Amazon’s Charity Program, Amazon Smile, Uses Southern Poverty Law Center to Blacklist Christian Organizations from Fundraising
Amazon Smile sounds like such a cheerful program!
Customers can sign up to the program to have 0.5% of their purchase donated to a charity. Charities go through an application process to be accepted.
But many Christian charities have nothing to smile about after learning that they need not apply.
Amazon uses hate group Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) to ‘vet’ whether an organization is allowed to participate in the charity program.
According to the Amazon Smile website:
Eligible Charitable Organizations
Organizations must be public charitable organizations that are registered and in good standing with the IRS as a 501(c)(3) to be eligible to participate. Eligible charitable organizations must also be located in one of the 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, American Samoa, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, or the U.S. Virgin Islands. Organizations that engage in, support, encourage, or promote intolerance, hate, terrorism, violence, money laundering, or other illegal activities are not eligible to participate. Amazon relies on the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control and the Southern Poverty Law Center to determine which organizations fall into these groups. Charitable organizations must also adhere to the AmazonSmile Participation Agreement to maintain eligibility. Charitable organizations may choose not to participate in AmazonSmile at any time. Although we aim to include only charitable organizations that are in good standing and do not engage in any of the activities described above, we cannot guarantee the good standing and/or conduct of any charitable organization.
In 2019, Senator Tom Cotton called for the IRS to investigate tax exempt status of the SPLC hate group.
Cotton says SPLC is a political hate group, “They have a hate may and they use it to stigmatize their political opponents, respectable center-right organizations like the Family Research Council and Alliance Defending Freedom. There are plenty of groups on the left that I don’t agree with but I don’t try to stigmatize them as a hate group and then go peddle that to CNN, The New York Times or attack their donors.”
SPLC claims they are the “Premier U.S. organization monitoring the activities of domestic hate groups and other extremists – including the Ku Klux Klan, white nationalists, the neo-Nazi movement, antigovernment militias and others.”
Included on SPLC’s “hate” list are religious freedom organizations like Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), the Ruth Institute (RI) and the Family Research Center (FRC).
According to the Daily Caller:
ADF and the RI were rejected by Amazon Smile after being added to SPLC’s hate group list in 2016 and have remained on the list ever since. The SPLC directed the Daily Caller News Foundation to its website when asked how they determine who is assigned the “designated hate group” label.
“The Southern Poverty Law Center defines a hate group as an organization or collection of individuals that – based on its official statements or principles, the statements of its leaders, or its activities – has beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics,” SPLC states. “An organization does not need to have engaged in criminal conduct or have followed their speech with actual unlawful action to be labeled a hate group.”
The SPLC accuses ADF of supporting sterilization for transgender people, likening LGBTQ individuals to pedophiles and claims that the Christian organization seeks to criminalize LGBTQ sexual behavior. ADF resoundingly denies all of the accusations and has a part of its website dedicated to combating SPLC’s claims.
“ADF is the world’s largest legal organization committed to protecting free speech, religious freedom, parental rights, and the sanctity of life and the family,” ADF states. “And we work every day to build a society where life is cherished and protected and everyone can freely share their ideas, exercise their faith, and live together peacefully despite different beliefs, opinions, and backgrounds.”
The Ruth Institute is described as a “vehicle for spreading the Catholic right-wing Gospel” and an anti-LGBTQ group. Jennifer Morse, RI’s founder, has also denied the allegations but refused to back down on her organization’s mission.
“The Ruth Institute is a global, non-profit organization leading an ihnternational, interfaith coalition to defend the family and build a civilization of love,” Morse said on RI’s website. “If fighting sex abuse, pornography, and divorce makes us a hate group, so be it.”
While targeting Christian groups, Amazon Smile does not have a problem including the Black Lives Matter Global Foundation (BLMGNF.) BLM riots killed dozens of people and caused over a billion dollars of damage across the nation.
The Gateway Pundit reported that BLMGNF’s 2021 990 tax return, the first public financial disclosure since its founding in 2014. documented related party transactions (friends and family plans) and waste, fraud, and abuse orchestrated by Marxist trained leader Patrisse Cullors.
It is reported that Cullors has also used funds donated to BLM to pay millions of dollars to family and friends for various reasons.
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