Aug 8, 2024
In 2011, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) put Liberty Counsel Ministries on its “Hate List,” declaring us to be of the same ilk as violent domestic terror groups like the Ku Klux Klan.
Over the years, SPLC Senior Fellow Mark Potok proclaimed that the SPLC’s goal is “to destroy these groups, to completely destroy them.”
In making this statement, Potok was referring to peaceful organizations that uphold the sanctity of human life and believe men should not beat up women in sports or invade their privacy. The SPLC wants to destroy such groups. Because Liberty Counsel is so effective, the SPLC especially hates us and stirs up its radical followers to “destroy” us.
Despite being falsely accused by the SPLC, Liberty Counsel was not destroyed. In fact, the SPLC’s “Hate Map” website has 187 articles denigrating Liberty Counsel. More than 71 articles specifically denigrate our top attorneys, personally, by name.
Death threats flowed in, forcing Liberty Counsel to drastically step up security for our staff and our buildings. But we were not destroyed.
So, the SPLC resorted to another tactic to try to ensure our demise — lawfare. We are in that battle now!
Help us fight the SPLC’s frivolous lawsuit against Liberty Counsel! Support our legal fund today!

In 2017, using its near billion-dollar endowment, the SPLC took on a frivolous case and hired a boatload of high-priced law firms to try to litigate us into bankruptcy. The lawsuit also had a secondary purpose — to tie up our time in an effort to prevent us from doing our real work — defending the right to life, religious liberty, and the natural family.
The SPLC case involves one of the nation’s first same sex “marriage” divorces. In 2012, after adding Liberty Counsel to the SPLC’s “Hate List,” SPLC’s client Janet Jenkins resorted to lawfare by filing suit against her former partner, Lisa Miller (who had become a Christian), and many others. The suit mentioned Liberty Counsel, which represented Lisa, but did not name us as a defendant.
In 2016, Jenkins, who sought custody of Lisa’s biological daughter, amended her complaint, and added Liberty Counsel as a defendant.
Seizing this as an opportunity to “destroy” Liberty Counsel, the SPLC took over representation of Jenkins in 2017, who irrationally and without a shred of evidence, falsely claimed Liberty Counsel helped “kidnap” her former lesbian partner’s child, Isabella.
The SPLC’s client testified under oath that she wants Liberty Counsel to pay her a whopping sum of 200 BILLION dollars! That’s more than the net worth of all but two of the world’s richest individuals!
After years of litigation, 186,000 documents reviewed, 25 depositions that included over 11,000 pages of exhibits, and 6,800 pages of transcripts, there is not a shred of evidence to support Jenkins’ claim that Liberty Counsel had anything to do with the disappearance of Lisa and Isabella. In fact, the evidence proves just the opposite.
+ + Obama and his Attorney General made this case a priority ...
The Obama administration made Lisa and Isabella’s disappearance a top priority. The administration scoured three continents and seven countries searching for Lisa and her daughter. Four people were later criminally charged with helping Lisa flee: Lisa Miller, two Mennonite ministers, and Philip Zodhiates.
Throughout their criminal trials and convictions, as well as in sworn testimony in Jenkins’ civil lawsuit against us, all have repeatedly testified that Liberty Counsel did not know about their plan and had nothing to do with it before, during, or after Lisa and Isabella’s disappearance.
After 12 years and digging through hundreds of thousands of Liberty Counsel files and documents, the SPLC knows that Liberty Counsel did nothing wrong. But the SPLC continues its attack after all these years because they want to destroy us.
Since 1989, Liberty Counsel has won more than 30 cases we have argued or briefed before the U.S. Supreme Court. Our work helped overturn Roe v. Wade, restore the Ten Commandments, end government censorship of Christian speech, and overturn the “Lemon Test,” among other things.
No wonder these haters of life and liberty want to destroy us — we are effective!
On Monday, the SPLC responded to our motion for summary judgment. As I write, our attorneys are scouring the SPLC’s pleading and preparing our response. But we need YOUR IMMEDIATE FINANCIAL HELP.
The cost and hours put into this frivolous lawsuit have been exorbitant. Help us defend against the SPLC’s hate by supporting our legal fund today. Every donation made will be DOUBLED in impact by a special Challenge Grant.
“The LORD will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before you. They shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways” (Deut. 28:7).
Mat Staver
Founder and Chairman
Liberty Counsel
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Source:
“Mark Potok from the Southern Poverty Law Center Speaks at the 2007 MIAAHC Hate Crimes Conference,” YouTube: Bonnie Bucqueroux, September 11, 2007. Youtu.be/fnTz2ylJo_8.