San Diego Union-Tribune Smears Chula Vista Residents as a "Hate Group"

Mr. Hernandez (Email — david.hernandez@utsandiego.com)

                          (Twitter: @D4VIDHernandez)

My name is Arthur Schaper, and I am the Organization Director for
MassResistance.

We are the international pro-family group that makes the difference. We
set up the press conference at the Chula Vista Main Library on Thursday, August
29, 2019.

We had men and women of all backgrounds, and they were all Chula Vista
residents aside from myself.

I read this part of your commentary in one of the articles you wrote
about our press conference:

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/communities/south-county/story/2019-08-30/drag-queen-storytime-moved-to-larger-space-to-accommodate-expected-attendance

As with other similar events across the country, the storytime caught
the attention of MassResistance, an anti-LGBTQ organization. The Southern
Poverty Law Center has described MassResistance as a hate group.

Are you not aware that the Southern Poverty Law Center is a discredited
hate group in and of itself and has been thoroughly discredited?

1. Its co-founder, Morris Dees, was fired for fostering a workplace
filled with racism and sexism. He engaged in frequent acts of sexual misconduct
against female employees, too.

2. The president of the Organization, Richard Cohen, was forced to
resign as well for overlooking and enabling the workplace culture which shut
out minorities and women. So did the SPLC legal director Rhonda Brownstein.

3. Former employee Bob Moser (himself politically liberal and openly
gay) denounced the culture of hatred and dishonor within the organization, and
patently admitted in his article in the New Yorker that the SPLC is not really
interested in fighting so-called "hate groups", as much as merely
engaging in smears against any group whose views they simply do not like. That
is not a digilent organization of any measure, and therefore should not be
quoted or referenced.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-reckoning-of-morris-dees-and-the-southern-poverty-law-center

 4. Regarding MassResistance specifically, it is quite offensive for you
to refer to this organization as a "hate group." Our founder,
President Brian Camenker, is an orthodox Jew who suffered discrimination
himself as a youth in Duluth, Minnesota. We have Orthodox Jewish communities in
New Jersey and New York, as well as communities of many ethnic backgrounds who
work with us. How can you possibly reference such individuals as "a hate
group"?

5. For the record, the SPLC is facing at least six lawsuits for libel,
and they were forced to pay a $3.8 million settlement to reformist Muslim
Maajid Nawaz for smearing him as an "anti-Muslim" extremist. The SPLC
had to issue an official apology, as well. That you would reference an
organization which has such anti-Muslim and even anti-Semitic leanings is quite
disturbing,

6. Marc Potok, another former employee of the SPLC, openly admitted
that their express interest is to smear conservative groups, nothing more. They
have no interest in stopping hate, but rather perpetuating it.

7. The SPLC has applied the "hate group" label to every
pro-family organization they can. It's a joke. Here is a list of other groups
and organizations which have been labeled "hate groups" by the SPLC:

The Family Research Council

The Alliance Defending Freedom

The American Family Association

The American Freedom Alliance

Family Watch International

World Congress of Families

It's completely meaningless and nonsensical.

In short, Mr. Hernandez, your remarks and references to the SPLC that
MassResistance is a hate group are libelous. To call a group of committed Chula
Vista residents "a hate group" is striking in its lack of
professionalism. Mothers and fathers who care about children and their
communities does not constitute "hate".

Furthermore, are you even daring to allege that a black pastor, himself
a pillar in the community, Pastor Dennis Hodges, is a hater too? Such writing
is completely uncalled for.

That reference to the Southern Poverty Law Center must be removed. It
is libelous, inflammatory, devoid of any fact or basis in truth, and completely
unprofessional.

Readers in the San Diego area deserve better than this kind of shoddy
journalism.

I expect to hear back from you that this matter has been resolved.

My email is arthur@massresistance.org

Sincerely,

Arthur Schaper, Organization Director

Website: MassResistance.org

Email: arthur@massresistance.org

(781) 890-6001

@MassResistance

@CAMassResistanc