Rigell touts backing of Louis Sheldon, leader of "anti-gay hate group" according to the Southern Poverty Law Center

There's a developing brouhaha in the gay rights community online, after folks discovered that Republican congressional hopeful Scott Rigell displays on his webpage the endorsement of a California religious leader whose organization the Southern Poverty Law Center has considered a hate group for five years.

Louis P. Sheldon is the head of an organization called the "Traditional Values Coalition" an Anaheim, Calif.-based group that claims to speak for 43,000 churches. Sheldon is listed alongside Rigell's other endorsements in alphabetical order between Virginia Beach Mayor Will Sessoms and former Virginia Beach GOP chair Chuck Smith.

The gay rights community picked up on Sheldon first, thanks to blogger thanks to blogger Michael-in-Norfolk, who apparently stumbled onto the endorsement while trolling through Rigell's website this week. The item was picked up by liberal bloggers throughout the state, who found inflammatory details about Sheldon sitting all over the Internet.

Rigell is obviously linked to parts of the evangelical movement, most notably Pat Robertson, because like Gov. Bob McDonnell, Rigell went to Robertson's Regent University for graduate school. On Wednesday he held a fundraiser with former Arkansas governor and onetime presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee, a star in the evangelical movement.

As you can see here on this link, Sheldon's organization is one of a handful of anti-gay groups listed as "hate groups" by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The director of research for the Southern Poverty Law Center, Heidi Beirich, said Sheldon has been listed on their collection of hate groups for the past five years. Beirich said that of the 932 hate groups that the SPLC tracks nationwide, only a handful receive the brand for being anti-gay.

"Sheldon and his outfit consistently defame gays...(with) rabidly anti-gay propaganda," Beirich said. "They're especially nasty about pushing the idea that gays are coming after people's children."

Beirich said that Sheldon and his daughter Andrea Lafferty are "some of the worst" when it comes to anti-gay rhetoric promoting ideas like "AIDS patients should be sequestered in separate cities."

Sure enough a visit to the Tradional Values Coalition website offers up the ideal of "empowering people of faith through knowledge." Under the banner headline the site asks "Do you want men dressed as women teaching your kids?" with a link to a web page that says Democrats are quietly pushing through legislation that would "bring cross-dressing teachers into your child's classroom."

"Your children will be trapped in classes taught by drag queens and transgender activists. Students will be indoctrinated that 'alternative lifestyles' are no different than traditional lifestyles. Young children will be forced to learn about bizarre sexual fetishes – and you will have no say in the matter."

Rigell's campaign has already had to distance itself from a pair of former Virginia Beach Republican Party officials who forwarded or sent along emails including racist jokes and diatribes against minorities.

It's unclear how the latest flare-up might change the political momentum in the race which appeared firmly on Rigell's side.

Rigell communications director Crystal Cameron said Rigell briefly met Sheldon during an event in Washington during the winter and Sheldon said he wanted to back Rigell because of "his pro-life stance."

It's typical in political campaigns for folks to receive endorsements from groups across the country - especially if the candidate appears headed for a win. And with a benign name like the "Traditional Values Coalition" it's not a huge surprise that it slipped in under the radar.

That said, no one forced Rigell's campaign to put Sheldon's name up on the candidate's Internet headquarters.

Cameron said the campaign was "unaware" of any controversy surrounding Sheldon or any accusations against him or his organization. Here's Cameron's full statement.  

“Countless people and groups endorse candidates every single day across the country. Scott wouldn’t be able to pick Louis Sheldon out of a police line-up. Let me be clear, Scott does not condone any divisive language or actions that tear apart the fabric of our community. We have not had the opportunity to review and verify the claims. We are four days outside of the most critical election in recent times, and our campaign remains 100% focused on the real issues facing the voters in the Second District. 65,000 of our neighbors remain out of work and the Democrats are on the attack, using divisive social wedge issues to rally their base. It’s truly despicable.”  

Sheldon's name was still listed on Rigell's website as of 11 a.m. Thursday.  

Comments

[James Young]

Since the SPLC is an anti-conservative hate group, its labels mean utterly nothing.

[Cheryl]

I visited the Traditional Values Coalition web site. What a load of anti-everything hogwash they are spewing. SPLC may be overly liberal but they are dead right on this one. Mr. Rigell seems to be the typical right-wing politician. Let it ride til someone notices and then apologize profusely. "We're so sorry that YOU were offended." Not that we were wrong...but you caught us.

[Clairese]

The Southern Poverty Law Center is the hate group.

The SPLC sends out press releases all year long designed to smear the reputations of various politically moderate to conservative groups, and even non-profit historical societies that are pillars of their communities, such as the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

Once again, this guy Payne simply cut and pasted the propaganda sent out by the Leftist "haters" at the SPLC without one iota of fact-checking on his part.

As long as you keep quoting the SPLC as your "authoritative" source, Payne, you simply have no credibility.