the SPLC identifies an ideological opponent, its goal is to ruin them.”
Farris encouraged businesses like Amazon to stop “uncritically” accepting the rulings of the SPLC, considering its blatant bias and hard-left liberal agenda.
“If you are going to rely on a discredited partisan organization like the SPLC to determine who is eligible to participate in AmazonSmile, you should disclose that in your policy and to your customers.”
Meanwhile, abortion center Planned Parenthood continues to enjoy being a benefactor of the Amazon Smile program.
“SPLC is a far left money making apparatus that has been exposed as an inaccurate smear machine,” Farris added in a Facebook post.
“Any group that defends traditional marriage ends up being a hate group under this approach. Amazon is asking states for tax breaks for their new headquarters while practicing ideological discrimination. This is not the path to a civil society. Let Amazon know what you think about this.”
Amazon has yet to respond to ADF’s letter.