The IRS has revoked the tax-exempt status of Americans for the Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH), a group whose leader once said that gay rights is “Satan’s point of attack on the United States of America.”
Peter LaBarbera, who founded AFTAH in 2006, wrote a blog post on the site on Tuesday:
Americans For Truth About Homosexuality is working to comply fully with IRS regulations, whether we end up as a 501(c)3, c-4, or LLC. As always, we will endeavor to report information on the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) movement that is ignored by the liberal, pro-homosexuality “mainstream” media. Currently, per notification by the IRS received by AFTAH June 10, 2011, donations to Americans For Truth are not tax-deductible.
AFTAH, which is listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group, lost its tax-exempt status for “failure to file a Form 990, 990-EZ, 990-N, or 990-PF for 3 consecutive years,” according to The American Independent.
As Right Wing Watch has documented, over the years LaBarbera has made a treasure trove of anti-gay remarks and come up with numerous conspiracy theories about the gay rights movement. To name a few — he once worried about the gay infiltration of Fox News, feared the “demonic manipulation” used by gay rights advocates and the TV show Glee to make kids gay, and argued that pedophilia is “a subset of the larger deviance of homosexuality.”
He is also apparently unfazed by AFTAH’s appearance on the SPLC’s hate list: “If you are not on the SPLC hate list, you are not doing enough.”
Jillian Rayfield
Jillian Rayfield is a Reporter/Blogger for TPM, and started as a News Intern in May 2009. She graduated from Cornell University in May 2008 with a degree in Film, and worked as a Research Assistant for a market research firm in London in between.
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