Florida Agenda

ST. PETERSBURG – A well known evangelist whose ministry has been labeled a “hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is threatening to sue the non-profit civil rights organization for defamation because of the designation.

Bill Keller, the self-described “world’s leading Internet evangelist” and founder of LivePrayer.com, said last week that he plans to file the $100 million defamation lawsuit against the SPLC, the Montgomery, Alabama-based organization noted for its legal victories against white supremacist groups, as well as its legal representation for victims of hate groups, its monitoring of alleged hate groups, militias and extremist organizations, and its educational programs that promote tolerance.

According to Keller, “Groups like the [SLPC] give license to individuals who oppose a Biblical worldview to take whatever actions they deem fit, even acts of violence, to silence those they disagree with.

Sadly, this intimidation has worked, because there are very few like myself who are willing to go into the mainstream media and promote Biblical truth that a large percentage of society now rejects.”

After the suicide last year of gay teen Jamie Hubley, Keller blamed “the homosexual community and media who promote this lifestyle to society,” specifically citing Anderson Cooper, Ellen DeGeneres, and Rachel Maddow, adding that the hosts “validate legally and ethically this choice of sexual behavior and relationships to our children as normal, even desirable behavior!”

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The United States Supreme Court ruled last week that the First Amendment protects fundamentalist church members who mount protests outside military funerals.

The court voted 8-1 in favor of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas. The decision effectively threw out a ruling of an appeals court ordering the church to pay a $5-million judgment to the father of a dead Marine who sued the church for picketing his son’s funeral.

“What Westboro said, in the whole context of how and where it chose to say it, is entitled to ‘special protection’ under the First Amendment,” wrote Chief Justice John Roberts in the court decision, “and that protection cannot be overcome by a jury finding that the picketing was outrageous.”