Michigan AG Persecuting Christians With Help from SPLC

Homosexual activist and anti-Christian bigot Dana Nessel, now serving as the attorney general of Michigan, is abusing her power with police-state tactics, unconstitutionally persecuting Christians in the state and even compiling dossiers on her political enemies using tax dollars.

Making matters worse, Nessel has teamed up with the Southern Poverty Law Center, perhaps America’s most prominent anti-Christian hate group, to target influential Christian voices in the state. Among her victims: Church Militant and its Founder and President Michael Voris.

To understand the danger of this relationship, consider that convicted terrorist Floyd Corkins said he was inspired by the SPLC and its “hate map” propaganda to try to slaughter employees of the D.C.-based Family Research Council. After the massacre, he planned to stuff Chik-Fil-A sandwiches in the mouths of his victims.

The SPLC has also become a laughing stock, most recently having to pay millions of dollars to a Muslim activist for libeling him as one of the world’s top “anti-Muslim extremists.” The discredited group has also labelled an Indian married to an Indian as the leader of the “anti-Indian” movement, while attacking a black law professor as an enabler of “White supremacy.”

By contrast, the SPLC has showered praises on unrepentant communist terrorist Bill Ayers, whose terror group murdered police officers, bombed funerals of its victims, and even bombed the Pentagon, the State Department, and the Capitol while working with Communist Cuban intelligence.

Their goal, according to FBI operative Larry Grathwohl, was to invite communist governments into America, then put tens of millions of Americans into re-education camps. Those who could not be re-educated were to be exterminated, warned Grathwohl after infiltrating the leadership of Ayers’ Weathermen terror group.

According to the Thomas More Law Center, in concert with the SPLC, Nessel’s office is using outlandish tactics to intimidate and terrorize Christians.

“Watching, listening, tracking, and compiling secret dossiers on dissidents until they are finally accused and prosecuted—these are the police-state tactics one might associate with an authoritarian regime in a World War II movie,” the group said.

Yet, these are actually the methods that Nessel is using, in partnership with the “notorious and discredited radical left-wing anti-Christian organization” the SPLC.

One of the voices targeted by the SPLC, listed on its “hate” map as “anti-LGBT,” is Church Militant, a popular nonprofit Michigan-based religious media organization that advocates traditional biblical beliefs on marriage — namely, that God created marriage as a life-long union between one man and one woman.

Three days after the SPLC attack, a news release by Attorney General Nessel and the Director of the Michigan Department of Civil Rights was issued referencing and linking to SPLC’s Hate Map. The joint release contained Nessel’s promise to establish a hate-crimes unit to fight against hate crimes and hate groups which have been allowed to proliferate in Michigan.

Nessel’s spokeswoman, Kelly Rossman-McKinney, noted that SPLC is a good place to start when investigating hate and bias, the Thomas More Law Center said.

The Director of the Civil Rights Department told a Detroit News reporter that the Department is creating a database which would document hate and bias incidents that don’t rise to the level of a crime or civil infraction.

Additional damning evidence of AG Nessel’s hostility toward traditional marriage was provided by the findings of Chief Judge Robert Jonker of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan, the non-profit legal group said.

“St. Vincent was targeted based on its religious belief, and it was Defendant Nessel who targeted it.” – U.S. District Chief Judge Robert Jonker

In a published 2019 legal opinion, Buck v. Gordon, Judge Jonker found that Nessel attempted to stop St. Vincent Catholic Charities from performing adoption and foster placement services because it professed the Catholic belief on marriage. Judge Jonker said that past statements by Nessel “raise a strong inference of hostility toward a religious viewpoint.”

Jonker concluded that “St. Vincent was targeted based on its religious belief, and it was Defendant Nessel who targeted it.”

Concerned that AG Nessel is continuing to weaponize the Attorney General’s Office to suppress religious beliefs in traditional marriage by threats of investigation and prosecution, the Ann Arbor, Michigan-based Thomas More Law Center filed a request for records under the Michigan Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

Using sham excuses, Nessel refused to supply crucial records that would shed light on her use of her law enforcement powers to target organizations that opposed her personal ideology supporting same-sex marriage.

TMLC filed a lawsuit in the Michigan Court of Claims on January 9, 2020, against Nessel for her refusal to comply with Michigan’s FOIA.

“This lawsuit is about the right of the people to know what their public officials are doing,” said Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of TMLC, which represents Church Militant and Voris. “We believe that Attorney General Nessel targeted Church Militant because of its stance on traditional marriage as she had done in the case involving St. Vincent.”

Continued Thompson: “The combination of actions by the Attorney General Nessel, the Department of Civil Rights and the Southern Poverty Law Center have a chilling effect on the freedom of speech and religion not only of Church Militant, but every religious group in Michigan that stands for traditional marriage.”

Astonishingly, Nessel’s office admitted in its response to Thomas More Law Center’s FOIA request that:

-It had no policies in place to safeguard the constitutional rights of individuals who committed no crime but are being investigated for espousing traditional marriage.

-It has no clear definitions of “bias incidents” or “hate crimes” against LGBT persons that are backed up by Michigan statutes or court decisions.

-The AG’s Office failed in its FOIA response to provide any clear policies or parameters governing the prosecution of hate crimes. Nor does it have a clear definition of what constitutes a “hate group.”

Without policies to adequately guide the actions of the Hate Crime Unit, it is free to roam about launching secret investigations against any organization based solely on the fact that it supports traditional marriage.

Consequently, it was easy for the Attorney General’s Office to claim that Church Militant was under investigation to avoid turning over records and to escape public scrutiny.

“Nessel has single-handedly turned the Attorney General’s Office into an instrument of thought control by intimidation, using its law enforcement powers to police the speech of Michigan residents,” Thompson continued, blasting the outrageous abuse of power. “One of her primary goals is to suppress the religious definition of marriage that does not conform to her opinions on same-sex marriage.”

This latest abuse of power shows that LGBT extremists in America are hoping to emulate the actions of totalitarians in Europe and other parts of the world that ruthlessly persecute Christians.

In fact, right now in Canada, as reported exclusively last week by The Liberty Sentinel, LGBT activists in government are working to imprison Christian evangelist Bill Whatcott for handing out Bible tracts and health information on the dangers of sodomy at a “pride” parade.

Fortunately, America’s Founding Fathers established a constitutional framework that prohibits such lawless behavior. But unless Americans get involved in holding these totalitarians accountable, the Constitution will not be able to restrain them indefinitely.

With information from Thomas More Law Center.