The legal powerhouse, which fights for religious freedom, is awaiting decisions in two more landmark free speech cases it argued this term before the high court. It is counted as one of the most successful legal advocacy organizations in the country.
But even that stellar record was not enough to prevent Alliance Defending Freedom from being banned from participating in AmazonSmile, which allows Amazon.com customers to contribute “0.5% of eligible purchases” to “almost one million eligible 501(c)(3) public charitable organizations.”
ADF had been one of those charities since the 2013 launch of AmazonSmile until recently, when those who had assigned the legal organization as their charity were notified that it was no longer eligible.
The reason? Southern Poverty Law Center.
Those who had selected ADF as their charity received the following explanation of why they’d no longer be able to give to the religious freedom group through the program:
The AmazonSmile Participation Agreement states that certain categories of organizations are not eligible to participate in AmazonSmile. We rely on the Southern Poverty Law Center to determine which charities are in certain ineligible categories. You have been excluded from the AmazonSmile program because the Southern Poverty Law Center lists Alliance Defending Freedom in an ineligible category.
For those unfamiliar with SPLC, they are the hysteria-stokers responsible for producing a slanderous list of “hate groups” that lumps together actual violent extremists with respectable organizations such as Alliance Defending Freedom and the Family Research Council and with international human rights activists such as Maajid Nawaz and Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
So, the “ineligible category” to which Amazon’s statement refers is really nothing more than a hit list of groups and people SPLC disagrees with. Amazon’s decision to rely on the false accusations of ...
