The Southern Poverty Law Center has included Rand Paul on a list of "extremist" candidates in the 2010 elections.
The list is largely populated by those affilliated with racist groups, anti-semitic organizations and those opposed to immigration.
Paul is on the list because of his belief that businesses shouldn’t be forced to abide by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and his opposition to open housing laws intented to thwart discrimination.
Here’s what the group, founded by famed civil rights attorney Morris Dees, had to say about Paul:
"Paul rode Tea Party support to upset the Kentucky GOP’s preferred candidate. During the campaign, many of Paul’s unorthodox political beliefs came to light, including his assertion that private businesses shouldn’t have been compelled to comply with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that barred discrimination.
In a 2002 letter to the Bowling Green Daily News, Paul also criticized the Fair Housing Act, explaining that ‘a free society will abide unofficial, private discrimination, even when that means allowing hate-filled groups to exclude people based on skin color.’ After winning the Republican primary and being subjected to national criticism, Paul issued a press release declaring ‘unequivocally” that he would not support any effort to repeal the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that he had criticized just days earlier.
This January, Paul sent out a fundraising letter declaring that Hillary Clinton and the “global gun-grabbers” at the United Nations are trying “finally strip you and me of ALL our freedoms” by signing a treaty that would “almost certainly” force the U.S. to “CONFISCATE and DESTROY” all “unauthorized” civilian firearms. (In fact, the treaty being discussed has nothing to do with regulating guns in the U.S., something that would be impossible in any event under the Constitution.)
Paul added that “the United Nations has been hell-bent on bringing the United States to its knees” since its founding in 1945. Last fall, he said he wanted to abolish the U.S. Department of Education so it couldn’t, for instance, mandate teaching kindergartners “that Susie has two mommies,” a reference to same-sex couples with children.
On immigration, Paul wants to erect a physical or electronic fence along all U.S. land borders, complete with “satellite surveillance” and “helicopter stations,” and deploy “any unnecessary foreign units” of the American military to the border."
One blog, the Gateway Pundit, went on the offensive, arguing that Paul and a couple others should not be on the list.
"Obviously, the far left Southern Poverty Law Center is nothing more than a racist smear website."