FAIR ties

To the editor:

The media director for FAIR (Federation for American Immigration Reform) recently rebuked the Journal-World (Public Forum, July 3) for publishing a letter pointing out that FAIR is currently classified as a nativist (anti-immigrant) hate group by the nonpartisan Southern Poverty Law Center.

FAIR’s response did not deny that it was founded by a white nationalist, John Tanton, who sits on its board of directors. (See http://www.splcenter.org/pdf/static/splc_nativistlobby_022009.pdf.)

FAIR’s letter did not deny its anti-Hispanic and anti-Catholic prejudice; it merely said that this prejudice is “mainstream.” FAIR did not deny its ties to the more openly racist groups founded and funded by Tanton, and for which FAIR can be a respectable front.

FAIR’s letter to the Journal-World further demonstrates that it tries to silence its critics with ad hominem attacks.

In contrast, is the SPLC a “disreputable” organization, and are its findings “discredited,” as FAIR claims? Not according to the local, state and federal law enforcement officers with whom SPLC works to prevent hate-based attacks and killings. Not according to the juries that have sided with SPLC’s lawsuits against racist skinheads, the Aryan Nations, and the Ku Klux Klan. But hundreds of other organizations do discredit the SPLC: those on the losing side, those promoting hatred of or violence against people of other races, religions or nationalities.

When FAIR takes a stand alongside the Ku Klux Klan and against law enforcement agencies, it’s time to wonder whose side FAIR is on.