DoD asked to review connections to the Southern Poverty Law Center

The Thomas More Law Center with the Family Research Council (FRC) and 14 other organizations announced yesterday Thursday a letter has been sent to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel requesting that the Department of Defense (DoD) ensure that future training materials do not rely on information from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) or any other organization that engages in groundless and highly pejorative mischaracterizations of long-standing Christian organizations for their own political purposes.

The request comes after several training incidents in which Army instructors may have relied on anti-Christian materials produced by the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization that was linked to domestic terrorism in federal court in February, 2013.

Lt. General Jerry Boykin (retired), Family Research Council's executive vice president, made the following comments:

"In recent months, Army instructors have begun relying on the Southern Poverty Law Center, an anti-Christian group linked to domestic terrorism, as a source for its briefings. While we are encouraged that the Army Secretary has issued an order ceasing such briefings, we remain concerned that individual installation briefings may continue to draw upon SPLC materials.

"We are asking Secretary Hagel to issue clear guidance to the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute and instructing installations to stop relying on SPLC and other non-governmental sources as approved resources for equal opportunity training or other purposes.

"We will continue to monitor this situation and remain in contact with the Department of Defense to ensure that instructors carry out their role to train our troops to defend our freedom, and not push the Southern Poverty Law Center's anti-Christian agenda," concluded Boykin.