February 18, 2016 10:56 AM UTC

So, About Those Colorado Hate Groups...

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• by: Colorado Pols

The Denver Post has an odd story up today about the latest index of hate groups compiled by the Southern Poverty Law Center–a list that includes, as it does every year, an unfortunate number of organizations based in Colorado:

Sixteen hate groups, including neo-Nazis, anti-gay churches and even a music label, operated in Colorado last year, according to the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center.

Colorado saw five new hate groups operating in 2015, but the state had a net gain of one group last year, said Mark Potok, senior fellow and editor of the organization’s Intelligence Report…

“While the number of extremist groups grew in 2015 after several years of declines, the real story was the deadly violence committed by extremists in city after city,” Potok said.

“Whether it was Charleston, San Bernardino or Colorado Springs, 2015 was clearly a year for deadly action for extremists.”

Reading today’s story, which notes the domestic terror attack on Colorado Springs’ Planned Parenthood clinic last November, we were shocked that a prominent Colorado Springs organization on the SPLC’s hate group list received no mention whatsoever:

That’s right, folks! For a long, long list of reasons we have documented in this space for several years, the Colorado Springs-based Pray in Jesus Name “ministry” is one of the hate groups on the SPLC’s list. Arguably, PIJN is one of the highest-profile hate groups on the SPLC’s list anywhere in America, being run by a sitting Republican Colorado lawmaker, Rep. Gordon “Dr. Chaps” Klingenschmitt.

We try not to get into the business of complaining about every media omission, mostly because we’d spend all day every day on them if we did. But we simply can’t understand why “Dr. Chaps” didn’t even rate a mention in a story he should have been the star of. Chaps is where the nexus between groups that can legitimately be considered to be proponents of hatred and modern Republican politics becomes, well, a very uncomfortable thing. The sort of thing that gets omitted or otherwise glossed over by news outlets looking to “be fair.”

But it shouldn’t be glossed over. It’s the most important part of this story.