Accomplished Hate: A Content Analysis of Liberty Counsel Newsletters

• In Event: Sociology of Sexualities Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 2: Sexuality, the State, and Religion

Abstract

This manuscript analyzes findings from content analysis of 94 Liberty Counsel newsletters received between 2021-2025. Liberty Counsel is a Christian nationalist legal firm designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. I explore the content of these letters primarily through the theoretical lens of accomplished hate. Liberty Counsel accomplishes hate by spreading damaging falsehoods using the tools of doublespeak, presentation of a false solution, misdirection, and oversimplification. They fabricate a moral panic about transitioning – “trans mania” – and offer conversion therapy, a widely discredited and harmful practice, as the solution. Further, the letters erroneously describe Christians as under siege while framing LGBTQ+ people as enemies and encouraging action against these “enemies” as part of a battle in a God-ordained holy culture war. I show how Liberty Counsel uses the rhetoric of crisis to incite a moral panic about gender and sexuality in their audience, and how their manufactured hate exacerbates crisis conditions for LGBTQ+ people. Sections situate Liberty Counsel under the larger umbrella of Christian nationalism in the US, explore Liberty Counsel as a hate group, analyze findings from the newsletters, and deconstruct the falsehoods Liberty Counsel spreads. I argue that Liberty Counsel promotes “queerocide” for LGBTQ+ people and conclude this manuscript speculating that the acceleration of hate speech and hate acts in the US may ignite progressive social change.

Author

• Bernadette Barton, Morehead State University