Prayapolooza in Houston

[Gregg]

Regarding the SPLC, I don't believe Mr. Dees had anything to do with the actual CREATION of the various hate groups (listed in LC's earlier post) that the organization chases after. I do think Mr. Dees and several attorneys at the SPLC have become very wealthy targeting this niche. There is a lot more public sentiment on your side and a lot less competition there than being a lawyer chasing your garden variety ambulance! Mr. Dees, et al, have identified a market and done an admirable job of securing their position in it. When you really stop to think about it you realize that the more high profile cases the SPLC takes on the more it will cause the groups they target to "take up the cause", essentially creating more and more potential profit centers for the SPLC going forward. It is a brilliant strategy! It's like the Walton family got Target to hang out a banner that says, "If red isn't your favorite color you should go to Wal-Mart". What do you suppose the numbers really are? For every person that joins a hate group and makes some noise how many others contribute to the SPLC to combat them? Ten? One hundred? Mr. Dees' posturing in the public eye may be that of a left leaning civil libertarian, but in practice he is a dyed in the wool capitalist. I admire their business plan.

[redfox]

Morris Dees made $344, 809 in 2010. Hardly an outrageous salary for an attorney of his specialty and at the national level.

If you want the financial details, here's where you find them:
http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocument...06c27181-9.pdf

Guidestar ( http://www.guidestar.org ) is a great free website for accessing the financial data of NFP organizations. Before you donate, DO YOUR RESEARCH!

[Gregg]

And Warren Buffett's official salary at Berkshire Hathaway is $100,000, but he was somehow able to overcome that handicap to become the third richest man in the world. I don't criticize Mr. Dees at all for making money, but don't be fooled by the SPLC marketing campaign that tells you he is sustained by his cause because he only nets $809 in a year.

http://www.splcenter.org/sites/defau...C_990_1010.pdf

The 2009 Form 990 for the SPLC. Very informative. There is a lot of profit in non-profit, you just can't take it as, well, profit.

[redfox]

And Warren Buffett's official salary at Berkshire Hathaway is $100,000, but he was somehow able to overcome that handicap to become the third richest man in the world. I don't criticize Mr. Dees at all for making money, but don't be fooled by the SPLC marketing campaign that tells you he is sustained by his cause because he only nets $809 in a year.

http://www.splcenter.org/sites/defau...C_990_1010.pdf

The 2009 Form 990 for the SPLC. Very informative. There is a lot of profit in non-profit, you just can't take it as, well, profit.

That income figure is 89 million, BTW.

Warren Buffett's enterprise is a for-profit business. There are many more options to hide $$ in a for profit than in a NFP. I've filled out 990's, and there are no hiding places for cash in the NFP world.

And yes, NFP's are a business, like any other; something that very few people understand, I do believe. It's perfectly acceptable, in fact necessary, to take in profit. What happens with the profit is the difference. In a for-profit, profits are paid out in salaries or shareholder earnings. In a NFP, they are plowed back into the mission.

NFP's pay executive salaries along the very same lines as for-profits; that is to say depending upon the job description and the income of the organization. It is rational to pay a top executive a top salary - if it can be afforded - to make sure the organization runs well. The idea that those of us in the NFP world should somehow work for peanuts is stupid... we have all the same expenses that everyone else does. It's great to work for a lofty mission, but it's work all the same.

NFP's generally have 2 revenue streams - earned income & unearned income. Earned is just that: fee-for-service income. That can be market rate or cut rate; it's up to the organization. Unearned income encompasses individual gifts, foundation gifts and grants, government grants, & in-kind contributions.

Every NFP creates an income & expense budget each year. In early years, NFP's spend way more than they take in starting up their fundraising arm - it's a line of business. Like any other start-up venture, it takes about 5 years for fundraising to become profitable. (The only criticism I have of Guidestar is that the ratings they give NFP's don't reflect this fact, and young NFP's may have lower ratings due to spending more on fundraising than is the desired percentage, and that more mature orgs spend.)

One can easily see what the overhead is at a NFP - just ask to see their audited annual report. If they don't have a big enough budget to get audits, look at their profile in Guidestar. Ask them about their cost of doing business! NFP's want to tell potential donors about their fiscal picture. Okay, I gotta get back to writing our case statement for a major donor campaign I am launching next month!

[The Storyteller]

I am often surprised at where threads wind up.

[Zigzagman]

Amen and Amen!!

Gov. Rick Perry’s upcoming prayer event has concerned progressive Christian leaders in Houston, who have written a letter criticizing the governor for excluding non-Christians, partnering with an anti-gay group and blurring boundaries between church and state.

“We ask that Rick Perry leave the ministry to us and refocus his energy on the work of governing our state,” the Houston Clergy Council wrote in a letter signed by 24 local leaders, many of them Unitarian Universalists or members of other denominations that welcome GLBT Christians.
“We wanted to let people know that there are people of faith who have different stances than Gov. Perry. Often the only faith that gets covered is the religious right,” said Rev. Becky Edmiston-Lange, of Emerson Unitarian Universalist Church. “We are clergy persons who support the rights of all people, no matter who they love or how they worship.”

They argue that the nature of Perry’s event, scheduled for Aug. 6 at Reliant Stadium, does not fit with Houston’s religious diversity.

Their criticisms echo a chorus of concerned groups, including the Houston GLBT Political Caucus, the Houston chapter of the Council of American-Islamic relations and the Interfaith Alliance. About 300 Texans plan to protest the event, and the Houston Clergy Council may schedule a pro-tolerance speaker as counter-programming to Perry’s Christian-centric message. Houston’s biggest evangelical megachurches– Lakewood Church, Second Baptist and Houston’s First Baptist– have applauded Perry’s efforts to draw national attention to the need for prayer.

Only one other governor has committed to join Perry at the event.

Peace

[Catwoman]

What's wrong with Perry holding one and inviting everyone (as he did)? The people who disagree with him can stay away or have their own (which I'm sure they will). I think it is the height of intolerance and hypocrisy to denounce Perry's event when they are free to attend or not, believe as they wish or not..Sigh...the lefties always need something to screech about so nobody is looking at the state of the economy or the # of wars we are in (declared or not)....

[loosechickens]

Just for the record, Gregg: from Wikipedia:

"The Southern Poverty Law Center has won many notable civil resulting in monetary awards for the plaintiffs. The SPLC has said it does not accept any portion of monetary judgments.[24][25][26]"

What the SPLC HAS done is managed to bankrupt a number of the hate groups, neutralizing their ability to spread their hatred, since money collected by them from their followers is seized by judgements, etc., awarded by courts to the people they were found guilty of having wronged.

hehehehehehe.....I thought it was CATS who "screeched", Catwoman..... ;-)

If Governor Perry, in a capacity as a private citizen, wishes to join a prayer group with anyone he likes, that is up to him. But when he as the governor of a state, invites other governors and leaders to join him in an event focusing on one religion, and only a certain faction of that religion as well, co-sponsored by a group that spreads lies, hatred and bigotry about a portion of Texas's citizens and others all over this country, then I'm certainly going to speak out about it, although I'll leave it to cats to "screech".

[Catwoman]

Need to qualify that that is your opinion Loosechickens about the lies, hatred and bigotry being spread by the group. Again, just because they are on SPLC's hitlist, doesn't make it real, or true or mesh with everyone else's opinions or beliefs. That you state that outright without any quantifiers in itself disingenuous - it may be true for you but it is not a universal truth.

[loosechickens]

Catwoman, it certainly is not just MY opinion about the lies, bigotry against gays and lesbians being spread by the American Family Association. And the SPLC is certainly not the only organization calling them out for that bigotry and spread of misinformation. You may or may not be in harmony with their beliefs (I have no idea whether you are or not), but plenty of organization and persons other than myself and the SPLC think they ARE fomenting and spreading bigotry and hate speech.

From Wikipedia, on the piece about the American Family Association: this excerpt about their speech and attempts to smear gays and lesbians:

The AFA has been criticized by a number of organizations for their stance against homosexuality.[18][80][81]

In 1998, the popular Internet filtering software CyberPatrol blocked the AFA's web site, classifying it under the category "intolerance," defined as "pictures or text advocating prejudice or discrimination against any race, color, national origin, religion, disability or handicap, gender or sexual orientation..." AFA spokesman Steve Ensley told reporters, "Basically we're being blocked for free speech." CyberPatrol cited quotes from the AFA for meeting its intolerance criteria, which included: "Indifference or neutrality toward the homosexual rights movement will result in society's destruction by allowing civil order to be redefined and by plummeting ourselves, our children, and grandchildren into an age of godlessness"; "A national 'Coming Out of Homosexuality' provides us a means whereby to dispel the lies of the homosexual rights crowd who say they are born that way and cannot change"; and "We want to outlaw public homosexuality...We believe homosexuality is immoral and leads ultimately to personal and social decay."[2][19][81] [82]

On October 19, 1998, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, led by Leslie Katz, wrote a letter to the AFA in response to an advertisement placed in the San Francisco Chronicle by the AFA regarding homosexuality and Christianity. The letter stated:[83]

Supervisor Leslie Katz denounces your rhetoric against gays, lesbians and transgendered people. What happened to Matthew Shepard is in part due to the message being espoused by your groups that gays and lesbians are not worthy of the most basic equal rights and treatment. It is not an exaggeration to say that there is a direct correlation between these acts of discrimination, such as when gays and lesbians are called sinful and when major religious organizations say they can change if they tried, and the horrible crimes committed against gays and lesbians.

During the same time, the City and County of San Francisco passed two resolutions. Resolution No. 234-99 "calls for the Religious Right to take accountability for the impact of their long-standing rhetoric denouncing gays and lesbians, which leads to a climate of mistrust and discrimination that can open the door to horrible crimes such as those committed against Mr. Gaither."[84] and Resolution No. 873-98 was specifically directed at "anti-gay" television advertisements. AFA unsuccessfully challenged these actions as violating the Free Speech and Free Exercise clauses of the First Amendment in American Family Association v. City and County of San Francisco.[83]

In 1998, multiple organizations voiced criticism of a series of AFA sponsored full-page newspaper advertisements that promoted religious ministries involved in the ex-gay movement. In response to the advertisements, the Religious Leadership Roundtable said the ads employed "language of violence and hatred to denounce other people." IntegrityUSA criticized the ads, calling them "evil" disregarding Christian teachings about the "dignity of every human being." DignityUSA also criticized the advertisements, which they said were "misleading and destructive."[85]

In July 2000, the AFA sent out emails and letters calling for openly gay Arizona Republican United States House of Representatives member Jim Kolbe to be barred from speaking at the Republican National Convention.[86] The AFA also said that Kolbe should be arrested when he returned to his home state, as because Kolbe is gay, he was violating an Arizona law that banned sodomy.[87] Equality Mississippi, a statewide LGBT civil rights organization which has voiced opposition and criticism towards the AFA's activism regarding homosexuality, felt that AFA's action was constituting and encouraging violence towards the gay community.[88]

In 2005, Equality Mississippi publicly spoke out against the AFA for the use of copyrighted images on the AFA web site in its boycott against Kraft Foods for being a sponsor of the 2006 Gay Games in Chicago. The photographs, which were used without permission, were owned by and retrieved from ChrisGeary.com. Equality Mississippi encouraged ChrisGeary.com to file suit against the AFA and offered to support the suit.[89] As of March 2009[update], the images were still on AFA's web site.[90]

The American Family Association has objected to having their comments on homosexuality described as homophobia and akin to racism or sexism, saying that their beliefs are based in religion.[91]

Former AFA California leader Scott Lively[92][18] is a co-author of The Pink Swastika which claims that many leaders in the German Nazi regime, including Hitler himself, were gay. He has since co-founded Watchmen on the Walls.

In May 2010, Bryan Fischer, the AFA's director of Issue Analysis for Government and Public Policy,[93] wrote a blog post on the AFA website[94] detailing allegations that Adolf Hitler was a homosexual, and concluding that gay people in the military caused the Holocaust: "Nazi Germany became the horror that it was because it rejected both Christianity and its clear teaching about human sexuality. These are mistakes no sane culture should ever make again."[94]

In June 2008, AFA's news website, OneNewsNow – which had begun replacing all instances of "gay" with "homosexual" in re-posted Associated Press articles[95] – changed an AP profile of Olympic sprinter Tyson Gay, rendering his name as "Tyson Homosexual".[96][97][98] OneNewsNow similarly altered the name of basketball player Rudy Gay, naming him "Rudy Homosexual".[99][100] The gay rights website GoodAsYou.org, which "has long chronicled the AFA's practice of changing AP copy to suit its conservative agenda", spotted the errors. Tyson Gay was upset with the mistake.[101][102]