The AP has finally pointed out that Kim Davis (right) is receiving legal representation from a designated anti-gay hate group:
The Southern Poverty Law Center lists the Liberty Counsel as an anti-gay hate groups for spreading false information.
“A group that regularly portrays gay people as perverse, diseased pedophiles putting Western civilization at risk are way, way over the line,” said Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the center.
The Liberty Counsel has connected homosexuality to higher rates of promiscuity and incest, Potok said, despite scientific evidence to the contrary. The firm opposes laws banning hate crimes and supports discredited conversion therapies that purport to turn homosexuals into heterosexuals. Staver once declared that the Boy Scouts would become a “playground for pedophiles” once it allowed gay troop leaders.
Liberty Counsel is a tax exempt non-profit Christian litigation group headed by Mat Staver who claimed last week that Pope Francis sought a meeting with Davis.
The stated aim of Liberty Counsel – which opposes bans on hate crimes and supports harmful ex-gay therapy – is to restore “the culture by advancing religious freedom, the sanctity of human life and the family.”
RELATED: Liberty Counsel Defends Michigan's Ban on Same-Sex Marriage Because Gay People Have ‘Inherent' Diseases
Staver was also responsible for false claims that 100,000 people gathered in a Peruvian soccer stadium to pray for Davis.
In 2000, the firm threatened to sue a Florida library that offered a “Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry” certificate to children who read the Harry Potter series.
Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center described the organization as “a group that regularly portrays gay people as perverse, diseased pedophiles putting Western civilization at risk.”
Staver has compared Davis to both Martin Luther King Jr. and Abraham Lincoln.
#KimDavis and #PopeFrancis meet – http://t.co/Nmch2L13vN
— Mathew Staver (@MatStaver) October 1, 2015