Amazon Smile continues to frown on Christian organizations by denying them admission to the charity program, blacklisting them at the recommendation of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).
Customers who sign up for Amazon Smile can have 0.5% of their purchases donated to their favorite charity; organizations on SPLC's "designated hate groups" list are prohibited from registering, however, according to Amazon's website.
A self-described "premier" organization for monitoring "domestic hate groups" and "extremists," SPLC regularly updates the list of hate groups on its website, lumping neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan with pro-freedom religious organizations such as Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) and the Ruth Institute (RI).
After being added to SPLC's hate group list in 2016, ADF and the RI were rejected by Amazon Smile, according to the Daily Caller.
"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 on its website. "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 claims ADF supports sterilization for transgender people and seeks to criminalize LGBTQ sexual behavior.
"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 says on its website. "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 by SPLC as an anti-LGBTQ group and a "vehicle for spreading the Catholic right-wing Gospel." The organization's founder, Jennifer Morse, has pushed back on that characterization and said she's not backing down.
"The Ruth Institute is a global, non-profit organization leading an international, 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."
According to the Caller, the Black Lives Matter Global Foundation (BLM) and the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund (TLDEF) are in good standing with the Amazon Smile program.
BLM condoned the 2020 riots that resulted in 24 deaths and millions of dollars in property damage. TLDEF advocates for and defends the rights of minors to medically transition and obtain surgeries like double mastectomies.
Jeremy Tedesco, senior counsel for ADF, told the Caller that the Christian organization has continued to be wrongly maligned as a hate group, despite Amazon founder and former CEO Jeff Bezos' 2020 admission to Congress that the Amazon Smile admission system is "imperfect."
"By continuing to depend on the SPLC's own biased and ideologically-driven definition of 'hate group,' which one former SPLC employee rightly described as part of a 'highly profitable scam' aimed at 'bilking gullible Northern liberals,' Mr. Bezos and Amazon are depriving Americans of their ability to choose which causes they want their hard-earned dollar to support," Tedesco said.
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